Found where the buffalo (bison) roam ...

Rangers call traffic jams caused by visitors trying to photograph a bear from their car while stopped in the roadway (or poorly parked to the side of the road) "bear jams".  This morning we found a "bison jam" or "buff jam".  We were traveling through the Hayden Valley along the Yellowstone River early in the morning and a large bull bison decided to "protect" his herd of females and their calves by simply standing "guard" in the middle of the road.  Perhaps that was his way of playing with the tourists ... perhaps he was protecting his herd ... perhaps he was just  mindlessly standing on the road for the heck of it ... but it afforded us a wonderful opportunity to photograph the females and their calves as we waited.

Next stop was the Norris Geyser Basin where the Steamboat Geyser is located ... Steamboat Geyser is the world's largest active geyser, but erupts very intermittently (last eruption was in September 13, 2014) ... needless to say, we didn't stick around to wait for an eruption, but we did photograph it blowing off steam and walked through the Norris Geyser Basin where there were a multitude of geysers, fumaroles, hot springs and mud pots.

On to the northern reaches of the Yellowstone National Park, to the Mammoth Hot Springs area, where the hot springs run off mounds and form terraces.  The water creates the mineralized mounds eventually closing off the stream of hot water and creating new portals with new mounds and terraces.  The water forming these hot springs has been drying up ... many of the features are now dry formations.  This may change the landscape in years to come ...

We had lunch at Mammoth Hot Springs Lodge.  The road from Mammoth Hot Springs run through the northern section of the park with dramatic mountainous terrain.  We took a short hike to Wraith Falls, but the falls would have been more significant with greater water.  What was lovely were all the wildflowers lining the trail ... this higher elevation yielded yet more spring wildflowers still in bloom.

The roadway turned southward after Mount Washburn and we returned to our campground at Fishing Bridge.  We continue to be struck by the size and scope of this national park ... the diverse and stunning terrain that all belongs to the public as a result of heroic efforts by Theodore and later by Franklin Roosevelt to protect these amazing public resources ... and we continue to experience the impact of our "loving our national parks to death" as people pour into this park to create their own memories of the wild, and, in doing so, we all make it a little less wild and a little more impacted by our very presence ...

We find ourselves disliking being crowded in an RV ghetto ... living a life as crowded and dense as any large inner city ... struggling to carve out some sense of privacy ... hoping for some taste of the wilderness we just drove through ... we need to move on ... Bambi agrees.

Found the heat ... Geysers, Fumaroles, Springs and Mud Pots

Found the heat ... Geysers, Fumaroles, Springs and Mud Pots

With a fresh day before us, and our propensity to wake early, we headed to the western section of Yellowstone National Park, Old Faithful, early in the morning, determined to create a better day for ourselves.

We arrived at Old Faithful Geyser only to find that he/she was less than faithful.  While Old Faith erupts, on average every 88 minutes ... we sat to watch the eruption only to give up after the predicted time had elapsed and an extra 40 minutes had past ... Old Faithful was less than faithful.  We took off on a hike around the Upper Geyser Basin ... about four miles ... and Old Faithful erupted 2 hours and 39 minutes after its last eruption (must have a large degree of variance ... the statistician in Paul was calculating the number of different ways that the average time and its variance from average could be conveyed to more accurately represent the statistical variability ... and there is a website, Geyser Times, that predicts geyser eruptions ... and they were also off on this prediction).

We saw countless thermal features ... geysers (water erupting), fumaroles (steam emitting), springs (bubbling or flowing hot waters), and mud pots (water mixed with sulphuric acid that decomposes the surrounding soil) all along the Firehole River (and many pouring their heated water into the river).  The colors come from thermophilic bacteria that grow in the ponding water ... the bluer the water, the hotter the water and the color comes from various cyanobacteria ... in some cases, the blue comes from sulphur deposits lining the pond and reflecting the sunlight.  The yellow and orange colors comes from thermophilic bacteria that grow is slightly less hot waters.  Red color frequently comes from iron that might be in the soil surrounding the thermal features.  We both took endless photographs (which we will not inflict on our blog), but we were both entranced and delighted by the artist's palette of colors and the sense of earth's activity beneath our feet.  There are only four thermally geologic areas like this in the world ... one in Russia (Kamchatka), Iceland, Chile ... and, Yellowstone National Park.

We rewarded ourselves with lunch at the Yellowstone Lodge ... and marveled at the architecture, both of us realizing that it would be unlikely that we'd ever see such classic park architectural beauty built again ... and realizing how close this lodge came to burning down just a few years ago.

We did manage to get to the Visitor's Center ... watched a movie (interesting movie about being safe in the park ... featuring clips of visitors who got too close to bison and were thrown and elk who used their antlers on cars who ventured too close).  This time, Old Faithful, went off within 10 minutes of the predicted time and we were in place to capture the burst of water as the eruption occurred (along with hundreds of other tourists ... this is tourist season ... and we are tourists).

We continued our search for a fuse (no luck) and realized after trying another Yellowstone General Store that we were in the midst of a "food desert" ... we'll have to leave the park (no small task for such a large park) to find real food.  Fortunately, we are still relatively well-provisioned, but are getting increasing creative in our dinners.

Bambi is patiently waiting for us ... suffering under the swarms of mosquitoes (but keeping them all outside) and keeping us cool with his magnificent air conditioning ... yes, it is warm in Yellowstone.

Found the crowds ... Hand-cranked and cranky

Found the crowds ... Hand-cranked and cranky

We left the Grand Tetons and headed north to Yellowstone National Park.  We had been successful in reserving an RV campground site at the only reservable RV campground in Yellowstone National Park at Fishing Bridge RV Campground.  Fishing Bridge is along the Yellowstone River, just north of Yellowstone Lake, near the spawning ground for the only native fish in Yellowstone, the cutthroat trout.

We arrived and checked in ... checked into a densely-packed RV "ghetto" ... RVs and travel trailers neck to rear packed into long rows with long walks between the few free-standing restrooms and huge pressure on the registration building which also serves as the laundry and offers the few available showers.  Surely for such relatively high rates, Xanterra (manager of the RV park) could have provided fewer potholes in the roads, more space between camping sites and a few more restrooms and showers?  There are no picnic tables, no grill sites, no campfires allowed ... and no tents or soft-sided camping vehicles (we're in bear country, but this is just Xanterra's effort to offer as few amenities as possible).

We had our first difficulty with Bambi ... the crank that lifts the trailer off of Fritz refused to work.  The crank is powered electrically off of the battery.  Paul was successful in using the alternative hand crank to lift the trailer off of the trailer hitch (much manual labor) and worked on the wiring, hypothesizing that a wire was loose or failing to make a good connection.  Unfortunately, in the process of testing the connection, we blew a fuse ... of course, a rare type of fuse ... and the local RV parts store at Fishing Bridge did not have the required fuse.  We also lost a connector from the bike rack at the rear of Bambi.  Paul was able to locate a nut and washer at the RV parts store that will secure the bike rack together.  One problem solved, one problem needing a new (and seemingly rare) 30 amp slow blow fuse.

We then decided to begin our sight-seeing of Yellowstone, and headed north from Fishing Bridge to see an area called Mud Volcanoes, basically thermal mud pots belching sulphuric acid steam.  In the process, we managed to see a few buffalo alongside the road in the Hayden Valley (the Yellowstone River runs through the Hayden Valley).  A few trumpeter swans lounged in the river ... too far for good camera sighting.

And, we went to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River, south rim to Artist's Point only to discover bus loads of tourists, most of them Chinese tourists, pushing and shoving their way to ideal "selfie" poses in front of the overlooks for the river and falls below.  Two bathrooms for this mass of humanity lent a comic air to the scene (and an ammonia soaked air to the pit toilets).  We did take a trail and walked alongside the south rim of the canyon, but dealing with the crowds just made it all feel wearisome.  We drove along the north rim of the canyon for a bit, but discovered the same level of crowding.

Deciding that we were both rather cranky ... we returned to our campground ghetto, along with hordes of mosquitoes.  We tried our local General Store for food ... discovered only junk food (but it didn't stop us from buying ice cream).  We also discovered that ATT has no cell service and Verizon only limited cell service ... feeling cut off from the world ... feeling even crankier ...

Bambi told us to quit for the day ... go to sleep and try to find our way tomorrow.

Found the black flies and mosquitoes ... and a Three-Toed Woodpecker

Found the black flies and mosquitos ...

Morning temperatures are still quite cool ... we're wearing long pants and grabbing jackets to stay warm (even turned on Fritz's seat warmers yesterday morning).  But, as soon as the sun is fully risen in the sky, the temperatures rise quickly to the mid- to high-70s.  It doesn't seem that hiking in the 70s should feel warm, yet in the direct sun, at higher elevations, in the dry air, it can feel quite warm.

And each day is getting a bit warmer and we opted for a shorter hike today, with less elevation gain (tired bodies from yesterday's hike) out of Coulter Bay to Swan Lake and then to Heron Pond.  On a warm day, perhaps a bit of a mistake, as the still waters of the lake and pond meant the presence of territorial black flies and high-pitched whining mosquitos. The warmer temperatures with the still winds meant that we were accompanied by insects for most of our hike.

We did happen upon a Three-toed Woodpecker (male, Rocky Mountain sub-species) who was going to work flaking a dead tree along the side of the trail.  He did not care at all that we were trying to capture a picture of him ... he simply kept on vigorously flaking away at a log.

Many of the hundreds of wildflowers were blooming in the sun-soaked fields of the lower elevations ... tried to capture in picture a few of them.

An osprey circled high overhead ...

And, a lunch awaited at the Coulter Bay Food Court (I really needed a hamburger and fries for some reason) and a long nap back at Bambi ...

Getting ready to move on to Yellowstone National Park tomorrow ... Paul made sure that Bambi has full propane tanks and Fritz has diesel fuel ... I made sure that we had clean clothes ... off again tomorrow.

The Grand Tetons - From Jenny Lake through Cascade Canyon

The Grand Tetons - From Jenny Lake to Cascade Canyon

Another magnificent day in paradise ... we rode the boat shuttle from the East Boat Dock of Jenny Lake (6,783 elevation) to the West Boat Dock (near Inspiration Rock) to hike the Cascade Canyon Trail to the Forks (area with the trail intersects with the South Fork Trail and the Lake Solitude Trail).  This trail allowed us to penetrate more deeply into the Teton Mountain Range under the shadow of Teewinot Mountain (elevation 12,325 - Shosone for "Many Peaks") and along the raging Cascade Creek. This was our longest hike, steep in the initial ascent into Cascade Canyon, yet gradually rose to the forks of Cascade Canyon as we hiked along Cascade Creek.  

Each step brought another "Kodak moment" as glacial melt waterfalls tumbled off of Teewinot Mountain racing down to Cascade Creek.  Valhalla Canyon was indeed to home to the Nordic Gods.  On the opposite side of the canyon were the jagged and rocky slopes of Mount St. John (elevation 11,430) with enormous rock outcroppings (The Jaw, The Rock of Ages, Storm Point and Symmetry Spire) and the slopes were littered with huge, house-sized boulders likely brought down during one of the periods of volcanic activity as the area runs along the Teton fault line.

Spring wildflowers littered the way ... a yellow-bellied marmot tried to join us for lunch (must have smelled the jerky and Marcona almonds) ... and a moose remained still enough while chomping down on "moose munchies" near the water's edge for us to capture a picture of her (him?).

We were quite grateful to ride the boat shuttle back to the East Boat Dock of Jenny Lake as this has been our longest hike on this trip and the cool wind across the lake brought a couple of tired hikers back to life.

Pictures do not do this hike justice ... just use the pictures to create your own image of Valhalla and you'll have some idea of the beauty of this hike.   And, the data that Paul collects from the GPS may not have been entirely accurate as we were experiencing battery problems (and definitely not traveling 46.3 mph maximum speed).