Tuesday we headed back up the road through the Grand
Teton National Park to Yellowstone. As we were driving we had to stop for a few
more shots of the Grand Tetons, and for a herd of bison to cross the road. Wow!
So up close and personal!
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| Notice how the glaciers appear to be shrinking, from those on the sign above, and reality beow |
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| Face off! |
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| There were hundreds of bison in this herd. Unbelievable! |
We arrived at the Yellowstone Visitor Center about
mid-day, and planned our visit. It was interesting to note some of the history
and culture of what we know as Yellowstone National Park. We decided to do the smaller loop through the park, in order
to see the major sites, including Old Faithful; more geysers in the Upper, Biscuit
and Upper Geyser Basins; and the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Doesn’t sound
like much now, but it filled the day! We had hoped to see much more than we
did, but we ran out of time and daylight.
We arrived at the Visitor Education Center at the
Upper Geyser Basin about ½ hour before Old Faithful was scheduled to spout. Old
Faithful went off at 2:46 p.m. What a sight! Old Faithful erupts more
frequently than any of the other geysers, even though it’s not the largest or
most regular geyser in the park. Its average interval between eruptions is
about 90 minutes, but can vary between 50 and 127 minutes; the eruption can
last ½ to 5 minutes and expels 3,700 to 8,400 gallons of boiling water. The
eruption can reach as high as 184 feet.
Click here to watch a video of Old Faithful doing its thing. Afterward, we walked through the Old Faithful Inn.
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| The Inn's interior. Crazy! |
While
we were waiting for Old Faithful to do its thing, Dick met the Glen Collins
family from Utah; the Mrs. has relatives in Urbana, Ohio near where Dick grew
up. Dick noticed him for the t-shirt he was wearing
.
We then walked to the Castle Geyser. The cone of
this magnificent geyser is over 1,000 years old, resting on an even older
platforms forming one of the largest sinter formations in the world. Currently
it erupts every 14 hours, with water reaching 75 feet and lasting about 20
minutes, followed by a “noisy steam phase” of 30 to 40 minutes.
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| We just missed the eruption, but the sound coming from it sounded like a freight train! |
Our
next stop was at Biscuit Basin. Biscuit
Basin contains a small collection of thermal features, although many are small,
gem-like encrusted pools and geysers. One thing we noticed was the sulfur smell
generated from the underground hydrogen sulfide. This "warm" river was running just adjacent to the geysers.
The most dominating is
the Sapphire Pool. The Sapphire Pool has temperatures reaching up to 202°F. The
18x30’ pool got its name because it resembles an Oriental sapphire with its
blue, crystal clear water. The pool began major eruptions following the 1959
earthquake, but by 1968 Sapphire ceased to function as a true geyser. Today
Sapphire still retains its crystal-clear, blue water, and still violently boils
and surges occasionally. Gorgeous!
As
we walked along some of the pools, we saw moose tracks close to the boardwalks.
Cool! We noticed the moose didn’t venture very close to the pools, though.
Next,
we walked to Shell Geyser, boasting temperatures reaching 200°F. Shell Geyser is very irregular and the interval between
eruptions changes from year to year. Before an eruption, water in the crater
begins to rise and may boil. Heavy churning then occurs, setting off the first
small, weak eruption. As the eruptions subside water begins to lower and drain
back into the crater. The eruptions can last up to 90 seconds, at 1½ to several
hours.
It looks pretty tame in the photo above, but watch it as the cauldron boils!
Along
the walkway we next came to Avoca Spring, which became an active geyser
following the earthquake in 1959. Since then it frequently erupts from 1-18
minutes apart, lasting for up to 30 seconds rising up to 20 feet. When an eruption occurs water jets in several directions from
a filled crater. Pausing between bursts, the water continues to churn. Notice how clear the water is before it begins!
As
we were walking we met a couple from Calgary, heading home from Sturgis Bike
Rally week. They caught our attention because of their full-dress Kawasaki
Venture motorcycle, and they were wearing Kevlar jeans, which were pretty cool;
we’d never seen them before.
We
continued our walk over the Mustard Springs. Water temperature reaches up to
198°F. The springs received their name from the yellow mustard-colored lining
of the craters.
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| Mustard Spring |
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| Surprise Pool |
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| Biscuit Bason overview |
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| White Dome Geyser |
Our next stop was at the Fountain Paint Pot Trail.
Apparently, the geysers and mud pots here vary with the season: in summer the mud
pots are thin and watery from the rain and melted snow, but by late summer they
are quite thick. Among the geysers and mud pots we saw here were the Silex
Spring, Fountain Paint Pot, Leather Pool and Clepsydra Geyser.
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| Above and below: Fountain mudpot and a closeup. |
Here's a video of the same mudpot. Amazing!
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| Clepsydra Geyser; clepsydra is Greek for "water clock." It used to erupt every 3 minutes, but since the 1959 earthquake, it erupts almost without pause. |
As
we headed further north around the park, we were surprised to see a huge bull bison alone in a field.
Apparently, bulls spend most of the year alone except during rutting season.
During our trip through Yellowstone, we also saw large herds of bison, as well
as bull and cow elk. (A herd of cows and calves crossed the road in front of
us, but only one cow stayed long enough for us to get close to take a photo.)
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| The big boy bull bison; sometimes they can weight in at over 2,000 pounds. |
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| Above and below: cow elk |
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| This cow elk crossed the road just in front of us, along with a heard of cows and calves. She's the only one who stayed close enough for us to photograph. |
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| This big boy was all alone in a field, waiting for us to take his picture. |
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| Above and below: we had just left the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone when we came upon these 2 elk in a field posing. From the size of their racks, they must be healthy! |
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| On a smaller scale, this little chipmunk was just hangin' around. |
We
stopped at Gibbon Falls as we traveled the loop through the park. The falls has
a drop of about 84 feet. Beautiful!
Next
we stopped at Artist Paint pots. The walk back to the pots was a little over a
mile from the parking lot, on a level, easy trail. From the boardwalk we were
able to see large mud pots (ranging in color from pink to blue to white), colorful hot springs and a couple of geysers.
Our
next and sadly our last stop before daylight ran out was the Grand Canyon of
the Yellowstone. Today’s canyon dates from about 10,000 years ago when the last
glaciers melted. Since that time water, wind, earthquakes and other natural
forces continue to shape the canyon. Currently the canyon is approximately 24
miles long, between 800 and 1,200 feet deep, and from a quarter- to three
quarters of a mile wide. The yellow color of the canyon is a result of iron
present in the rock; interesting, since you would expect it to be red. There are 2 waterfalls visible from the park, the upper
falls at 109 feet high and lower falls at 308 feet high, which is twice as high
as Niagara Falls.
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| Above and below: The Yellowstone River flowing through the canyon |
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| Upper Falls |
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| Lower Falls |
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| Osprey built their nest high atop a pinnacle along the river |
Here's a video of the waterfalls in the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.
The drive to and from Yellowstone was quite a bit
further than we anticipated; we didn’t return to our RV park until well after
11 p.m. We were tired, but the day was so wonderful. Wednesday we stayed around the RV park and did
preliminary packing for our departure Thursday to Casper, Wyoming and the
“5-star” Walmart Parking Lot for our 1-night stay.
You meet the nicest people as you travel—even in
Walmart parking lots! We met Mike and Chris from Auburn, Washington, who just
happened to pull in and park next to us. They were on the road to Ellis Air
Force Base outside Rapid City, SD to see the sights.
As we drove east, we passed the most beautiful red rock cliffs in Wyoming!
After the 4-hour roadside assistance wait to swap the blown trailer tire with the spare we drove the last 90 minutes to Hart Ranch Camping Resort just outside Rapid City, SD. Hart Ranch was settled by John Hart in the 1880s during the gold rush days, carving out his ranching empire while Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane roamed the streets of Lead and Deadwood, SD (less than 40 miles away). Today, Heart Ranch covers 13,000 acres, including the beautiful, 195 acre RV resort with 500+ RV sites, rental cabins, motel, restaurant, gas station, and store. In addition to the RV park there are permanent homes around their golf course. There is a special events area where a rodeo was held the Friday and Saturday nights we camped here. We did not attend, too busy with other stuff, but hey, when is the last time you camped in an RV park that put on a rodeo?
Hart Ranch is a members-only RV park that also allows accepts RPI members, and they do allow non-members on a space available basis at $60/night. They provide all the amenities you would expect in a premium park, including: Wi-Fi (best we have had in any park), cable TV, 50-amp, sewer (our site has no sewer access but there is a dump station on the way out), Olympic-size pool, laundry, large meeting room, casual space with pool tables and game areas and TV, pickle ball courts, tennis court, basketball court, shuffleboard, miniature golf, kids playground, group picnic areas, large open areas, and well-kept grounds.
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| Our site |
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| Our neighbor with extensive satellite gear, can you say CIA? |
Here are some highlight photos of a very nice park.
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| Registration to the right, the Hart Mart and onsite fuel pumps |
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| Olympic size pool |
.JPG) |
| Casual space with pool tables and game areas and TV |
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| Very large and very clean laundry |
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| Pickleball and tennis courts |
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| Miniature golf |
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| Kids' play area |
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| Covered pavilion and picnic area |
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| Paved roads |
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| Above and below: large open areas for groups, and well-kept grounds |
We spent Saturday purchasing a new tire and picking up a few items at Walmart. A call to Good Sam Roadside brought Jerry Cummings (imagine that!) to swap the new tire and spare within ½ hour of our call. No 4-hour wait this time! The rest of the day was spent cleaning off the black tire streaks from the tire mishap from the side of the camper, as much as we could, and just relaxing.
We’re not including Sunday’s activities in this week’s blog since we wore you out with the Yellowstone story, but stay tuned for our next adventure. Sunday we do a tour of the Black Hills area including Mt. Rushmore, Custer State Park, the Iron Mountain Highway, the Needles Highway, and Crazy Horse Mountain and Memorial.
Hope you enjoyed this week; thanks for staying with us. Here's the map of our travels from Carson City to Rapid City.
A = Carson City, NV
B = Elko, NV
C = Duchesne, UT
D = Thayne, WY
E = Casper, WY
F = Rapid City, SD
Love ‘n’ hugs,
RJ and Gail
Love ‘n’ hugs,
RJ and Gail
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