Yellowstone: Roosevelt Country

Roosevelt Country is less frequented by tourists because it has few geological features marked out for walking and viewing, but people love driving through here because bison hang out this time of year and bear sightings can be common. There's also lots of fly-fishing, the Roosevelt Lodge (a quaint turn of the century log structure with a stand-up bar and seated dining), tiny log cabins for rent by tourists or use by employees, and horses and "stagecoach" rides for hire (in roofed, open-sided, horse-drawn, Yellowstone-yellow metal coach-lookalikes pulled across the plains and meadows of the area--think Yellow Cab meets Walls Fargo). This huge area is in the northeast corner of the park. Another wonderfully sunny day to enjoy.

Lamar Valley Bison. Note all the people on the beach of the river. By the time you get to that level, you're so low to the opposing bank that the bison become just humps of brown above the grassline.


Cruising across the river...and stopping.

Another bison jam, this time near Silver Gate, the northeast entrance of the park.

These bones have been here so long that a trail spur leads to them. We presumed it was a sheep or elk, but it may have been a hiker.

Yellowstone River, as seen from the Specimen Ridge trail.

Columns of rock, possibly basalt, line the upper canyon of the river here. They reminded me of enormous pencils stacked against a wall.

Munch time for a bird.

Another view of the Yellowstone River, this time from the hill at the end of the trail; the little bit of rapids is from the creek spillout of Tower Falls to the west (right). In the center of the shot, at the far side of the curve in the water, is a small beachhead and low cliff area...

...which is just about where I was standing for this photo of the river looking the other direction. The tallest part of the hill in the background is the end of the Specimen Ridge trail hike where we were in the previous photos.

Tower Falls from the viewing platform. Sadly, the trail to the base of the falls was closed by storm damage.

A black bear claws and digs at the earth on an embankment near the road. Cars were backed up ten deep and people were out of them, getting photos, way too close...

...as seen here when the bear started shambling up to cross the road. You can barely see its back and ears behind the tall grass beyond the Elk Creek sign, but I'll be those folks ten feet away got a good angle. Note that one lady high-tailing it across the street. The bear took little notice of any of them, and we left everyone flocking to the other side of the street to follow it for more photos.

Yellowstone: Canyon Country

The "grand canyon of Yellowstone" is what keeps people coming to Canyon Country--a deep, creamy yellow canyon carved by the Yellowstone River, direct from where it starts miles away at a placid Lake Yellowstone, before it becomes a raging force down two falls (Upper and Lower), and wends north to ultimately meet the Missouri. Other highlights are Hayden Valley, a lovely green swath full of bison this time of year, and a particularly pungent collection of hot springs.

All artists love Lower Falls, here seen from a north rim pullout. There are also lots of viewing places down near the head (brink) of the falls along a winding trail down. The south side of the canyon offers its own views, some with boardwalk steps that cling to the side of the canyon.

Yellowstone Canyon, as seen from the brink of Lower Falls. The sun that day was glorious.

A bison jam in Hayden Valley: traffic is stopped for two miles in both directions.

Bison were meandering across the road toward grazing lands along the river. They do this a lot--back and forth throughout the day.

Although it ultimately took us 40 minutes to get past the moving blockade, it was hard to get irritated at the delay...I'd rather stop for bison than for 5 0'clock traffic any day.

Two babies. The caramel-brown one is younger, a later arrival that may have trouble in the winter if it doesn't get really strong really soon.

No worries for this crowd even with cars piling up on the road. The dust cloud is from a bison rolling in a wallow.

This pair forced us to a halt by walking directly in front of our truck--and stopping! Note the size difference of the male (back) and the female (front). She looked straight at us as they paused for a bit, then they slowly moved on as if hitched together. Those two people up ahead are park employees. They show up at heavy traffic stoppages to make sure animals like bison and bears aren't harassed by photo-hungry tourists and that no one is injured; they don't do much to hurry or guide the animals along. Critters run the show in Yellowstone.

The pair paused and looked at us again near the other side of the road. Still no moving for our truck until they were completely off the pavement...with the male's butt within scritching distance through my window (no, I didn't).

The bison seemed to enjoy walk into traffic and stopping. This one held up the line for several minutes. Another stood in front of a motorhome for more than ten minutes before it decided to move on. Generally neither lane of traffic could move, because a bison is just as likely to turn around and go back as to continue the way it is facing. A little later another one stopped in the road because its right forefoot was sore...it held it up gingerly and finally limped away and paused again just a short distance from the road for another rest.

Canyon Country has its own set of hot springs and fumaroles with interesting names like Mud Volcano and Sour Spring. This is Dragon's Mouth, a wonderfully noisy and active spring that spits water through the opening in belching, steaming waves. The entire area is highly sulfurous, making a great stench as well.

Bison own the land...even along a walk that thousands of people use to reach other springs in the area. This one just hung around his wallow, chewing cud and flicking dust onto his back with his tail.

I could have been at a zoo taking his photo, except that there's no fence between us. Thank goodness for zooms.

Churning Caldron [sic], one of the many appropriately named hot springs in this area. This spring was really fun to watch--it boiled up incessantly like some soup gone mad.

Sulfur Spring, one of the world's most acidic bodies of water. It's pH is like battery acid. The gorgeous hills in the backdrop are at the edge of Yellowstone's famous caldera--volcanic crater--that extends for miles. That hill there is actually still rising and falling like an inflating and deflating balloon because of the volcanic action that continues beneath Yellowstone.

Another view of the Yellowstone River. Beyond the falls, it's generally shallow, wide, and quiet, with very few rapids.

Yellowstone: Mammoth Country

To me, the name Mammoth Country conjures images of woolly elephants roaming expansive plains, or at least the bones of the same found in layer after layer of sediment. Here in Yellowstone it just means BIG, in reference to the heaping mounds of calcium and limestone deposits built by boiling, mineral-laden springs that have seeped and flowed and deposited their microscopic debris over the millennia. It's like an inside-out cavern creation--hot water instead of cold, flowing bottom up instead of dripping top down, exposed to the air instead of hidden underground.

The area is appropriately called "terraces," and they change all the time...the water temps, winds, and general surface structure make the water flow in different directions even day to day. Sometimes the water flows in the same swath long enough for its minerals to form ridges that become ledges and walls, creating shallow or deep pools. You can always tell an active or "live" part of a terrace spring: colors like orange, brown, or yellows (created by heat-loving micro-critters) and slick, bright white (too hot to sustain life, pure calcium deposits) show areas that are thriving with water flow. Areas of gray, boulder-like color, and dry white spots no longer have water over them, leaving the mineral deposits behind in "dead" hills that might come alive again at any time as the waters shift.

This year this area of activity is quiet--no burping mud pits, hissing fumaroles, or exploding geysers. The waters bubble a little (activity has been bigger in previous years), you can sometimes hear the water dribble off a ledge, but it's mostly flow of a quarter inch of water down a wall. The usual smell of sulfur and other minerals pervades.

The terraces seen from a distance--not very inspiring until you get up close.

At the upper terraces.

"I told you the earth was flat!" Water streams over an unseen terraced edge.

Another angle of the top terrace pool, with lovely Mt. Everts in the background. That mountain was our view from the campground, less than a mile north of here.

The other side of the terraced pool.

A little farther down.

Snow white and boiling hot.

At the lower terraces. Orange means microbes, white means none, but hot water was still flowing.


A fantastic expanse of dry, "dead" calcium deposits was right next to wet, living flows.

A close-up of Palette Springs in this area--the living and the dead.

A cascade of water at the top of the lower terrace, also visible two shots above.

In the Norris region of Mammoth Country, you can enjoy nearly two miles of boardwalk over geyser territory.

Loved the colors of this mini marsh among the gray grounds surrounding it.


Two crystal-clear springs shimmer in the sun. They're only about two feet wide.

A distance shot of Mt. Bunsen, a hill we later hiked.

The early part of the trail.

Urg...it got steeper pretty quick.

Two miles later, we reach the top for spectacular views of the valley. We're looking toward the same road where I snapped the shot of Bunsen from a distance. It's the main thoroughfare through Mammoth Country.

More fire damage and recovery.

At the top of Bunsen is an communications center--microwave, cell, etc. Note the federally-funded antenna made of a Home Depot bucket and foil tape.