Today was our first full day at Yellowstone. The Park is enormous and full of many unexpected things. In 1988 there was a huge forest fire that destroyed thousands of acres of trees in the park. You can still see many of them still standing. The lodge pines are very strong and do not fall unless their roots are destroyed (by wind or earthquakes). New trees are now growing and thriving near the roads.
There was still lots of snow in the park. Some snowbanks were taller than me.
We had very ambitious plans for the day. There are 3 "self guided" tours to take via car. We though wecould do all 3 (HA!!). So we headed for Old Faithful. We made several stops on the way. At the West Thumb Geyser Basin we followed a boardwalk along Lake Yellowstone and bubbling geysers. We saw a newborn elk (2 hours old) and its mother--so cute and soo big! Another elk was resting under a tree not far from the boardwalk, just watching us.
On to Old Faithful . We had lunch first before watching Old Faithful shoot up. In 1995 an earthquake in the area caused Old Faithful to stop for 3 months. Many thought it was the end for O F, but it resumed . After watching the geyser, we hiked 3 miles up to a lookout overlooking the area (200 ft. climb, up and around. That led to our favorite activity--coffee and ice cream! We got to see O F shoot up again, and this was a better view . Here it is just getting ready.
This is a bit off center, but you get the idea. We were as close as allowed. Keith took better pictures!
On the way back to our campground, we saw an added bonus:
We were so close that I couldn't get the whole, full rainbow in one picture!
Then, as we were backing into our campsite, I saw a gray wolf in the woods across the one way road our trailer was on. It scampered away before we could get a picture.
We didn't even finish one of the tours today. More to do tomorrow....
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