Day two at Yellowstone was our longest. We drove the entire park, yep the entire park. We first started out on our drive to the Canyon area of the park.
On the way to the Canyon area of the park, we saw some Bison. These guys are every where in the park and don't really care if you are in the way or not. You had just better move if you are. We learned at one of our Jr. Ranger Programs that they can clear a 6 foot fence! I am still not sure I believe it but the Ranger said so I believe.
After stopping to see the Bison we headed to Artist Point. First we had a picnic lunch and then walked down to look at the Lower Falls. You can see from the pics why it is called Artist Point. The colors in the rock are formed from hydro-thermally altered rhyolite and sediments. Lower Falls is 308ft. all and falls over volcanic rock.
Next Travis and I took turns with the girls, Gracie wasn't up for a hike, to the Brink of the Upper Falls Trail. This is quite an exciting hike, ending with a great view from the very top of the falls.
Looking down the falls.
The water rushing towards the waterfall.
We drove nearly up to 10,000ft. on the way to Tower-Roosevelt, the highest point in the park. Once we reached the Tower-Roosevelt area, there was no where to park and the idea of getting the kids out at this point was not in the cards. So we kept driving and unfortunately I didn't get a pic of the rock formations here. They are INCREDIBLE. I found a pic online through wikepidia, but it really doesn't do it justice. In this area some ash and lava cooled to make basalt columns. So AWESOME in person and a must see and do while you are there.
One of the many types of sunflowers in the park.
The we headed to the Mammoth Hot Springs Area. On the way we saw this Pronghorn.
Once at the springs we let the girls play awhile. It is quite an amount of driving to each area. I would say about 1hr to 1.5hrs, really just depends on animals and such. But the girls just loved to play with the ground squirrels. I am pretty sure the squirrels didn't feel the same way.
After a not so quick dinner at Mammoth Hot Springs Inn, we decided to quickly drive around the springs. Because of the stairs and elevation it would have been impossible to take Gracie up and down them too. Also there was a storm rolling in and it didn't look friendly.
At Mammoth there are terraces. The terraces are caused by hot water from the underground and mixes with carbon dioxide. This makes a weak solution of carbonic acid and dissolves the limestone that is underground also. At the surface the calcium carbonate is deposited as travertine and then over time forms the terraces. The different colors are caused by different types of bacteria and thermophiles. Which I guess really makes these structures a living thing.
This sign is not something you see everyday.
This is called Orange Spring Mound. It was crazy big and cool.
The trees in the picture are called bobby socks. They used to be living trees till the hot water rose around them. Then they were instantly petrified.
This really ended out day. It was after nine and we still had to drive from the North end of the park, where we were, to the South end of the park, where our camping site was. On the way, we saw a bunch of cars on the side of the road. This is a clear sign of animal sighting, just in case you go to Yellowstone, if there are a lot of cars stopped, there is a good chance there is an animal. So we stopped and I got out to see what everyone was looking at.
There was a mama Grizzly and a cub. The pics I took did not turn out but I took this to show you how stupid people can really be around these animals. Talk about Disney syndrome.
Yes that would be a parent and kid. The bear is in the center of the pic and the cub is in the tree on the left with the leaves.
Um...Hello? DUH!
Sorry for such the long post. I hope you guys are enjoying our pics from Yellowstone. It is truly an amazing place. I have to say out of all the places we went that day, my favorite was Tower-Roosevelt and Mammoth Hot Springs. They were just prehistoric.
Tomorrow Day Three-Our Fishing Trip and camp out!
1 comments:
Great memories. Man, that was a long day, but we sure saw a lot of cool stuff.
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