Saturday 10-1 to Friday 10-7 Yellowstone National Park

Today 10/7 we left Yellowstone National Park and are headed to Mesa Verde National Park. For the past week we only had cell service / internet when we were at a visitor center. During our stay in Mesa Verde we will once again be without cell service for most of our stay, you might not hear from me for a bit.

Old Faithful Inn

We had six outstanding days in Yellowstone National Park. During our stay we camped in Madison Campground. We did four hikes for the total of 11 miles, toured the Old Faithful Inn and did some site seeing. The temperatures in the morning were in the 30s and the highs were in the mid 50s to low 60s.

We hiked the following trails: Beaver Ponds, Ribbon Lake, Fern Cascade and Observation Point.

Beaver Ponds in Mammoth was a 5 mile loop. The first part was in the open and we climbed 350 feet. On top we saw magnificent views of Mammoth and Gardiner. As we hiked the top we saw a coyote hunting, then the trail weaved up and down the mountain through the trees. The ponds were very nice. After our hike we walked around Mammoth and saw elk laying in the residences yards. I walked around the Hot Springs.

Coyote on the trail

 

One of the beaver ponds

Larry crossing a bridge

 

Mammoth Hot Springs

 

A calf and cow relaxing 

 

Mammoth from the trail

Ribbon Lake Trail was a 6 mile hike. The actual trail to ribbon lake was 2.2 miles one way. It started at Artist Point, which is part of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. The trail took us along the rim of the canyon, through trees and 500 feet up the mountainside. We hiked by Lilly Lake, which was a beautiful small lake. The hike was very nice, when we got to Ribbon Lake we continued our hike another .5 mile to the cascades. The cascades of the river was very pretty. After resting we went back to where we started. Then we walked to the Lower Falls of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.

Ribbon Lake

 

Lilly Lake

 

Lower Falls

River in the bottom of the canyon

 

A view of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

Fern Cascade hike was 2.5 mile loop, which started at the old post office at Old Faithful. The trail went in two different directions. One was one mile to the cascades and the other one was 1.5 miles. We did the 1.5 direction. The hike started going up a very steep hill using an old service road. We climbed 270 feet. It was a moderate trail. Once on top it flattened out. We hiked through trees and no one was on the trail. The cascade was very hard to see because of trees. We continued the trail down the hill. We ended up finishing at the employee housing. It was very nice. They had homes for the National Park employees, RVs, mobile homes, apartments and dormitories for the other workers. We had a great hike.

An old cabin

Fern Cascade

A view from the trail

The Old Faithful Observation Trail and Geyser Hill hike was a 2.2 mile loop. We climbed 200 feet to get to the observation point. We started the hike at Old Faithful area. The trail started by taking us over a beautiful creek via a bridge. There we went up the mountainside. It was very steep but once at the observation point we saw an outstanding view of the Old Faithful area and geyser hill. We met a couple of young people and visited with them. Afterwards we continued our hike by walking part of Geyser Hill. It was a great hike.

The river we crossed over

 

A view we saw at the observation point

 

Infant Geyser

 

Bridge to get over the river

 

Old Faithful from the observation trail

We did a lot of site seeing. We did the lower and upper loops of the park. We saw some bison, a few coyotes, elks, fishermen fly fishing and a lot a gorgeous scenery. We did the river road, that went a mile along the Madison River. We stopped and looked at the mountains and saw an eagle in a tree. Every night we went to the Madison River to see what we could see. We saw Tyson the Bison a couple of times. Tyson is an old bull, that decided to spend his retirement at the Madison River by the campground. They adopted him as their mascot. 

Tyson the Bison sign

Eagle

 

Madison River

 

One of the mountains in the park

 

A waterfall on the side of the road

 

Bull Elk

A bison crossing the road in front of us

Snow on one of the mountain peaks

 

The fish that got away

We also toured the Old Faithful Inn and watched a movie about Yellowstone. The tour guide Clara was excellent. She talked about the history of the inn and the architect, Robert C. Reamer and his vision.

The clock and fireplace in Old Faithful Inn

 

Beautiful staircases in the inn

 

The old Crow Nest where the band played years ago

We had an outstanding time in Yellowstone.

Friday 10-7

Larry drove 400 miles for 10 hours. We had a long day of driving. We drove parts of four states. We were in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Utah. We drove two and four lane highways and an interstate. We saw a lot of farmland and ranches. The hardest and most stressful was driving through Salt Lake City at 3:00 in the afternoon. It was a lot of traffic, it didn't stop but it was very slow. Larry did an outstanding job.