9:00AM comes early in West Yellowstone, (especially since it was 8:00AM Arizona time) and it was off in the mini-van for great adventures. Considering our hotel location and duration of our stay, the general layout of Yellowstone stinks. Each day we would have to travel the same entry strectch of the road until we reached a braching point in the road, but the first day was easy. We chose the northern loop as our day's excursion. Travelling east into the park, we traveled along the Madison river, passing several fishermen and, at one point, a small herd of young elk. Yellowstone is justifiably famous for being a great place to see wildlife. While watching the elk, a large coyote was spotted on the opposite side of the road. It was big enough I would have sworn it was a wolf, but it had distinctly coyote-looking features. Our first waypoint was Madison, which is nothing but a fork in the road, where we turned somewhat north towards the Norris basin, a large area of volcanism. Norris Basin was full of hot springs and such, but not everyone in the crew was up to the one-mile hike and so I had to cut it short, missing one of the most active geysers in the basin. I did manage to see a minor eruption of the steamboat geyser, which hasn't had a major eruption since 1981; however, they say when it does erupt, it is twice as tall as Old Faithful. The day's first itinerary change came when we redirected ourselves towards Canyon village, near the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. We had planned on heading north, directly to Mammoth and the Mammoth hot springs - something I really wanted to see, but instead headed east towards the village of Canyon. Our new goal wasn't sightseeing, but food. We arrived at the village, the day was beautiful, the weather perfect and the picnic tables outside beckoned to me. Unfortunately, everyone else wanted to eat indoors at the cafeteria. I couldn't stand the thought and grabbed a sandwich at the deli shop and ate by myself outside. That is, if you consider being surrounded by hundreds of foreigners being "alone". During my lunch two squirrels began to come to me and beg food. Clearly neither was starving. I named the smaller one Kiki as it had the same, curious expressions and mannerisms as our travelling companion Kiki. After finishing my lunch, the others were still eating, so I took a stroll around the area. Emerging from the back of the store, I noticed a big traffic jam on the road to Lake Junction,. These usually indicate that some animal can be seen, so I sauntered over. Three huge antlered elk were relaxing in the meadow and pond. A ranger was trying to direct traffic and hundreds of people were watching. As I passed some Japanese tourists, I overhead them ask what the animal was. I hope they understood my "Are wa elku desu." One of the elk had antlers that stood taller than Chu-Wan. After the family finished eating, I drove them over to the elk so that they could see them. Then we took the drive to the overlook of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Nowhere near as impressive as the real Grand Canyon, it is nonetheless an impressive sight. We headed north to Tower, where we took a short hike to the waterfalls, then back to the parking lot. While we waited for Johnny and Tiffany to get ice cream, a ranger started to give a talk on the wolves in Yellowstone, how to identify them and where to see them. (Answer: No chance if you stick to the roads) Continuing on towards Mammoth, we came across another traffic jam, this time a female moose was standing in a stream. We got out to look at it and take some pictures. Few people noticed, but a small calf was sleeping near the stream's edge. A ranger was shooing away all the people who tried to get too close to the animal. The moose showed her contempt for the crowd by really letting out a long and well-considered urination into the stream for all to see. I noticed that rangers were dispatched to animal sights to keep people from violating the minimum distance rules imposed in the park. When we reached Mammoth, I was more than a little disappointed. The brochures and pictures (and my memories) all showed a huge multicolored terraces, with colored water cascading over them, building them up day by day. The reality was huge dry terraces. There was a large network of wooden ramps leading to the top of the terraces, where steam could be seen, so off I went, leaving the others behind. Although I didn't think the altitude was that high, the stairs really winded me, but when I go to the top I was rewarded with a view of: a small steaming pool of muddy water. The terraces were dead. Other visitors were complaining, and one explained that, just three years earlier, these were overflowing. None of the guidebooks said anything about the death of the Mammoth Hot Springs, but dead they were. Mammoth was our last stop of the day, and we returned to West Yellowstone. Chu-Wan and I went to dinner at Gusher Pizza. Johnny went along with us, but when the waitress said " Just the two of you?" I looked behind me to correct her and realized that Johnny had disappeared. I went looking and saw him in the bar, where the bartender was saying to him, "You're over 21? And you're from Taiwan?" I decided this was where Johnny had disappeared to the night before and decided to leave him undisturbed. The pizza was very much like the boxed pizzas that my dad made at home when I was growing up. That is to say, it wasn't that bad, but it wasn't restaurant-quality either. Still, it was a pizza on a trip where I didn't expect to have any at all. One thing I noticed, West Yellowstone had "casinos" and there were gambling machines in the pizza place and other locations. I must check to see what kind of gambling is legal in Montana these days.
|
