We spent today tooling around the Mammoth Hot Springs and Roosevelt Tower areas of the Yellowstone. This place is so huge, it’s hard to comprehend the wide range of landscapes we have seen – all within the same national park!
First thing we drove into the Mammoth area and toured the Visitor’s Center. It is the historic home base of the park, where the Army core was stationed when they were charged with controlling and preserving the park in the 1870’s. The exhibits were better than any other of the visitors centers in the park (these have been really sad – hardly any exhibits or information about the park’s history or geology). We actually went ahead and sat in the theater to see the “history of Yellowstone” video. It was kinda depressing. It was pretty much a huge commercial for the National Park Service and was a bit generic – about all National Parks instead of giving any real information about Yellowstone. The funny thing is, the Yellowstone Park website has tons of excellent video shorts on every topic from geology to history to hikes – we had them all downloaded on Mark’s laptop and have been watching them in the evening, but not one of those excellent videos has shown up at any of the visitor’s centers.
 |
| From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009 |
We didn’t spend much time at Mammoth Hot Springs, as a lot of the area seemed a little dried up. There were elks in the area, however. We’ve seen a lot of elk here, something we didn’t see much at all on the other side of the park. This is also bear territory. We had two bear sightings today, both of the same bear. A little two year old bear was up in a tree the first time, and the second was running around the tree line. How do we find bears, you ask? We don’t – we find the hordes of people and the traffic jams. The bigger the crowd, the more likely it’s a bear. They
even dispatch rangers to keep things moving. It feels a little weird. The amusement park mentality people have is a little disturbing, causing them to make poor choices as they run to get that picture or show their child the animal in question. Even though it’s not as crowded on this side of the park, certain areas were positively gridlocked. Ew
After the 8th traffic jam of binocular toting tourists, Mark was ready to get away a bit, so we pulled off at the petrified tree parking lot and we took a trail from there to Lost Lake. We were the only ones there. Before starting the trail, we read the notices at the trailhead that said “Active Bear area. Your safety cannot be guaranteed.” I was not excited about taking this hike, considering this. Mark and Amy bullied me into it, however.
 |
| From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009 |
I took my bear spray and off we went. It was a nice level walk and we saw quite a few of the little ground squirrels that pop up all over the place. We think they are called Uintas. I put a picture in the slide show. We found Lost Lake without any trouble and walked around a bit (carefully since the buffalo had been there recently) and enjoyed the quiet. On the way back I beginning to be relieved that we had not actually been eaten by a bear (although we saw the bones of something large that had been eaten by something!). . . but had a start when we found three large buffalo right on the trail. The trail was in a narrow valley, so it took a bit of doing to dodge up the side of the hill in the weeds to avoid them. Each one kept a wary eye on us but left us alone. We reached the car without incident. It was an adventure! Hopefully our hike of Beaver Ponds Loop tomorrow will not be any more adventurous than that. I’m taking my bear bell AND my bear spray!
 |
| From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009 |
 |
| From Dobbs Trek: Yellowstone & Grand Tetons 2009 |
Tonight we’ve enjoyed a meal at the cabin and after dinner saw a rain storm sweep through the valley – afterwards there was an absolutely neon bright double rainbow right over our cabin – look at the photos!
No comments:
Post a Comment