Yellowstone Lake
Trip Start
Jul 14, 2010
1
10
24
Trip End
Aug 14, 2010
Where I stayed
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Friday, July 23, 2010
The ol' air mattress has got a leak and the cold comes up through the ground. We’re managing though. Or again, I am managing better than Andrew cos I roll myself up in the one sleeping bag we have like a sausage roll and Andrew mostly whinges and moans but this isn’t too disturbing with my ear plugs in.
We are moving camp grounds again to Canyon CG.
Today we explored the Yellowstone Lake area with the highlight being a boat ride out on the Yellowstone Lake which is 149 square miles in area and 400ft deep. ($14pp for and hr). People have t-shirts about how expensive it is here but we have found it to be excellent value (which we always find, in comparison to Australia!!). Yellowstone Lake covers the majority of the Yellowstone Volcano Caldera which has recently been mapped by submarine. The Lake bed contains numerous geological features including geysers and lava columns but more importantly, the Lake bed is rising (bulging) due to the underlying magma.
We also visited the magificent 110 year old Lake Hotel with its Georgian Columns and the first gas station in Yellowstone when motor vehicles first entered the park in 1915.
We also visited fishing bridge which was constructed over the head of Yellowstone River at the outlet of Yellowstone Lake. Fishing has been banned from the bridge since 1973 as migrating cuthroat trout use this pasage to spawn in Yellowstone Lake in June each year.
We had the incredible good fortune this evening (or so we were told) to encounter a mother Grizzly with two delightful cubs, grazing on a hillside. They meandered down to the roadside and crossed the road just where we were cowering behind our Jeep. It was an amazing sight!! The mother seemed oblivious to any threat by the 50 people also hiding behind their vehicles. We later heard the bears gravitate to the roadsides as there is much less threat to their young from Mountain Lions.
Later that evening we set up at Canyon CG. which has been the nicest CG so far and that’s saying somthun cos they have all been great. This one is heavily wooded offering great protection from any wind. (Not that there’s been much, coolish at night but pretty pleasant really). Andrew’s made attempts to repair the air mattress with my nail polish and a spare patch (the glue in the repair kit was all dried up!). The things you do when you’re desperate!
We have a resident chipmunk who stopped dead when Andrew psst at him. I have no idea what Andrew said to him..(I didn’t even know Andrew could speak Chipmunk) but man whatever he said sure annoyed the creature. He gave Andrew a serious telling off and skittered about and away only to come back and tell him off again. I was concerned he was going to jump on Andrew’s head and take a bite out of his ear he seemed so irritated but Andrew just laughed at my suggestions he move away from the seat which was 3 ft from the critter.
Comments
Just catching up on your blogs.
Oh, Rick will be so jealous when he finds out you got to see bears.
We drove around and around and around in Yosemite and he never saw one.
Loving the adventure and the pics,
thanks for sharing.