Walking the Caldera

"Me thinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow."
~Henry David Thoreau


Sunday was our second day exploring Yellowstone. We planned to spend the entire day in the Old Faithful geyser area. We got a little sidetracked on our way watching the wildlife though.

You may recall in the comments section of my previous post my friend Chris and I discussing how humans suck. Here is another example. Every morning this herd of elk visit this same area of the river. Apparently these spectators decided that a view from the road wasn't good enough.

This coyote was lucky. Shortly after I took this photo he was almost run over by an impatient RV. The driver seemed to forget that the wildlife in Yellowstone has the right of way as he cruised up behind the canine and nudged him along. The coyote crossed the road in front of the truck in front of us and hurriedly disappeared into the woods.

This elk was allowed to graze peacefully as not too many could spot him from the road. We were lucky to have a good vantage point from a safe distance away.

At the Old Faithful Visitor Center Bug checked out a backpack full of neat gear and started working on his Young Scientist Badge. This badge offered by the Rangers consisted of completing a workbook about the thermal area including temperatures and researching what a bacterial mat is.

We didn't have to wait long for Old Faithful to erupt in all her glory.

Bug really went to town with his research. He found the temperature of one geyser to be 177 degrees as it started to erupt. Here he is researching the bacterial mats on the Geyser Hill trail.

We decided to branch off of the Geyser Hill trail and follow the 1.1 mile Observation Loop trail. This trail led us past the Solitary Geyser, a sad reminder of man's need to interfere with nature.

We took a short break at Solitary Geyser while Bug answered more questions in his workbook. The geyser had a minor eruption while we were sitting there.

Observation Loop took us up the side of another small mountain. We made it most of the way up the narrow rocky climb before I started to get my dizzy legs. We would have sat and waited the hour until Old Faithful erupted again but we were both getting hot and it was just about lunchtime.

On our way back down the trail we found a little friend. This little chipmunk seemed to enjoy being photographed and followed us around hoping for a handout. Sorry little guy, no feeding animals in the park.

You can see the little chipmunk on the left of me in this photo. He followed us across the trail to this overlook to pose with us.

While we were standing there chuckling at the chipmunks antics a kind young lady and her nephew happened by and offered to take a picture of us together.

One last pose before we headed down the trail.

On the way back to the cabin we decided to take the Firehole Canyon drive. It was a very steep narrow road that would have been easily manageable had a brief storm not blown in as I was half way up the mountain.

The temperature dropped by about 15 degrees as the wind blew and big heavy rain drops fell causing a small avalanche of loose gravel and small rocks to tumble down the mountain on us. My truck now sports a long straight scratch on the roof from a flying branch. Luckily the storm was short lived and we were able to pull over. After the storm I convinced a shivering Bug to step out and pose by the waterfall.

Continuing back towards the cabin we spied this Grizzly from across the river.

It was hard to capture a good photo of him as we were in an area that I couldn't pull the truck over. I was glad to be in the safety of the vehicle as we viewed him from such a close difference. The Rangers had warned us the day before that a Grizzly can easily cross a river in two leaps.

We did stop a little further down the road to stretch our legs and enjoy the scenery. Bug needed to run off a little energy before we settled down for the night anyway.

After a quick dinner of Dutch Oven Lasagna we went back to the Madison Visitor Center for a Ranger Talk about Wolves, Ravens, and Bears. It was a very informative program and a great way to end our evening.