Expedition to Crater Hills

This morning I found a cute little golden-green frog. I was happy to see him with so many frogs dying from the chytrid fungus all over the world.

We saw these bison cows and calf along the road between Madison and Old Faithful. We programmed the GPS for Sulphur Springs and bounded out across Hayden in search of Crater Hills.

I found this toad in the grass. Two or three bull bison loitered on the outskirts of the meadow and Jeff kept nervous watch on them as we neared a clump of trees. The trees were obviously a popular bison hangout. They’d beaten the crap out of the ones at the edge of the meadow. We wondered if it was part of a forest eradication program run by the buffalo in hopes of creating more grazing land. We worried momentarily over a suspicious pile of warm scat. Was it too big to be wolf scat? Was it big enough to be bear scat?
All so unnerving was the fact that about half the trees in the area had been toppled – probably from routine straight-line wind.

Then we were out of the woods standing at the base of a tiny roaring mountain. Promising springs and fumaroles puffed and hissed all around us. I couldn’t wait to start exploring. But before I could decide what direction to head, a dark cloud swooped in and unleashed on us - rain, hail, thunder, lightning and Jeff without his raincoat. So we huddled together and wondered if we were about to be struck by lightning or crushed by a falling tree. The storm broke as abruptly as it had begun and since we were soaked, we decided to head back to the car. We started back into the woods and hadn’t quite reached the trees when a formidable, hair-raising and very near ROAR came out to greet us. We froze and glanced around as the roaring and growling continued, convinced that we were about to meet a grizzly. (Remember we had seen a possible bear poo at the edge of the trees) Jeff unholstered the bear spray. After several horrible seconds, a HUGE dark shape lumbered out of the trees toward us. When I recognized it was a bull bison I laughed with relief. Sure, bison have been known to toss, stamp and gore people to death regularly, but in my mind they are still herbivores and slightly more trustworthy than grizzlies. So we carefully detoured around the enraged animal (bison HATE thunder) and back out across Hayden to the Element.

On the way I snapped this photo of a bison skull.
I’ll just have to make it back to Crater Hills on a sunny day.

Black Sand and Ravin' about Ravens

After Fern Cascades, we entertained ourselves walking the boardwalk at Black Sand Basin. We watched Cliff Geyser fill its basin and erupt on the bank of Iron Creek.

I spotted the now unmarked Handkerchief Pool alongside Rainbow Pool. You can see it as a tiny eruption in the center of this photo. It is unmarked because back in the day ladies used to throw their hankies in where they would be sucked into the subterranean plumbing whirled around and returned to the surface, freshly laundered. Rangers at the time encouraged this! Take a look: http://mms.nps.gov/yell/ofvec/exhibits/treasures/thermals/hotspring/handkerchief.htm

We also saw Emerald Pool. Isn’t it beautiful?

We watched two ravens playing for a long time. One raven had a big orange cheesy puff and the other wanted it very badly. He tried to snatch it away at first and when that didn’t work, he tried begging and acting generally pathetic. When that didn’t work, he flew off and came back with a candy wrapper, which he attempted to trade for the cheese puff.

This whole time the other raven was strutting around displaying his prize cheese puff as if to taunt his little brother.

I love ravens. They are so clever and entertaining.

Here is a raven eating dog food from the bed of a pickup truck at Old Faithful.

The park is very crowded this summer. I’ve never seen it this packed before – the boardwalks were overflowing at this Old Faithful eruption.

Fountain Flats - and gnats!

We headed out over the bridge on the gravel road past Ojo Caliente. There were some interesting off-trail thermals on either side of the road.

We explored a spring on the right at the base of a rocky hill.

It was a very turbulent, blackish spring with surging activity. It flowed into a small creek and someone had dammed up a little pool for soaking in.

Dipper birds followed and spied on us from the rocks. Without the gnats chewing holes behind my ears, it would have been a great place to stay and soak.

We ate lunch at Indian Creek Picnic area and I snapped this picture of caddis fly larve clinging to a rock. They live in tiny stone or log cabins that they drag along like hermit crabs. Strangely enough, someone has figured out how to con these little guys into using gems to make their homes so that they can later be used as jewelry. You can see it at: http://wildscape.com/

After lunch, we headed off on the Fern Cascades hike. We made a false start into the cell pone tower area before finding the right trail. It was somewhat of a lackluster hike.
We passed an idiot out for a run on the trail wearing headphones - bearchow waiting to happen!

Crystal Falls

We started the day off with a hike down Uncle Tom's Trail.

Jeff enjoyed the photo ops with lower falls peeping from around the canyon wall and then comming into full view as we reached the bottom.

This photo shows the green stripe in the falls caused by a deep cut in the precipice.

After that, we went to the Upper Falls parking area and from there, found Crystal Falls without much trouble. I've been wanting to see it after reading how enamoured with it park superentendant Norris was. He wrote several poems about it, including this one:

Skipping rill from snowy fountains

Dashing through embow'red walls,

Fairy del 'mid frowing mountains,

Grotto pool and Crystal Falls

Dwarfed by the Upper and Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River, it is mostly overlooked. I lived a mile from it and never knew of it. It is a very beautiful waterfall.

The stream dives into a deep amber pool in a grotto, cascades several times upon leaving the grotto and then leaps over an 80 foot precipice.

A portion of the falls strikes a concave rock sending it flaring out.

Isn't it IRONIC?

So there we were at Boiling River, (this really cool hot stream that dumps into the Gardiner River below Mammoth) We were just sitting there, enjoying the warm waters when this little girl's shoe floats by as she begins to cry she looses the other shoe.

Jeff, being the hero that he is, lunges for it and comes up missing his wedding ring. The current took it right off. What are the chances that he would loose it so close to the time and place we got married a year ago? Seriously!

A few minutes later, a guy made his way upstream with both of the shoes (but no wedding ring) He explained that his brother's golden retrievers had saved them from the raging river.

Here are some Rocky Mountain bluebirds next to the river.

Old West - Virginia City Style

Last night at the hot pot dinner we invited anyone with a day off to come with us to Virginia City, MT. Jason from China and Karen from Taiwan took us up on the offer. They were pretty amazed with all the Chinese artifacts in the Virginia City Museum. I don't think they'd realized just how much Chinese labor went into settling the west.


A nap on boot hill after lunch.


We saw this eight-legged, one-headed 'bum' lamb in one of the museums.


We all had fun at the music halls. You have to listen to the most annoying horns in Montana at least once in your life.

Jeff got a kick out of the flip book movie machines. (I'm not sure what they're called)

I liked this machine that delivers your fortune (based on hair color) on a little white card.

No visit to Virginia City is complete without a stop at Cousin's Candy Store!
On the way back we stopped at our land on the Madison and at Quake Lake to see where a landslide, triggered by an earthquake created a lake.

Here you can see where the land slid off the mountain. Our land is in the valley beyond.
Here is the outlet of Quake Lake, cutting through the landslide. You can see trees sticking out of the water from before the earthquake. Many people died here. Very sad...

A different kind of Hot Pot

Rene and Nina, the hitchhiking employees from Old Faithful, invited us to the Taiwanese kids' Hot Pot night in their dorm room.

A hot pot is a dinner cooked by boiling meat, cabbage, tofu, mushrooms, etc. in water. There was a lot of prep work involving "borrowed" equipment from the dining room. Hot pots are usually a pretty social affair.
It was a blast - until the hot plate exploded and the 'Dorm Nazi' came by to tell us to be quiet for the second time. As we stood there fanning smoke away from the fire alarm, we knew it was time to call it a night!
Lots of fun though. Thanks Rene and Nina!
Here's a funny Utah license plate we spotted.

Petrified Forest - Why is it so scared?

Petrified trees; they can't run, but they can hide.
After reading of a fossil redwood 26 ft in diameter, in the book Lost In My Own Backyard, we set out across Lamar in search of the tree.
A steep climb past a lone bull and above a herd of groaning, grunting bison brought us to several petrified tree parts sticking from the slope. Among them was a huge tree laying on its side.








Here is a close up of the wood grain. Parts of the tree were crystallized, other parts had turned to opal.
Still, no 26 ft stumps... The topo map's "Fossil Forest" was marked a few hillsides over to the east, but from the description in the book, I felt the big one must be more of a climb up the hill.
The trail rose steeply and opened on to a windswept plateau.
As we were standing there wondering where a 26 ft redwood could hide, a rustic-looking man popped out of the forest to our right. He introduced himself as "Cliff from Cooke City."
He was also in search of the elusive redwood. He had visited the tree years before. So we followed him off through the forest and out onto another grassy plateau where he related a close encounter with a mountain lion he'd had a few years ago. We backtracked to where we'd met him and finally found the tree just below that spot. It was actually visible from the road far below in Lamar.
The redwood was pretty incredible.
I climbed up in it and felt like a little bird in a nest on a cliff.
We thanked Cliff for his help and left him to his wildlife filming.
View from Mt. Washburn looking toward FAIRYLAND!
The slopes of Dunraven, covered in mule's ear sunflowers.