The Restless Giant. The brochure goes on to say, At the heart of Yellowstone’s past, present and future lies a Supervolcano. Huge volcanic eruptions occurred here, the latest about 631,000 years ago. The Center of what is now the park collapsed, forming a 30 by 45 mile caldera, or basin. The heat powering these eruptions still fuels the park’s geysers, hot springs, fumaroles and mud pots.
The park’s Ecosystems range from near desert vegetation at the North entrance to subalpine meadow and forest on Mount Washburn. They support a variety of habitats that sustain diverse wildlife like bison (Buffalo), elk, grizzly and black bears, wolves, trumpeter swans, and Yellowstone cutthroat trout.
People also have been a part of Yellowstone for more than 13,000 years. Many Native American tribes still have deep connections here.
The Yellowstone Park RV at Mack’s is an easy 25 minutes from the park’s west gate. Once getting to the entrance be prepared for a wait, if you are an annual park member or have a prepaid entry receipt , use the right lane. Our wait was probably another 20 minutes to get into this amazing park. Now once in the park be prepared to drive slow as at the time of this update, there was a large herd of Bison about 5 miles down the road. This meant everyone had to slow down to view the bison, do we blame them, absolutely not, they are a sight to see. There are several pull offs that the rangers guide you towards should you wish to take pictures - ah yes, of course.
About 14 miles in you have a choice to head north, towards Mammoth Falls or South towards Old Faithful. In this day we headed towards the geyser fields and the famous, Old Faithful. Again, be prepared for slow traffic at times, this usually means get you camera ready. Old Faithful seems to run on a 90 minute clock schedule, which is perfect. We arrived just after 3pm, and there was a sign that said the next eruption was at 4:15. Great, gives you a chance to walk around a bit, for us, grab a late lunch and by 4, you are ready for the show. Almost to the minute the sleeping geyser comes to life and puts on an amazing 5 to 10 minute show and then calms back down. At our viewing, I would say there was about 2 thousand people viewing from the massive viewing area. Once Old Faithful goes to rest, the crowd disperses, mostly to the large parking lot, some to the shops but within the next hour the parking lot had a chance to turn over and welcome folks in for the now posted 6pm viewing. Just amazing.
From here we headed south to complete an entire huge southern loop, which is a distance but well worth it. As you drive you rise to over 8,000 feet, where at the summit there is a sign that reads, Continental Divide, pretty cool. Your next stop is at the largest lake at this elevation in all of North America, just beautiful with the mountain backdrop. Then at this point you are getting a bit tired but know that there is still a distance to go but then you are rejuvenated with a small herd of Elk by the side of the road, get the camera out. Well that was cool, but wait about 20 minutes later, all the cars are slowing down again, it’s a Grizzly Bear, wow. We pull over to get out and from a safe distance are able to capture this magnificent beast. We get our fill of pictures and move on but only to stop once again as there is now a Black Bear just off the road. We are thinking, aren’t we glad we came this way. With our photo bingo card pretty much a black out - just missing a wolf and perhaps a moose, we continue into an area which feels like we are back in the Highlands of Scotland. The scenery here is absolutely amazing.
Of course there is a few more slow downs as we finish our loop and exit the park, mostly for bison but now the herd we saw coming in is almost at the road. The Rangers are aggressively moving folks along to ensure they are not startled. This was an amazing day, tomorrow we tackle the North loop.
Our pics for the day, hope you enjoy…
Bison / Buffalo
Coming upon the Geyser fields.
Mud pots
Someone got a new hat, a Stetson at that.
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