After finally getting through the gate, it was later than I was hoping so I wanted to just book it straight to the campgrounds. However, a few miles in, I ran into a traffic jam including a ton of cars pulled off to the side of the road. Now, having learned what this means growing up near Algonquin, I knew I had to pull over and see what kind of wildlife was drawing all the attention. To my delight, across a river was a brown bear digging into a fallen log looking for grubs. I would have stayed longer, but I really wanted that site, so after taking a few pictures, I hopped back in the car and started heading deeper into Yellowstone.
The first campground I came across (Madison Junction), was full, so I kept going crossing all my fingers and toes. I wasn't paying too much attention to the beauty around me, but I figured I'd definitely be going along these roads again a few times while I was there. Coming up to the Noris campground, the sign said that there were vacancies. Sweet! Pulling in to the parking lot by the gate, many people were running up to the board to mark down the empty sites and then running off quickly to their cars. I didn't have much time. So, I went straight for the walk-in tent sites figuring that they'd be the last ones to go. When I got there, what luck! There was one left. I quickly threw my tent down and started setting it up. Not five minutes later, a guy and his son drove up looking to see if there were any sites available. While they were debating what to do, I realized that there was plenty of room in my site to share so I offered them the option so that at least they didn't have to camp way outside the park. It didn't take them long to take me up on the offer, so they started to set up their tent beside mine. The father, Roger, and his son Mitch were from Olympia, WA and they were taking the trip to show Mitch Yellowstone. Roger had been there before, back in the late 80's during the big forest fire that had burnt so many of the hillsides in the area.
By the time I was set up, it was getting close to noon, so I took off to do some sightseeing. The first stop was Mammoth Hot Springs, which was crawling with people. There were a lot of different features which looked, well, alien. Places like the Minerva Terraces, which were a series of calcite terraces created from the mineral rich spring water. I'd have to say my favourite part was Canary Spring just because of all the colour and how the calcite has enveloped the trees. After walking along the lower terraces, I decided to walk the upper terrace loop. Yeah, technically you're supposed to drive around it, but I was itching to stretch my legs out after being cooped up in the car for most of the last 4 days. Unfortunately, there was not spot on the springs where you could actually sit in the warm water. It makes sense I know especially given all the traffic, but it still would've been fun. There was a spot on the upper loop where people used to soak but it just did too much damage so they stopped allowing it in the 70's.
After visiting the hot springs, I took the road across to Tower-Roosevelt. I wanted to see the petrified trees which were supposed to be fully standing stone trees. On that leg, they were doing construction, so they told me it could be slow going, I figured it would be better than looping around the long way and it turned out that the construction didn't really have much of an effect.
On the way, I had to stop to at one point because some wildlife was crossing. Not just any wildlife, a coyote! It was amazingly used to the road. When I saw it, it was waiting patiently at the side of the road until traffic cleared. I stopped to let it pass in front of the car and it even waited until it was very clear that I was going to let it cross. After it crossed, I managed to get a quick picture of it, but it was a bad, blurry picture as I was driving along beside it and trying to snap the photo.
Unfortunately, I missed the petrified trees because I didn't see any signs, but I stopped off near Tower Falls to look at the Yellowstone River running through the canyon. More absolutely spectacular scenery. Also, on the far side of the canyon it was really easy to see a layer hard hexagonal columns ihe rock above the rest of the sedimentary rock. It turns out that it was caused by a gigantic ancient lava flow. To top of this stop, I managed to spot a bald eagle lazily circling in the thermals.
It was starting to get a little late so I drove down to the final stop for the day: The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. I was thinking "yeah it should be interesting, but I've been to the real Grand Canyon so how great could it be?". Well, how surprised I was! Yeah, the canyon's not that big, especially compared to the one in Arizona, but it was gorgeous, mostly because of the colours in the rock. Since it's an active volcanic area, there's a lot of sulphur in the rock which adds a lot of yellow and orange to the canyon walls making it beautiful. Also, I got there at the right time of day, in the perfect weather. The sun was low enough that the shadows were long enough to highlight some interesting releif in the canyon. Plus, it was scattered clouds, so, the clouds' shadows creating some amazing lighting upon the winding terrain. I know the pictures don't quite capture the majesty of the place, but here's a glimpse.
On the way back to my site for the evening, I got to make one impromptu stop as there was a bison grazing by the side of the road. I stopped to take some pictures, then headed back to camp for another one pot energy filled dinner. It was time to sleep.
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