Yellowstone

2018-09-09
Yellowstone National Park, WY

I chose to spend some additional time in Yellowstone because there is so much to see, and because a lot of other people are trying to see it as well. However, I really got a leg up by visiting the two most popular locations yesterday evening on the way through.

I had planned several hikes for today so I just got started at the Prismatic Overlook. The cool morning temperatures exacerbated the steam so the pool is a bit obscured.

After that I hiked out to Mystic Falls and the overlook which was about 3.5 miles round trip. On the way out there were some more geothermal features which I'm sure nobody is tired of yet.

In case you're wondering about all the colors, the water is blue for the same reason that the sky is blue; because blue light scatters the most and reflects back to your eye. The rest of the colors are from microorganisms; different temperature rings have different organisms and thus produce different colors. Here's what some of the colder ones look like up close.

After the pools it was a slog of about 500 feet up to 7900' for the overlook. Apparently the Tetons has not cornered the market on hazy, so that was sort of a bust. There is a lot of steam rising on these cold mornings but not enough to obscure the horizon so I'm assuming smoke. Moving on, I followed the path (and a nice couple from Wisconsin) down to the falls. It's a lovely falls, but a tricky picture with half of it in full sun and half in shadow.

After getting back to the car I headed counterclockwise around the bottom of the lower loop road and north to the Canyon. I'd been told by a coworker that he liked this much better than the thermals, and by this time I'd seen enough blue pools for the day. I'm sure there's a lot of cool stuff I didn't see, but there's always next time.

As I headed around, we discovered that while I have jumped fences, climbed rocks, and crawled under logs trying to get a good picture, even I have my limits. It appears I won't fight for a parking space just to take a picture.

At the Canyon I found out that the south side was closed, including Uncle Tom's Trail and Artists Point. However, the north side was open and I was able to hike about 4 miles round trip to inspiration point. This is a typical large-river canyon, but the sides are all volcanic material and they continue to outgas. Still it is really neat.

At this point I headed back to town to pick up some bear spray. It's highly recommended for the more back country hikes like I planned for tomorrow. Almost every shop in town sells it, although the first place I tried (a grocery store) was out of it. But then they were out of gallons of water too, so I won't read too much into it.

Yellowstone has almost no cellular connections except around Old Faithful and a couple shopping locations. I actually like this, although it did mean that I had to use maps a lot more than usual. I grew up using maps so I can navigate pretty well, but I've lost a lot of my skills for reading a map while driving and/or memorizing the next seven landmarks. I did cheat a bit by using the Alltrails app which really helps in finding obscure trailheads. Still, overall I liked the limitations on everyone else's cell phone usage.

I was planning to say that this was offset by a lack of bathrooms, but as I drove around the park more I realized the dearth was only in the southern section. North has plenty of pullovers with a pit toilet, but at the southern end the only two I saw were at Old Faithful and Prismatic Spring, the two busiest areas. Between circling to look for a parking spot and waiting in line, you'd better start to head to the bathroom an hour before you have to go. My current theory on this is that there are all sorts of things bubbling up from underground in this section of the park and if they dig a pit and throw stuff in it, who knows where it might come out. At any rate, plan ahead.

Hiking distance: 10 miles