Yellowstone- Our Last Few Days (07-09-12)

When we first arrived in Yellowstone 3 weeks ago, we sat down and made a list of things we’d like to see and do.  A few days ago we revisited the list, tweaked it, and put together a shorter list of things that we wanted to make sure to do before we leave on July 10th.
We went back to the Old Faithful area to see if we could catch some of the other spectacular geysers as they erupted.  Old Faithful is popular, not because it’s the best or biggest, but because it’s predictable. We decided to dedicate one more day trying to see some more spewing, and we were pretty successful.  In fact, 3 of the geysers we managed to see put Old Faithful to shame!!  Especially Beehive.  Beehive and Grand are two of the tallest active geysers in North America.  We first witnessed Grand’s eruption, at around 10 in the morning:

We were lucky with that one that we didn’t have to wait more than 30 minutes.  The next eruption we wanted to see was Beehive, but it’s not known for it’s predictability. It can be anywhere from 11-18 hours between eruptions. We stood around for a while, then debated whether we should wait, when one of the Geyser Geezers (people who are addicted to watching the geysers spew) told us that no matter how long we had to wait, it would be worth it.  So, wait we did- for almost 2 hours, but the time passed by very quickly because we were chatting with a couple from New Jersey that we met.


Beehive Geyser

 Beehive has a “Tell”.  About 10-20 minutes before it erupts, a smaller nearby geyser, appropriately called Beehive Indicator erupts. Finally, at 12:35, Beehive let loose.  Now that’s a geyser! 
The water erupted with incredible force.  You could hear and see the power behind the eruption- I think partly because we were a lot closer to the action.  In fact, with the wind shifting every few seconds, we got quite wet.

That same day we managed to see Great Fountain geyser erupt as well.  This geyser pretty much exploded into the air.  It’s very difficult to capture all the action, even with video.

We’ve made a last minute push to see as much wildlife as we can, so once again we got up at 5:30 and headed out the door. This time, instead of Lamar Valley, we went to the closer Hayden Valley, to look for wolves and grizzlies.  Because of the rain, the fog was pretty thick and didn’t lift until we had been standing around for an hour or so.  We were with a bunch of people, some who had scopes, and we all chatted, so it was fun. 



Bison swimming across the river

   We ended up seeing a Bald Eagle (no picture- he flew too fast) and several bison who decided to swim across the river.








We all had our scopes and binoculars trained far into the distance, where the local wolf den is.  Eventually, the alpha female came into view, along with two pups.  I have to take the word of the people with scopes that there were pups- all I saw was a blob of fur, they were so far away (in fairness, they did let us look through the scopes, but it didn’t help much).

Later in the morning we went for a (boring) hike and came across some black bear tracks that were old, but still very visible.

On the way home we checked out the river rapids where the fish jump during spawning, but didn’t see any jump.  What we did see was another Bald Eagle.  This time I managed to snap a few shots as he flew over.

We did end up taking the boat out on the lake a total of three times, exploring new areas every time. We found a few thermal areas where the water temperature is considerably warmer than the rest of the lake.  This is overflow from a hot spring, and the water was about 85 degrees in that area.

The wildlife was plentiful- I took this picture of a grizzly from the truck as we drove by.

Bison like to take dirt baths.  This was along one of the trails we hiked.

This black bear was about 200 feet from the road, just minding his own business while we all took his picture.

I mostly took this picture because it shows just how huge bison are.  This guy is taller than the car. Hard to believe people approach them, thinking they are “tame”.  Two weeks ago someone was gored and landed in the hospital because he didn’t move out of the way of a bison. He just assumed that since the animal approached him, that he was used to being around people.

As we were leaving the park we got one more chance to enjoy the wildlife, although since we were towing and they kept crossing the road in front of us, I am not sure the word “enjoy” is appropriate.

The day before we left, we had our most incredible wildlife show, but I am going to put that in another post….more soon…..