Yellowstone Day #2

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We woke Sunday up to a completely different world. The fog and the steam from all the geysers and hot springs seemed to melt together into one big cloud, leaving us with an ominously magical morning in Yellowstone. With hardly any people out so early, we quickly made it to our first site around the Upper Loop, Nymph Lake. The air was chilly and refreshing, and made a perfect setting for the view.

Seemingly endless clouds surrounded us and the mountains Sunday morning. Snake River had practically transformed overnight.
It was so foggy that we could hardly make out the ridge-line of the mountains during several parts of the drive.
An incredible view of Nymph Lake from an overlook.
Just to the right of the lake, you can see its steam joining the rest of the fog.

After several photos at Nymph Lake, we started to make our way to the next two stops: Roaring Mountain and Sheepeater Cliff. All of a sudden I hear a collective “buffalo!” and look to see a massive adult right in front of our car. I was thrilled (and safe in our rental car) and managed to take a really great picture of him from my window. This species of buffalo can get up to 6 feet in height, weigh over 2,000 pounds, and run at speeds up to 40 mph. He was literally as big as our SUV. And, as quickly as he appeared, he vanished into the trees when a large truck drove up behind us. Soon after, we arrived at Roaring Mountain, a structure made out of volcanic rhyolite rock. Apparently, it sits on a spot where magma flows closer to the surface of the earth than usual, creating steam vents all over the face of the mountain. Our next stop was at Sheepeater Cliff, an interesting, columnar rock structure formed from cooling basalt lava. It was named after a group of Shoshone Native Americans or the “Sheepeaters” for their use of bighorn sheep.

The American bison that walked right by our car; our timing could not have been any better.
A photo of Roaring Mountain steaming from several different cracks in the rock’s surface. The steam you see is Hydrogen sulfide gas, which causes the water runoff to be acidic. This dissolves the rhyolite rock overtime, removing minerals and leaving behind a type of clay called kaolinite. Roaring Mountain is now so covered in this white mineral, that it almost looks like snowfall.
A section of Obsidian Creek, seen on our way from Roaring Mountain to Sheepeater Cliff. This unique part of the creek was completely covered by some sort of vegetation.
Sheepeater Cliff. Look at those rock columns!

After our first few stops, we were ready to find Mammoth Hot Springs, a spot one of my uncles highly recommended. We pulled over briefly to see Golden Gate Canyon on our way, and even saw another lone bison shortly after. When we got to Mammoth Hot Springs site, there were elk everywhere. This was our first time seeing a male elk, and we even got to watch and hear him bugle. We explored the Lower Terrace Area of Mammoth Hot Springs, and were particularly amazed at the Palette Spring Terraces. The limestone rock in the terraces gets dissolved deep in the earth and then deposited on the surface again, forming stair-like structures.

The second lone male bison we found last Sunday. Apparently, bulls spend most of their lives alone, or in small groups with other bulls.
The approach to the Mammoth Hot Springs’ Lower Terrace Area. You can see these limestone formations steaming from the carbon dioxide escaping.
A limestone formation in Mammoth Hot Springs called Palette Spring Terraces. Several different colors appear due to more thermophile bacteria, just like at Grand Prismatic.

We then went on to look at a few more sites, ending up at the Lower and Upper Falls of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. We decided to take the hike down several switchbacks to an overlook that brings you to a platform right at the top of the Lower Falls. The Yellowstone River plummets down 308 feet at this point, with a force between 5,000 and 63,500 gallons per second. This makes the Lower Falls the tallest waterfall in the park! As you can see from the photo below, it was seriously impressive. This was my favorite walk of the day, and maybe the whole trip. I have never been so close to falls that powerful before, and really enjoyed the view of the canyon from the platform.

After taking the 0.4 mile Brink of the Lower Falls Trail down the canyon, we arrived to a platform right at the top of the falls. At this point, the water in the Yellowstone River falls 308 feet down the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.
The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, carved out by erosion and water. It is estimated to date back ten to fourteen thousand years ago.

We had just one more stop on our Yellowstone list at this point in the trip, before we had to head back to Lander. We wanted to stop at the Mud Volcano springs and fumaroles site. Most of the hot springs here were pools of bubbling mud, and the fumaroles released an awful smelling mixture of hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide gases. But, this place was so cool. One hot spring in particular, called Dragon’s Mouth, literally sounded like it was roaring at you.

We saw our first large herd of bison on our way to the Mud Volcano site! Traffic was stopped for a mile or so, giving everyone the opportunity to snap some photos while passing them.
Even though they were super muddy, some of the hot springs here were still beautiful.
A photograph of the steam leaving Dragon’s Mouth at the Mud Volcano site. I swear those two rocks at the base of the cave look like teeth.
The actual “Mud Volcano” at the Mud Volcano site. In 1870, explorers found a 30 foot cone here that would spew mud, covering nearby trees. Two years later, the volcano ruptured and left a large bubbling pit of mud in its place.

With that, our Yellowstone adventure came to an end. We headed back down South through the Grand Tetons, and then out its East entrance towards Lander. While we did a whole lot of exploring, there were still so many sites and hikes left in the park that we couldn’t fit into our schedule. I think anyone could spend weeks out there and never run out of things to do. This weekend was one of my favorite weekends yet in Wyoming, and I can’t wait to go back to the parks in October. Until next time. 🙂

One of the many tree stands affected by fire in the park. This was seen on our way back into Grand Teton National Park, right before we got to West Thumb Geyser Basin in Yellowstone.
Finally! We got our view of the Teton peaks in all of their glory on our way home to Lander.

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