Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming

Back on the road for Year 7! Wow! Where have the years gone?

We leave early this year, right after Labour Day. The plan is to get to the Oregon Coast before the weather turns bad (ha ha! After all, it IS the Pacific Northwest where the weather is notoriously wet!) But our first destination will be in Wyoming at Grand Teton National Park for two reasons. First, to visit with friends Nancy and Dave who are temporarily working in Jackson Hole at the south end of the park; second, because the last time we were here (after visiting Yellowstone NP in 2012), we just drove through since we couldn't see the mountains thanks to the numerous forest fires.

Brad thinks he's a cowboy! Probably the MOST photographed barn in the park, in Wyoming, and probably in all of the U.S. Sitting alongside Mormon Row, this barn attracts crowds every day thanks to its perfect location.

A glorious view of the Tetons reached by a short hike to a beaver pond off Schwabacher Road.

Catching the last rays of sun from Signal Mountain.

Our longest hike in the park - 4 miles to Taggart Lake.

And this year proves to be no different from our last visit. Small fires have been burning and thanks to a very windy day close the highway to Yellowstone NP north of us. Our route will take us south and west, so this closure doesn't affect us.

After a great dinner with Dave and Nancy on our last night, we walk around the town of Jackson Hole. Here is Nancy and me in the town square where an elk antler arch adorns each corner. Don't worry, the elk aren't killed for their antlers. The males shed their antlers every fall and are collected.

Many thanks to Dave for touring us around the park this year while poor Nancy had to work. We're so glad we had the opportunity to squeeze this beautiful park and such wonderful friends into our schedule.

Grand Tetons and Flaming Gorge

As we leave Yellowstone, we drive through the Grand Teton National Park.  The two parks are essentially joined and this is probably the most scenic route south to our next destination.  We decide not to stay in Grand Teton because of forest fire smoke, which is limiting visibility of the views.

Marilyn overlooking the smoke-filled Grand Tetons

We lunch at Cathedral View or Turnout or Cathedral something.  Here is a view of the Teton range including Grand Teton itself at over 13,700 feet.  We can see glaciers on some of these mountains.  But the smoke is causing such a haze, it is difficult to see anything clearly.  At least the drive is easy, through the valley with the Tetons to the west.  There are also many lakes, and we drive alongside Jenny Lake which reflects the mountains as blurs on the rippled water.  I can imagine how beautiful it must be here in the spring before forest fires develop and disturb the clarity of the sky and air.

We continue south down Highway 191 towards Flaming Gorge.  We decide to stop overnight at a wildlife marker overlooking the Big Sandy River (we see no wildlife at the river), but what a lovely view.  The sign posting tells us that 40,000 to 60,000 Pronghorn Antelope migrate through here every year, trekking from the Tetons north of us to Rock Springs, WY just to our south.  We do see many antelope in the lands east and west of the highway.  This is called the "high desert" meaning we are at a high elevation, but the landscape is desert-like with only grasslands and brush.  It's hard to believe wildlife can exist out here, but numerous animals do like the antelope as well as mule deer, and coyotes, and in more desolate areas, mountain lions and bears.  There are also interesting birds like magpies and mountain bluebirds everywhere.

In the morning, I awake to find a dead mouse laying on the living room carpet.  Grady has finally earned his keep.  There must have been a battle with this creature as he has spilled his water.  Neither Brad nor I heard the commotion in the night as we wear earplugs to sleep when we are near a roadway.  At least Grady didn't bring this one to bed with us, but while I get up and find this poor dead creature, Grady is still in bed, under the covers, sleeping after his late-night hunt!

At the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, we find the campground on the east side of the Gorge closed, so we spend a couple of days camped in the adjacent boat launch parking area, beside the gorge.  Here there are trees, picnic tables and firerings.  The landscape here is phenominal with dry, rocky hills rising from the water, dotted with sage brush and the odd small green bush.  There are a pair of Grebes floating in the bay, and Brad disturbs a sleeping coyote on a walk along the "beach".  The silence here is deafening, with only the twitter of birds, the woosh of their wings and the buzzing of a few insects to disturb our thoughts.

Reservoir at Firehole Canyon in the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area

Many boaters come and go as it is the weekend.  We use this time to rest before heading further south to the Flaming Gorge Dam.  This lake is a reservoir, dammed for power in the early 1900s.  We drop the trailer in the parking lot of the Visitors Center at the dam, and drive up the mountains to see Red Canyon and the Sheep Creek Geological Loop, a drive that takes several hours.

Red Canyon is exactly as it name predicts.  From the viewpoints overlooking the lake, the opposite cliffs are bright red, rising about 500 feet from the clear water.  This is a boater's paradise, and we can see many fishermen skimming the surface.  It is very unfortunate that the day is cloudy because this mutes the colours, so we are determined to return in subsequent years.

Red Canyon in the Flaming Gorge NRA, Utah

Aspens turning gold, Flaming Gorge NRA, Utah

The drive along the Sheep Creek Geological Loop takes us through an incredible canyon with yellow and red sandstone towering above us.  The feeling is one of timelessness and we come to realize that we are just a brief blemish on the face of this ever-changing, ancient planet.  We can see that some of the rock cliffs have been pushed into vertical faces, others are at a 45 degree angle to the ground, and others are bent into curves around an imaginery sphere, making us appreciate the forces at work underground.  The effect of the contours and colours is awe-inspiring.  I wish I could draw or write a song, or something artistic that could capture the spirit of this place better than a photo and these brief, inadequate words.

Uplifted rock along the Sheep Creek Geological Loop Road

Mud Pots, Canyons and Terraces in Yellowstone National Park, WY (Part 2)

Our week-long stay in Yellowstone continues as we visit the Mud Pots, Grand Canyon of Yellowstone including Yellowstone Falls, Mammoth Hot Springs and two small geyser basins near Old Faithful.  At night, we hear a very strange flute-like noise which we come to learn is the elk rutting.  It is a very distinctive and eery sound, reminding me of the one made by the nasal cavity found by the paleontologist (played by Sam O'Neill) in the movie Jurassic Park.  The elk visit our campground one morning; three of them noncholantly walk by the tents and trailers.  A ranger tells us that two bucks were fighting one afternoon in one of the campground loops and one elk put his antlers through the side of a tent-trailer.  I'm glad they weren't near our trailer.

The Mud Pots are very pungent.  Imagine hundreds of rotten eggs.  These vents are very high in sulfides and certain micro-organism that live in the liquid turn it into sulphuric acid.  I have to stay upwind of these as the odour makes me very nauseous.  Most of the mud pots are bubbling muddy water as the sulphuric acid dissolves the surrounding rock into a clay-like substance.  We do not stay here long.  We make our way to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, an 800 to 1,200 foot canyon cut by the Yellowstone River.  There are two waterfalls, the Upper Falls which is just over 100 feet, and the Lower Falls which is just over 300 feet.  We hike down near the bottom of the canyon floor at the Lower Falls for a spectacular view of it and the canyon.  The walls of the canyon are golden, hence I guess, the name Yellowstone.  What a sight.  And the thunder of the water is similar to that of Niagara.

Marilyn at Lower Yellowstone Falls

Lower Yellowstone Falls and canyon

It is this afternoon on our way to the canyon that we are delayed by a large herd of buffalo which decide to cross the road, one at a time.  It's a Yellowstone traffic jam, and if the buffalo want to cross here, then you'd better let them!  We laugh at this view, take a few photos and drive around the line of cars.  Many buffalo can be spotted by the road and in the meadows, grazing and sleeping.

Buffalo traffic jam in Yellowstone NP

Mammoth Hot Springs is near the north entrance to the park, and a one and a half hour drive (each way) from our campsite.  This area is dominated by hot pools which flow down the hillsides into circular travertine terraces.  The effect is like that of a tower of champagne glasses with a fountain of bubbly liquid pouring from one level to the next.  Some of the solidified minerals (calcium cabonate) resemble ice, but I assure you, it's quite warm out and there is no ice or snow.  It is unfortunate that many of the terraces have dried up; only a few have any water in them.  Those that are now dormant are crumbling with the effects of weather and other forces.

Mammoth Hot Springs - travertine pools

Biscuit Basin and Black Sand Basin near Old Faithful are home to more geysers like Black Opal Pool, Sapphire Pool and Cliff Geyser.  These areas are small, taking us only 20 minutes to travel the round-trip boardwalks, but full of steaming vents and bubbling pools.  It does not disappoint.

Cliff Geyser in the Biscuit Basin

Sapphire Pool in the Black Sand Geyser Basin

We plan to visit the Norris Geyser Basin on our last day, but I am confined to the trailer with a bad migraine.  I have been plagued by migraines here in Yellowstone, possibly because of the elevation (between 7,500 and 8,000 feet), the twisting, winding, hilly roads and long drives each day.  Instead of remaining one more night to see this area, we decide to leave something for a future trip.  We press on to the south.

Yellowstone is a surprising pleasure for us.  We still prefer places with many fewer people and congestion, but the park has a lot ot offer and we are glad we came.

Geysers in Yellowstone National Park, WY (Part 1)

I was originally not excited to come to this park.  We typically stay away from heavily toured areas, and Yellowstone National Park is a very busy park.  It receives millions of visitors each summer, and the season here is short, from June to late September.  But, it's a bucket list destination, so here we are.  And what an overwhelming surprise.  The campground is small, but we manage to squeeze our trailer into our site, and I mean squeeze!  Like in Ontario Provincial Parks, these campgrounds were built in the 1960s before big RVs were really heard of, so even though the pull-through sites are paved, we can barely fit into most spots, and there are several hundred in the many campgrounds in the park.  Sure, we could stay in the expensive RV park, but expensive and RV park isn't our thing.  Anyway, the attractions...

Within Yellowstone NP, there are geysers, hot springs, fumaroles and mud pots.  What makes them different?  Ok, so here's the geology lesson.  Yellowstone's heart is an ancient caldera - a collapsed volcano cone or basin.  The volcanoes here erupted 2 million, 1.3 million and 640,000 years ago.  But the hot magma (molten rock) still powers the formations found in Yellowstone.  Iceland and New Zealand also have geysers, but nowhere on earth is the concentration of geysers as high as in Yellowstone.  A geyser happens when underground water that has seeped through cracks in the rock and earth is heated by magma which here is as close as 1 mile underground or may be 3-8 miles deep.  The water rises as it heats, but reaches a constriction point between the heat source and the earth's surface and can't easily escape.  Therefore, with the weight of the overlying water, the pressure increases, just like in a pressure cooker.  Then suddenly as the water passes the constriction point, its pressure drops causing the boiling temperature to also drop and the water therefore instantly turns to expanding steam which causes high pressure.  The steam forces the water on top of it to erupt into the sky.  The water escaping the vent is hotter than boiling temperature (which here at this elevation is 199F).  Please step away from the geyser!

A hot spring is the same as a geyser, but there is no constriction point, so the heated water simply circulates to the surface of the pool where it may run-off, evaporate or cool and recirculate.  Fumaroles vent only steam.  Their underground systems are so hot and they contain so little water of their own, that as rain or melting snow seeps into the cracks it is instantly converted to steam by the intense heat.  Mudpots are highly acidic features.  Microorganisms living in the mud pots convert hydrogen sulfide (a very smelly gas) into sulfuric acid which dissolves rock into clay.  With the heat from the magma below, the clay bubbles.  These mud pots may look like muddy boiling water or thick bubbling clay.

Old Faithful erupting

The park is dissected into main areas.  We spend an entire day at the Old Faithful area, watching Old Faithful erupt (every 95 minutes give or take 10 minutes, and we see it three times today) and hiking the trail to the many other geysers, hot springs and pools in this section of the park.  It takes us many hours to walk the 3 mile trail up to the Morning Glory Pool because we often just park our butts on the bench and wait for the next imminent eruption, some of which are very predictable within an hour or two.  This pays off twice as we get to witness Grand Geyser and Riverside Geyser erupt.  Grand Geyser is spectacular!  First the pool slowly fills and overflows its ledges.  Then Turban Geyser right behind it spouts a few feet of water and steam, then suddently Grand takes off in an explosion resembling a fireworks display!  Boom, boom, boom - again and again.  It erupts for about 10 minutes, sending boiling water and steam almost 200 feet into the air.  Turban Geyser behind it throws out its contents about 20-30 feet high, and then Vent Geyser beside that vents steam on an angle to the left.  It ends all at once, and the crowd (about 50 or 60 of us) bursts into a round of applause.  we can't help it - what a spectacular show.  Then, as if to thrill us with an encore, Grand Geyser erupts again, with even more volume of water and steam as if to say "Oh yeah?  That was nothing.  Watch this!"  The encore lasts only a few minutes and then abruptly the large pool drains as if a higher power has pulled the plug.  I am breathless.

Grand Geyser erupting, with little Vent Geyser on the left

Further along the trail, we wait for Riverside Geyser to erupt (the probable eruption times are noted on a board beaside each geyser - thank you Rangers!).  This geyser is a pool of water suspended half-way up the bank of the Firehole River.  The pool fills and overflows into the river, then it starts bubbling, and within one to two hours of these events erupts 75 feet into the air - for over 20 minutes!  Towards the end of the show, there is more steam than water and a beautiful rainbow appears.  What a thrill, and worth the wait!  The other springs and geysers in this area are all unique; some predictable as to when they will erupt and others not.

Brad & Marilyn at the Morning Glory Pool

Riverside Geyser, on the Firehole River

In the West Thumb area near our campground, the pools are beside Yellowstone Lake.  None of these geysers have erupted in recent years, although some as recently as 2005.  I don't think we'll wait to see any of these spout.  Yellowstone Lake, the largest lake at a high elevation in North America, is a frigid 45F in the summer, even with boiling water pouring into it from these pools, and yes, many of the springs are constantly flowing and are 160F or higher.  Some of the pools, like Black Pool and Abyss Pool are a beautiful light blue colour, reminding us of the springs we visited last spring in Florida.  However, these pools are over 160F, so no snorkeling here!

Black Pool and its runoff which is coloured by micro-organisms

Abyss Pool overlooking Yellowstone Lake

I am now anxious to continue our adventures in Yellowstone.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Yellowstone, WY

The drive from the Devil's Tower in east Wyoming to Yellowstone National Park in west Wyoming is a long one.  It's about a 9-10 hour drive, which we split into two days.  By the time we stop to fill and empty our water tanks, get fuel a couple of times, get lunch, wait for road construction, and stop to view the beautiful scenery in the Big Horn Mountains which we cross, we make it only as far as the town of Emblem, population 10 (not kidding).  This is BLM land (Bureau of Land Management, aka federal land), and we pull off into the parking lot of an historic marker for the Bridger Trail - a wagon road from 1864 to the gold fields of western Montana to the north.  We are one hour from Cody (as in Buffalo Bill) where we will grocery shop in the morning and continue to the park.  It's gorgeous here.  We're at the top of a valley with mountains (think Rocky Mountains) all around us.  There are wild horses, managed by the BLM about 1 mile away, grazing in the field.  A plaque where we are camped tells us that native horses went extinct here in America about 8,000 years ago.  It was the Spaniards who brought horses back to America in the 1600s.  As the sun sets behind the west ridge, the sky glows red, as if a fire is burning, and there are fires burning out here - we saw the smoke billowing from the range as we headed into the Big Horn Mountains.

Looking west, from the Bridger Trail stop, our "campsite" for the night

We have a rude awakening at 5:30am.  (Ron, you'll like this Grady story!)  Grady is racing and pouncing all over our bed.  He usually does have a lot of energy in the morning, but I can tell he's playing with something.  "Brad, he's got something and I know all of his toys are put away," I say.  I turn on my bed light and there it is.  A little mouse hiding under Brad's pillow with only his tail hanging out.  Grady is very proud of himself - "I brought you a present.  Do you like it?  Can I keep him?"  Brad picks up the little guy by his tail and it seems totally unharmed.  This is Grady's second mouse ever.  The first, a couple of years ago in our dining room at home, he played with and didn't kill either.  Brad takes it outside to release it while Grady searches the bed for his prize.  Well, it could have been a lot worse.  The mouse could have run across my head or under the covers and down my leg!

En route into the park, we pass the Buffalo Bill Dam.  It's quite impressive.  There is also a state park here named after the famous hunter.  Bill Cody got his nickname because he hunted buffalo in the 1800s and supplied railway workers with buffalo meat.  There is a huge museum dedicated to Buffalo Bill in the town of Cody, but we need to get to Yellowstone and find a campsite so we don't stop in.  The drive is gorgeous, not as forested as I thought it would be, more dry and plains-looking.  But there are mountains and valleys and the pine trees become more plentiful as we climb in elevation - to around 7,200 feet.  We plan to stay several days, perhaps a week.  Yellowstone National Park is huge and has a lot to offer.

Devil's Tower, WY

We spend three days at the Devil's Tower in east Wyoming.  It was made famous (for me anyway) by the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind - you know, where they met the aliens at the end.  There is no mention of the movie here, not at the Visitors Center nor by the park rangers.  I guess we could ask about the movie, but it almost seems not only cliche but disrespectful.  This is a sacred place to the natives, and the rangers (this is a National Monument) are very careful to help uphold their customs.  There are cloths hanging in many trees - offerings made.  And climbers are asked not to climb during the month of June which holds some holy significance.  Anyway, the movie must have been filmed on a stage because there is no space like the alien landing area here.  The Tower rises almost vertically and the top is totally flat and grass-covered.

There are several theories as to how the Tower was formed, all related to a volcano.  What they do know is that the magma (molten rock) cooled to form the columns which are 5, 6, and 7 sided.  They remind me of the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, except these are much taller!  The Tower is covered with lichen, the acidy of which is helping to erode the rock.

Our campsite in Belle Fourche Campground

We camp in the park's campground by the Belle Fourche River (no more than a creek here) nestled in this valley with cattle ranches.  We first hike the short Tower Trail which is paved and circumvents the Tower's base.  There are fantastic views of the Tower and the many climbers who scale its columns daily.  We attend a ranger talk on climbing, which is all free climbing here now, and of the 5-11 to 5-13 level of difficulty; if I understand correctly, 5 being the most difficult type of climb and the 11 representing the angle of ascent where 13 or 14 is basically vertical.  A group of climbers (men and women) from Wisconsin is camping across from us and we chat with them about their sport.  An ascent usually takes between two and four hours, although a long section of it has been done in eighteen minutes.  It is usually climbed in three stages.  Climbers rappelle down in two or three sections depending on their route and there are many routes (I forget how many - hundreds).  A permit is required to climb above the boulder field at the base.

Marilyn at the bottom of the boulder field

Can you spot the climbers - one is near the top, 2nd bottom middle

 

Brad viewing the tower from the Tower Trail

On our last day, we hike the Red Beds Trail which also circles the Tower but from a further distance.  We walk this from our campsite but first have to cross Prairie Dog Town along the river.  At first, the Prairie Dogs are cute, but after 15 minutes their warning chirps just become annoying.  The Prairie Dogs we saw in the Badlands National Park are infected with the plague (yes, Bubonic), but here they are healthy.  The trail winds up hills which are bright red.  It's a clay-like rock and very crumbly, but produces a vivid contrast with the light and dark greens of the valley below.  This trail climbs quite steeply in some sections and we rise (and later descend) high above the river and the valley.  More views of the Tower are visible, but clouds have rolled in today; the sky was so clear blue first thing this morning.

Brad on the Red Beds Trail, overlooking the Belle Fourche River

We have greatly enjoyed our stay here and highly recommend a visit.  Next, Yellowstone National Park.