Day 24: Yellowstone > Montana

It had rained the night before and everything was damp. We wanted to get an early start so after breaking down the soggy campsite and packing the car we were on our way. It was 41 F cool and continued to drizzle--not ideal conditions for seeing Yellowstone but there were still two stops left before we started the next leg of the trip.

The calm before the storm

Steamboat Geyser

The first was Norris Geyser Basin which we’d failed to see the day before because cars were backed up to the main road waiting for parking spots. It would have meant waiting an hour to park and we agreed to see other things. About fifteen minutes before we arrived at Norris it started raining rather hard. We made the trek through the cold weather across the boardwalk to see Steamboat Geyser. It is the world’s largest geyser with eruptions that can exceed 300 feet tall and wide which makes it three times as large as Old Faithful. Unlike OF though, these eruptions don’t occur regularly. The sign posted at the viewpoint said that smaller eruptions (10-40 feet) occur every 3-12 minutes. The last big eruption had been more than two weeks earlier. It was due for a big one but we weren’t going to freeze waiting for it to happen. On the way back to the parking lot we tried to see more of Norris Basin but it was just too fogged in. The cold weather lowered the dew point and all of these thermal spots were emitting steam that condensed in the air into fog and blanketed the landscape in white. We’ll need to come back to Yellowstone and see this place in the warm sunlight.

The final stop, Mammoth Hot Springs was near the north entrance and conveniently located near our drive out of the park was. The weather remained cool but the rain had subsided. On the drive there we passed through a hailstorm and the boardwalk path was covered in a thin bed of white beads that were melting fast. Mammoth Hot Springs is the most evolving location in Yellowstone with terraced beauty that is newly shaped each day. My preference was for the lower terraces that you walk through versus the upper terraces that you drive through. The grey skies that day didn’t contrast well against the calcium carbonate deposits to truly capture the beauty of this location. Like Old Faithful it had a quiet peace about it that was calming to walk through.

Mound Spring

A tree cemented by calcium carbonate

A zen destroying child running through Mammoth

Adler took this mule deer photo from the backseat. 

We were headed to Seattle next. But the drive between Yellowstone and Seattle is twelve hours long so we decided to break it up into two drives. Shortly outside of Yellowstone Adler took a sip from his water bottle and the tip applied just enough pressure to knock out his loose tooth. This was his fourth tooth that he's lost and we were going to learn if the Tooth Fairy could find us in a tent in the middle of nowhwere.The halfway point ended up being in the northeast corner of Montana along 94 just before Idaho. We stayed at a place called Cabin City Campground (though there weren’t any cabins) with just about a dozen campsites that are first come first served. We arrived around four and were the second campers there. We erected our tent made a warm campfire and retired early. Adler and I folded an envelope and placed his tooth inside under his pillow. He was anxious to get to Seattle and go up the Space Needle...

Walking on fallen logs at the campsite

Fingers crossed!