Grand Teton National Park and Colorado September 5-17, 2009

On Saturday, September 5, we drove outside Yellowstone Park to West Yellowstone to see the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center, then drove back through the park and headed south to the Jackson Lake Lodge in Grand Teton National Park, where we stayed for three nights.

A few years ago, the park rangers in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks decided that they were having too many problems with bears interacting with people, often with an unhappy result for both. They started trying to get the bears to stay in areas of the parks far away from people by using bearproof trash containers and relocating bears whenever they got into populated areas. The result is that the parks are now safer for people and their pets, but you rarely see bears any more. Linda wanted to see bears, so we drove into the community of West Yellowstone outside the West entrance to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center located there. They have nine grizzly bears in captivity, but they let them out for viewing three at a time. They hide food in the area before they let them out, then the bears come out and search for the food. The birds get close to the bears, but seem to be wary of them. I’m wary of them, too.

There were three or four wolves there also, in a different enclosed area, but it was mid-afternoon and all of them were sleeping.

After leaving the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center, we drove back through Yellowstone Park out the South entrance and on down to the Jackson Lake Lodge. The lodge was built by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. on several thousand acres that he had preserved and which he donated to the park. There is an incredible picture window in the lodge with views of the Jackson Valley and the Grand Teton Mountains. This was the view in late afternoon from the deck at the lodge right below the picture window.

Below is a photograph of Mt. Moran. The vertical black rock in the center of the mountain is referred to as the Black Dike. The signs say that it was created when there was a crack in the surrounding rock, and molten black rock seeped up through the crack. The snow near the bottom is a small glacier.

The picture below was taken at a scenic overlook in the park where Ansel Adams is supposed to have taken one of his famous photographs. I don't think I did quite as good a job as Ansel, but the scenery is so beautiful, it's not hard to take a good picture. That's the Snake River in the foreground, and the Grand Teton Mountains in the background. An unusual characteristic of the Grand Tetons is that there are no significant foothills. The mountains seem to rise straight up from the Jackson Valley floor. Linda commented that they almost look like a painted movie backdrop. In the 1800's valleys were referred to as "holes" so that's why the area is called Jackson Hole.

While we were at the above area, we observed a young couple taking pictures. The guy had his girlfriend lay down on her back on a ledge with the above scenery in the background of his picture. We assume it was a "compare and contrast" photo appropriate for the Grand Tetons.
Linda took some great pictures of moose along the side of the road, as I drove.

 

We drove up Signal Mountain, which is a small mountain that's in the valley, then stopped about a third of the way back down the mountain and hiked to an open meadow for a picnic while overlooking Jackson Lake below and the Grand Tetons in the background. The view from the meadow is below.

No pictures for the next couple of days. As we drove around the park, we saw many elk. We visited Menor's Ferry, a reproduction of a historic ferry across the Snake River, and Cunningham Cabin, an old rancher's cabin in the valley. I bought a sasparilla at the cabin. It tasted a lot like root beer. We spent a few hours in the town of Jackson walking around the square at the center of town, where there are numerous bars, restaurants, souvenier shops and other places to spend money.

On the way out of Jackson on September 7, we stopped at Bob and Sandra Williamson's home to visit them. They are friends from Shreveport, but have a second home about 10 miles south of Jackson at a great location on the Snake River. Bob is an avid fly fisherman. Every year, there's a big charitable fishing tournament in town called the One-Fly. The main rule is that each contestant only has one fly for the two days of the tournament, and if he loses the fly, that ends the tournament for him. Bob won the prize this year for the largest fish.

After leaving the Williamsons we drove to Vernal, Utah and spent the night there. It was a beautiful drive. The town is a nice small town. The main street was lined with hanging planters of red flowers every 100 feet or so for a couple of miles. We left Vernal on September 8, and drove near Dinosaur National Monument, but didn't go in. We had lunch in Meeker, Colorado, then drove through the White River and the Routt National Forests over the Flat Tops Trail Scenic Byway. We stopped at a small park at the top of one of the passes, where the scenery was really nice in all directions. We drove to Yampa, then turned south to I-70 near Vail. We were finally back home in Keystone about an hour later. Scenery from Flat Tops Scenic Byway is below.

We took a couple of hikes after returning to Keystone. One day, Miles and Kendal joined us for a hike along the ridge of the continental divide, from Loveland Pass. Miles led the way most of the time, and we stopped and found a geocache along the way. The pictures below are from the ridge, and you can see the ski runs at Keystone in the background behind my right arm. I thought we had some pictures of Miles, but I can't locate them. He was almost 4 years old at the time, and was great to hike with. He would stop and smell the flowers, giving us time to catch our breath at this altitude.

Another picture from the continental divide ridge with Arapahoe Basin Ski Area in the near background.

One afternoon, we went to watch Jeremiah play flag football. He's on a team of 6-9 year olds. Lexi normally plays on the opposing team, but she had a stomach virus earlier in the day, and was not able to make the game.

Linda and I bought bicycles from a nearby bicycle shop and had a great time riding around Keystone. There is a great bike path network all over Summit County. The ground will be covered with snow when we return, so we won't be able to ride them again until next summer.

Finally on September 17, we flew back to Shreveport.

Yellowstone-August 27-September 5, 2009

We flew to Colorado on August 27 and spent the night in Keystone. The next morning we drove over Ute Pass and through Rocky Mountain National Park to Ft. Collins, Colorado, where we spent the night. On the way to the park, we stopped in Hot Sulphur Springs at the Taste of the Rockies candy store which has hundreds of kinds of obscure candies, and much chocolate. We bought more than we should have. We made a few stops in the park to hike around a little, but didn't stop much, as we had been through this park before. The scenery is beautiful as you go from the valleys up over the pass, passing through a high mountain tundra.

As we drove, if we saw somewhere interesting, we stopped and took a short hike. Lots of beautiful mountain lakes and scenery.

Even though it was August, there was still some snow left, once you got above the treeline. A couple of weeks after we were there, a snowstorm closed the pass temporarily. The pass will close for the winter season due to high snow, probably sometime in late September or early October.

We saw lots of animals in the park, including this deer.

These are elk, which are normally larger than deer, and the horns are much larger.

You probably can't really see them, because they blend in with the rocks so well, but there's a marmot on top of the rock in the right foreground of the picture and another one near the lower right edge. Marmot's are fat little rodent-like animals that live in the rocks. They're about three or four time as large as a chipmunk.

Of course there were lots of birds, but this one seemed to be posing for his picture, on top of an informational sign at a roadside turnout. Notice that he gives us both profiles and a front view.

We didn't get a picture of it, but the most interesting bird incident occurred as we were driving down the road. A large crow had caught a mouse or other small animal and was on the road with it. As we rounded the curve, the crow started flying away from us in the same direction we were going, but the animal was too heavy for it, and it was not gaining altitude fast enough. Even though I was braking, I thought we were going to hit the bird when it realized what was happening and dropped the animal right in front of us so that it could gain altitude fast enough that we wouldn't hit it. As we drove past, I looked in the rear view mirror and saw the crow circle back to pick up the dinner it had dropped.

We thought that the car being towed by the motorcycle was interesting. It is actually a box for storage.


After leaving Rocky Mountain National Park, we drove through Estes Park and the Big Thompson Creek Canyon down to Ft. Collins. Ft. Collins is a college town, and our hotel must have been near the college, as there were a lot of people out on the street for Saturday night. The next morning, we went to a farmers market near our hotel, and bought some peaches. We then drove to Casper, Wyoming, and spent the night at the C'mon Inn in Casper. Even though the name was kind of hokie, it was a nice motel. The next morning we toured the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center and learned about the pioneers who traveled from the East to the West in covered wagons. Some left the East to get free land in Oregon, the Mormons left to avoid religious persecution, and miners left to strike it rich in the California gold rush. Traveling across the mountains in a covered wagon was a tough life.

We then drove toward Cody, Wyoming. The first part of the trip was mostly through the plains without much scenery, but we saw a lot of antelope along the way.

After leaving the plains, we entered the Wind River Canyon. At the beginning of the canyon, we stopped and took a few shots of these bighorn sheep eating the yellow flowers (daisies?). We weren't more than 30 feet from them and they seemed totally unconcerned that we were there.

We enjoyed seeing many waterfalls and scenic overlooks as we drove through the canyon. The river had cut a steep and narrow valley through the rocks and the Wyoming Highway Department had put signs every mile or so along the way giving the age of the rocks in that area and the geologic era.

On the other side of the Wind River Canyon, we drove up to the Medicine Wheel National Monument. It is at the top of a mountain with views for many miles in all directions. It was constructed by Native Americans several hundred years ago. It's sort of like Stonehenge in that no one knows why they built it, but the assumption is that it was for some type of religious ceremonies. Present day Native Americans still conduct religious ceremonies there sometimes. The wheel consists of rocks that are arranged on the ground in a circle, with "spokes" of rocks going from the center to the outside, making it look like a giant wheel that is flat on the ground. There are also four rock piles inside the wheel, and I think they are at the point of the sunrise and sunset for the winter and summer solstice. The park service has put a rope fence around the monument, and people leave all kinds of things on the ground or tied to the rope, including small bags of rocks, prayer flags, crucifixes, cow skulls and feathers. The walk to and from the monument was about 1 1/2 miles, although you will see a car in the background of one picture that was apparently driven up by someone who ignored the "No Entry" signs, opened the gate, and drove up. By the end of our walk back, we were wishing that we had ignored the signs, also.


We spent the night in Cody, Wyoming, then drove on into Yellowstone and checked into the Lake Yellowstone Lodge. We had withdrawal symptoms because the lodge does not have internet, television or cell phone service.

The first morning after our arrival, we drove South toward Old Faithful. We stopped along the way at a thermal site pictured above. These are several shots of thermal pools by the side of Lake Yellowstone that bubbled and emitted a sulphur smelling steam. The water was deep blue due to the mineral content, although where it flowed out of the pools, it would leave a yellow/orange/brown deposit on the ground. There are some microbes than can survive in boiling water and they add to the colors sometimes. There is a wooden walkway that goes through the middle of these features, but there are lots of warning signs that you shouldn't walk on the ground, because it may be only a crust above a pool of boiling water.

This was a boiling pool that was in the lake, right near the edge. The story was told that a fisherman could catch a fish, and then, while it was still on the line, dip it into the pool and cook it.

 

These are the shots of Old Faithful geyser the first time we saw it. It erupts about every 75 minutes, so we saw it again later in the day and then again, three days later, when I got a few more shots.

Better shots this time.

As we walked around the Old Faithful area, I saw a large geyser in the distance, took a picture of it, then walked toward it, and took another picture. By the time we got close, it had finished erupting, but it was Grand Geyser, which is the tallest predictable geyser in the world. Unfortunately, there are several hours between eruptions, so the shots above are the best we got.

As we continued to walk around the Old Faithful, area, we saw dozens of geysers, thermal pools, mud pots and fumaroles. A fumarole is an opening in the ground where mostly steam comes out. The strange looking "rock" formation is Grotto Geyser, and they believe that it's shaped like that because the sinter formed around existing trees. Sinter is the mineral deposit left by the geysers, so it's probably thousands of years old. The geyser next to the river is called, as you may have guessed, Riverside Geyser. A nice couple used our camera to take a picture of Linda and me in front of it.

As we got close to the end of touring the geysers around Yellowstone, we saw a coyote running across an open field, trying to catch a goose or swan. The coyote was really fast, but the bird flew away before the coyote got to it. The coyote was a lot faster than I was, so I didn't get  a picture, but it would have been a great one. Right after that, we got caught in an afternoon thunderstorm. Linda didn't have a rainproof poncho, so she was soaked by the time we got to the car. We headed back to our lodge after that, but stopped long enough to get the above picture of Kepler Cascades.

On Sept. 2, we saw a lot of bison. Bison is the term that naturalists use for them, although they are also called the American Buffalo by non-naturalists. On the trees, you could see where the bison had rubbed the bark off, scratching themselves. Whenever traffic was stopped on the road, you could pretty much bet that there was some type of wildlife in sight and most of the time it was bison. As you can see, they ignore traffic, and will walk across or down the middle of the road as they please. They also must decide periodically that the grass is greener on the other side of the river, so they will swim across the river, then wallow in a dust pit to dry off.

Later that day we stopped at the Mud Volcano area and saw several fumaroles, mud pots (mud bubbling with steam) and hot springs, including the Dragon's Mouth Spring shown above. It was large and was constantly belching small amounts of water and lots of steam. One of the problems that they have at Yellowstone is that the location of the thermal features is constantly changing. These are a couple of places in the parking lot where a thermal feature showed up after they had paved it.

It's hard to see because it's so far away, but this is a coyote that we saw.

We toured the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. It's much smaller than the real Grand Canyon in Arizona, but is still a beautiful site. There are two sets of waterfalls, and these pictures were at the upper falls.

 

These pictures were taken at the lower falls. The picture directly above is the scene that is in most of the Yellowstone literature.

Looking down the canyon from the lower falls.

We shot this one from the other side of the canyon. The top picture is mama osprey sitting on her nest. The bottom picture is dad osprey supervising. Ospreys are large birds, nearly as large an eagle. They build large nests on top of rocks, poles or other open structures.

Shot of the lower falls from the other side of the canyon.

Shot of the upper falls from the other side of the canyon.

Later in the afternoon, we drove to the Northeast corner of the park, and then out onto the Beartooth Highway. We saw the above fire on nearby mountaintops. They had signs on the highway that said that it was a controlled burn, meaning that it was deliberately set to burn some of the underbrush, but it looked to us like it was out of control.

When we drove back by later in the afternoon, the fire had gotten a good bit larger. We never heard anything about it on the news.

The Beartooth Scenic Highway had lots of switchbacks and you could see for a really long way. There was a good bit of snow at the top. I also took some pictures of marmots and pikas, but they were too small to be seen in the pictures. We drove to the top of the first pass, and a flagman stopped us for road construction and told us it would be about a 20 minute wait, so we turned around and headed back to the lodge, hoping to get there before dark. It’s a little dangerous driving after dark because there is so much wildlife on the roads.

In 1988, Yellowstone had major fires that burned much of the forest. There are a lot of burned and dead trees still standing. These were shots of the sunset and the moonrise through some of the dead trees. You can see small lodgepole pines starting to grow at the base of the dead trees.

On September 3, we drove to the Mammoth Hot Springs area, in the Northwest corner of the park. We saw more bison, stopping traffic and ignoring the cars.

We stopped at the Norris Geyser Basin on the way and saw many more thermal features. Notice the white at the bottom of the trees at Cistern Spring. That’s mineral deposits from the hot water in the spring. The geyser in the second picture is called Pearl Geyser because of its pearl-like color.

At Mammoth Hot Springs, there are hot springs terraces, and the underlying rock is limestone, so the mineral deposits (called travertine) at the terraces are different from the rest of the park. The terraces cover large areas, and spring up in new areas, and kill the trees in those new areas. The different colors are due to different microorganisms that live in the hot water.

Crystals sometimes form in the hot water, and if something falls into the water, like the grass sprigs above, it becomes covered with crystals.

There's a hotel and shopping area at Mammoth Hot Springs. There was once an army post here, and the  buildings from that era are still in use as offices and employee housing. The elk shown above are eating the grass on what was once the parade ground. The park service has several rangers whose job seems to be to herd the elk, which tend to ignore people and traffic. As we drove through the area, we had to stop for several minutes while the rangers tried to run the elk off the road in the middle of the town-like area. We had lunch at a restaurant there, and they were painting the outside of the restaurant, so they had yellow barrier tape around the front yard of the restaurant to keep the elk away from the fresh paint. One of the elk decided that the grass was greener on the other side of the tape, so he kept coming over and trying to eat it, getting his antlers hung up in the tape in the process. One of the rangers would then come up waving a rag, yellling, and dragging a shovel on the road behind him. Apparently the noise of the shovel dragging on the asphalt is unpleasant to elk. The elk would stroll back across the road until the ranger left, then promptly come back and get hung up in the tape again.

This is the original entrance to the park, near Mammoth Hot Springs.

One of many waterfalls that we saw in the park.

This is a petrified tree that is behind a fence. There were once several petrified trees in the area, but vandals stole nearly all of them, so they had to put a fence around this one.

September 4 was our last full day in Yellowstone. We drove to back to the Old Faithul area and toured other nearby thermal features. Cliff Geyser shown above sprayed us a little, but the water was cool by the time it got to us.

The two pools above are appropriately named Emerald Pool and Sapphire Pool.

This is Firehole Spring. Large bubbles would form below the surface and then burst when they got to the top of the water, making a small splash. You can see the process above.

A few parting shots of Yellowstone. Sulphur smoke in the late afternoon near the Yellowstone Geyser area and a couple of shots of full moon on our last night there. Notice the sulphur smoke in the moon picture above the lake. It was taken at the West Thumb Geyser basin. It was a great ending shot for a great week at Yellowstone.