We found out in the morning that the road to Mammoth Hot
Springs, which had been closed for construction, was finally open again to the
public. So, we decided to head up there
before it closed again. We stopped at
the Woodside Bakery to grab some sandwiches and head off into Yellowstone. To say that the day unfolded like an
unimaginable dream would be an understatement.
There is no way that we could ever have planned or even thought up what
was about to happen. I asked God to show
us His wonders, and He came through above and beyond!
Just inside the park entrance, we pulled over, so I could
take a picture of what looked like an eagle’s nest high upon the mountain. At the time, I didn’t realize that there was
a bull elk walking through the field in front of me. It was a good distance off, but I had been
waiting to see a bull, as all we’d see so far were cows. So, after snapping a few pictures as he
walked in the morning sunlight, I had an idea.
I asked my wife to stopped a little ways up the road, so I could hike
through the forest and get in front of him.
I had to literally squeeze between the young lodgepole pines, which were
so thick and close together that they snagged on my clothing as I passed. After a couple of minutes of squeezing
between trees, trudging through the snow, and leaping across fallen trees, I
finally came to a little clearing on the top of the hill. Immediately to my left was a small herd of
cows. They looked completely surprised
to see me pop through the trees, not so quietly I’m ashamed to admit, but they
didn’t run off. They just stared at me.
All of a sudden, within a hundred feet of my right, I heard
an elk bull bugle a warning call. I
hadn’t even seen the other herd, but apparently they had seen me. A group of cows and fawns emerged from the trees
and began to scamper down the hill, followed by a huge bull elk. He stopped, looked right at me, bugled again,
and then raced down the hill to catch up with the others. I was sad that I scared them off. I hadn’t meant to do that, but it was an exhilarating
experience to be that close to them.
After squeezing back through the trees, we headed on again. At the very next bend in the road, there was
a group of cars stopped on the side of the road with people all crouched down
taking pictures of something in the field below. As we slowed down, I noticed that they were
all looking at the fleeing elk herd that I had just scared. So, all of those people should thank me for
giving them that experience!
Our first planned destination was Gibbons Falls. It’s a neat waterfall that cuts through the
mountain and then fans out before plummeting into the river below. They have an overlook built, so you can view
the waterfall from above as it cascades down.
The morning sunlight was just right to shine on the rushing water, and a
rainbow arched in front of the falls arrayed in all of its colors. We took a few minutes to just enjoy the
roaring sound of the falls before moving on again up the road.
That was when we were blessed with our next unexpected
encounter. A very large group of cars
were parked along the road and in every pullout. We stopped, because this usually means some
sort of animal sighting. A crowd of this
size could only mean something rare and special. We joined the throng of people staring across
the river, cameras trained on a splotch of trees. Piecing together the murmurs, we learned that
a grizzly bear sow and her two cubs were hanging out on the other side of the
river, eating and enjoying the morning sun.
We found a good spot and waited.
It took about ten minutes for us to catch our first glimpse before they
disappeared in the trees, and even then it was only the back and backside of
the mother. We moved further down river,
following their path, and caught a few glimpses of the cubs, chomping on some
grubs. The grizzlies kept moving down
river, and we kept following until they finally made a brief appearance right
in front of us. The mother bear was big
with a head the size of a car tire. The
cubs, who someone said were about one year old, were pretty plump and
fluffy. One cub was the grayish-brown of
a grizzly, the other was dark, dark brown almost black.
After that the bears changed direction and headed back up
river. So, again we all followed, when
all of a sudden they lumbered down the hill toward the river. So, we watched them as they walked along the
river bank in full view, the various shades of grayish-brown on display in the
sunlight. The cubs dashing ahead as the
mother slowly brought up the rear. Then,
the cubs would stop to explore and play, while the mother would stop to dig up
and eat something from the ground.
Slowly, slowly they made their way along the river and then up the
mountain.
We weren’t sure how we’d ever top that once in a lifetime
opportunity. We had heard people say
that they had been coming to Yellowstone ten years without ever seeing a bear,
and we saw one on our first time. We
stopped next at the Beryl Spring, which is the hottest thermal pool in
Yellowstone. While not a large pool, it
was releasing an enormous amount of steam into the cool air. From there, we stopped to scarf down our
sandwiches and then off again toward Mammoth Hot Springs.
When we got to Norris, we found ourselves in a traffic jam
as a herd of bison meandered across the road.
One bison went out first and stood in the middle of the road. She just stood there, not moving, looking
completely uninterested. Slowly, slowly
the other bison walked across the road, but that one didn’t move. We figured she must have been the crossing
guard. When about half the herd, which
was really large, had made it across the road, another younger bison stopped
next to the crossing guard, and the crossing guard walked on across the road. That younger bison then stood completely
still in the middle of the road while the rest of the herd crossed. We assumed that she must have been a crossing
guard in training.
While the road to Mammoth Hot Springs was open, it still had
construction on it. So, we got stuck in
a long line of cars, sitting and waiting for 45 minutes for our turn to drive
down the one-lane road past the construction.
Many heated words and honks were exchanged between our car and the pilot
car, which was doing 2 mph. We finally
made it through the construction and nearly drove right by the Mammoth Hot
Springs. They were not exactly what we
were expecting. For one thing, they were
almost completely dried up. They just
looked like a big white hill. The hot
springs are divided into terraces that feature different pools and structures,
each one unique. My favorite was the
Mound Spring. It had many different
formations of limestone and thermophile that made it fascinating. Not to mention the slow stream of water
cascading down the surface would ripple and glint in the sunlight. The sound was peaceful and calming, like a
waterfall pouring into a small brook.
We moved on up the hill to see some other terraces, when all
of a sudden I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I grabbed my wife to stop her, as a grey
fox bounded out of the snow right toward me.
He veered off behind a hill, so I pursued him down the walkway. He ran straight at the walkway, dived under
it, and then kept going on the other side.
His fur was a beautiful mixture of reds, grays, blacks, and whites. He seemed unperturbed by my presence as he
disappeared into the brush. It ranked up
there with the bear for coolness factor.
On a whim, my wife wanted to drive through the small town
of Mammoth Hot Springs, so we decided to make a quick tour and then be on our
way. We no sooner entered the town, then
we saw two huge bull elks eating grass near a café. We pulled over to watch them, having never
been this close to them before. All of a
sudden, the bigger of the two bulls charged the other one. They locked antlers and began to have a
shoving and twisting match around a small bush.
The park ranger that was there with us said that they were just
hose-playing. This might be a real fight
during mating season, but that was long over.
The more we watched them circle and shove each other, the more they
looked like two brothers wrestling in their parents living room. As they played, they made these high-pitched
grunts and yelps. This went on for
several minutes, until one of them lost interest and walked off around the
corner to find some grass that wasn’t trampled down by wrestling elk. We were amazed by the enormity of these bulls. Their backs were level with the
top of the cars they were passing, and their antlers stuck up past the roof of
our SUV.
It was getting late, and we had a long drive back to the
entrance of the park, so we headed back.
We got stuck in the construction traffic again going the other way, and
then it was home free. It was pitch
black before we made it back to the gate, so I asked my wife to pull over in
one of the turnouts by the river. There
were a million stars in the sky, something we don’t ever get to see in the
bright lights of the city…layer upon layer…as far as the eye could see. As we stood there looking at the beautiful
array of stars scattered across the bluish-black sky, we started to hear
bugling in the distance. The call of one
elk bull was answered by another directly across the river from us. Back and forth they called to each
other. The night was so quiet that we
could even hear antlers clacking in the darkness as two bulls wrestled with
each other.
We finished our night by grabbing a pizza at Pete’s Pizza
and heading back to the hotel to eat it.
