Monday 6/27

Grand Prismatic Spring, a photo by Olivia Linkel on Flickr.

Today was a spectacular day and our last full day in the park. We ate breakfast in the room and were on the road by about 7:30. We didn’t see any wolves or bears in the Hayden Valley between Canyon and the Lake district, other than bison and a few elk. We have become a little spoiled with the bears and pass right by the “lesser animals”. We still have yet to see a moose which I have been hoping for. Our first stop was the 9:15 scenic cruise on Yellowstone Lake. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting but it was very informative about the invasion of the Lake Trout and the battle to get rid of them in favor of the native Cutthroat Trout. This was Riley’s first boat trip and must have been very nice because she fell asleep.
On our cruise, we saw a picnic spot that we wanted to eat at that was right on the shore of the lake called Gull Point. There is a side road you can take and half of it was closed. It was not windy like our last few days have been and it was beautifully sunny. We ate an early lunch about 11 AM and walked out on the shore. It was the nicest spot we have had.
Our next stop was the Fairy Falls trail to climb the hill and have a bird’s eye view of the Grand Prismatic Spring. We drove from the marina, past Old Faithful and over to the trailhead. We didn’t really see any animals on our way but we did see two guys being arrested by park rangers. I wish I knew what they had done. Pam and Riley decided not to hike and dropped us off and went over to Old Faithful to watch the eruption while we hiked. This trail used to be a road through Yellowstone but is now only open to bicycles and hikers. We had perfect weather with the temp in the mid-60’s and a slight breeze. The bison were grazing south of the trail and we were all excited to see the spring. This spring is the largest in the park and the second largest in the world and is one of the most photographed in the park. From the boardwalk hike, which we did a few days ago, you can only get a glimpse of the array of colors through the rising steam that reflects the water below. It is truly every color in the rainbow.
The hike to the hill climb is fairly short and flat, maybe .6 of mile. Then you have a climb that goes up maybe 75 feet to a bald at the top of the hill. From here you can see the entire spring in all its grandeur. It was really beautiful and all of us agreed the climb was worth it. One thing that took the kids attention away was a man at the base of the climb who was throwing rocks into the waters of the spring on the back side to entertain two little girls who were with him. As we passed by, we scolded him for throwing rocks because it can mess up the chemistry of the spring, probably not from where he was but we felt like he was setting a bad example for these kids. I feel very strongly about protecting America’s back yard and believe that I should be able to bring my grandkids back and see the exact same thing without some idiot ruining it. We have apparently instilled this same feeling in our kids because after they looked at the beautiful scenery, all they could do from the top was watch that guy. Luke even wanted to take a picture of him and turn it into a park ranger. I guess we are THOSE people.
One the way back, the kids drew pictures in the trail for people who were passing us and we stopped and talked to a couple of different families from Chicago and Seattle. We also noticed a spring off the trail that had a bison in it. The backbone was still in the spring but the rest of the carcass had been picked over by scavengers. Pretty cool. We finished the hike in about an hour and called Pam to come pick us up.
We had dinner reservations in the Roosevelt area on the chuck wagon cookout. This was on the complete opposite side of the park and we didn’t know if we would run into any wildlife. So we drove from the Midway Geyser Basin through Madison Junction to Norris and then through Canyon on the way to Roosevelt. We saw bison, a few in the road and we saw elk. We also saw a bear jam where people were out of their cars looking at a grizzly but we used the sunroof and windows safari style to roll through the traffic. We thought the people were just a little too close. We also saw a fox on the hillside.
At the Roosevelt Corrals, we checked in to the chuck wagon dinner. They drive you out in horse drawn, covered wagons to Cookout, which is a historic area where Indians, prospectors and some of the first concessionaires had a hotel. The food is “cowboy” food. The menu is steak, cole slaw, potato salad, cornbread muffins, corn with onions and peppers and peach cobbler. There is cowboy coffee to drink along with water, lemonade and soda. If you know me, you know that I don’t like steak (un-American, I know). I am not crazy about the other stuff either but the peach cobbler was great. Luke enjoyed the steak and we luckily had packed some other stuff for Lorelei to eat. There is a cowboy who sings old cowboy songs and wranglers who cook the dinner and handle the horses from the wagons and horse trail rides that come in for dinner. On the way out, we watched the wranglers for the horseback ride run off a bison and shortly before dinner was ready, we saw a mama black bear and her two very small cubs climb the hill next to the camp and over the horse trail. It was awesome and I got some decent pictures but once again, I was wishing I had that $1200 lens. The kids had fun playing in the creek and it was a great time. On the way back, our wranglers had to run off a bison on the wagon road and he watched from a hillside as we all went by. Really, I think he was posing for pictures.
We got back to the corrals about 9 o’clock and since the sun was just setting, we thought we would see some animals. Riley was soon fast asleep in the back seat and we were beginning to get disappointed and then we came upon a bear jam. We got out and were within 100 yards of a grizzly. He was beautiful. All of us got out to have a look, take some pictures and then hop back in the car as he was slowly working his way towards us. That makes 9 grizzly sighting and 6 black bear. Simply wonderful!! We drove back to the hotel and rushed everyone to showers and bed because we hope to drive through Hayden Valley and see some wolves again in the morning before heading to Old Faithful for breakfast and one last view of the eruption before we head east to Cody and Pam and Riley head south through the Tetons to catch their flight home on Wednesday. We have had a great time and will be sad to break up this wonderful party.