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1998 West Vacation -- September 8 through September 19, Part 3
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| My 1998 West Vacation. 11 days, 4315 miles. |
On the way back North, we stopped at Roaring Mountain, which doesn't really roar these days, and back to Mammoth Hot Springs, where I took pictures of the Sheepeater Canyon Brige and old Fort Yellowstone, where troops that protected the park early last century were stationed. The double shotgun houses are now residences to the rangers and other employees of the park. Watch you step, though. Elk frequent the area, and they don't have a lot of regard where they leave their...nuggets.
We ended the day by having dinner at the Mammoth Hot Springs Dining Room, and enjoyed the bugling of the Elk as our after dinner entertainment. (If you talk to the rangers, you'll find that the Elk love the cut grass that's available in the area, and that they're kept up all night by the male Elk attracting more females to their harem...)
Yellowstone National Park, Day 2 - Part 2
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Day 3 started South from Mammoth Hot Springs, and was briefly interrupted for photographing the park in the morning light. Our plan for the day was to investigate the Yellowstone Caldera. What is a Caldera? It's essentially the mouth of a volcano. An active volcano.
If you look at a map of Yellowstone, the Grand Loop Road looks like the figure '8'. The Yellowstone Caldera is about twice the size of the lower loop of the 8. It's a volcano so large, that if it blows, it will lay waste to the entire midwest of the United States. It has erupted three times previous, and there's no reason to doubt that it will erupt again.
But until it does, it provides wonders found in very few places in the world. Geysers, and other hot springs are plentiful here, water heated by the same magma that will one day kill life for miles around.
After entering the Caldera, we detoured along the Firehole River, which also includes the Falls and the Cascades. Just South of that, is where the Nez Pierce of Oregon entered the park in 1877 trying to escape to join the Blackfeet to avoid the US Army. They failed, but proved to be the equal the the Army in every way except in numbers.
We also stopped in at the Fountain Paint Pots and the Firehole Lake Drive, then the Midway Geyser Basin. The highlight would be Old Faithful, and Geyser Hill, just across the Firehole River.
Yellowstone National Park, Day 3 - Part 1
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End 1998 West Vacation Part 3
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