Yellowstone - the Upper Loop and Lamar Valley

Vacationing is hard work. We are toughing it out, out here, putting in 10-12+ hours in and out of the car every day, breakfast at dawn with frost on the ground, dinner after dark. It's tough work, but someone has to do it, and we are loving it!

Today's itinerary was driving the Upper Loop of Yellowstone ourselves - 143 miles. I think if we were to recommend it to others, we might suggest taking the full day bus tours of BOTH loops - leaving the driving to the experts and gaining the commentary. However we planned our own itinerary well. First off we headed back in the Western Entrance to the Park, which is right outside West Yellowstone, Montana and drive the 14 miles along the Madison River (named for President Jefferson's Sec. of State, James Madison). Our goal was to head south briefly so we could do the short, but spectacular Firehole River Canyon 2 mile drive in the morning with the sun behind our backs. It was the right decision as you can see from  the first few photos of the canyon, falls and river. The Firehole swimming hole was closed due to heavy cross-currents. The drive is short, but lovely.


Then we headed East crossing back and forth across the Gibbon River, stopping to view the falls and then turning north. Our next stop was Beryl Spring in the Monument Geyser Basin. The sulphurous gases and steam rose out of the lovely blue-green thermal pool in billowing clouds. We could feel the heat beneath our feet on the walkway. We continued northward on the western side of the Upper loop, stopping at the Artists Paintpots and the Norris Geyser Basin. At Roaring Mountain we found bear tracks near the toxic mudflats in front of the fumarole peppered mountain - little steam vents puffing away. A glossy black raven watched us closely. We've seen at least one at close range every day. Much larger than crows, shiny with a tiny white fleck on their sides. Continuing north we stopped at Obsidian Cliff and Golden Gate - lava flows several miles apart from the same eruption that cooled under very different conditions leaving completely different surfaces to the rocks.

We had lunch in Mammoth Hot Springs. After a bit of shopping at the General Store, Ruth went to the Visitors' Center while Judy and Sherry went to walk and view part of the Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces. With temperatures well into the 80s,  7000+ feet elevation, plus the heat of the hot springs we decided only to do a small part of the 2 hour suggested trail of walking. Most impressive for us was the actively flowing Palette Spring with its vivid geometric build-ups. Wow! Picking up Ruth from what was historic Fort Yellowstone, we admired the display on Thomas Moran, 19th c. painter of Yellowstone's wonders - one depicting the Grand Canyon and Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River resides in the Department of the Interior in Washington, D. C. and his painting of The Three Tetons is in The Oval Office of the White House.

We followed the Blacktail Deer Plateau east and took a 10 mile detour into the Lamar Valley - known for its wildlife. However being there mid afternoon, instead of at dawn or dusk limited our viewing to one slim juvenile coyote, who was not in the least phased by the numbers of cars stopping to watch his amateur hunting attempts. We wished him luck & lunch and returned to the Upper Loop.

We headed south on the eastern side in a somewhat white-knuckled drive from Tower Fall past Mount Washburn (10,243 feet) and through Dunraven Pass (8859 feet) from which we could see the rim of the other side of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and smoke clouds in the distance of several of the controlled burn wildfires in the park right now. The smoke from those fires made everything seem foggy yesterday, occluding our view of Lake Yellowstone and other points of interest. It is a normal process in the park. Heading west from Canyon Village we drove the last 40 miles back to West Yellowstone, stopping several times for a bison-jam and a mule deer jam. At one stop we also sighted a golden-mantled ground squirrel which we mistakenly had thought was a chipmunk. We saw quite a few of them today, skittering across roads and paths in front of us. As it was after 7:00 we went straight to dinner. Sherry feasted on a bison steak, her first game of the trip. Back to the motel, Ruth and Judy helped select tonight's photos and they've been packing up for our stay in Salt Lake City the next two nights. We have decided to head west and then south into Idaho tomorrow - giving the weekend tourists a miss in Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, and opting for seeing more of another state with less traffic congestion as we head for Utah.


A bit of trivia - we have now sited cars from 46 states, missing only Alaska, New Jersey, Rhode Island and North Dakota! We hope to "bag" them all before we head home. We have also captured wolf, black bear, elk, mule deer, bison, raven, bald eagle, and coyote on our cameras. We overheard one mother this morning telling her children their goal today was to see a yellow-bellied marmot. We hope to see moose, pronghorns, and big-horned sheep before we leave. Tomorrow morning we will visit the Wolf and Bear Discovery Center here in West Yellowstone before heading to Idaho and Utah. Night all!