Day 8 - Bison Backups, Peaks, and More

We are barely in the park, but I'm starting the blog entry because I have nothing else to do. We've been sitting/barely moving for about 10 minutes. We assumed there was some kind of animal backup, since this has happened a few other times, though not this extreme. Thankfully, some lady just drove by going the other way and yelled out, "Bison!" We are wondering if there are some blocking the road as well as right off the side. There are signs everywhere indicating that vehicles are not to stop along the side of the road to view wildlife and to use pullouts, but no one seems to pay any attention to that. We're now going but 3 miles an hour. At this point, there is no way that the backup isn't all the way back at the entrance, so hopefully some rangers have gotten involved. We just increased to 15 and climbing. Stay tuned! Slower again. But we were just saying it could be worse: we could be on 290. At least we have mountains and trees galore out all the windows. Both kids are drawing. Ethan is making a great scene of Old Faithful. He has a crowd of tiny people and is interspersing random people in between like Santa, a man in a banana costume, Trump, Snape, a unicycler, and more. It's pretty funny. We have been in this jam for over a half hour and haven't seen what is causing it. I'm laughing thinking about how my dad's anger would have been bubbling at this point with outbursts every once and a while. There may have been some slapping of the steering wheel with a "God Dammit," followed by a scolding "Jeff!" from my mom. Lisa would be threatening vomit from the backseat, Malia would be telling us all what it probably is up ahead, and I would be sitting quietly in the middle seat, praying the rosary to the tune of Michael Bolton songs. :)

40 minutes later...we are moving! It was a big caravan of bison with about 5 babies. It was adorable, but I can't believe it caused that much of a backup. The must have been crossing the road at some point. You can't rush bison. 

To get out of the car after the unexpected traffic, we stopped at Gibbon Falls. It's not a trail, but sits right off the road, and there is a path built up along the road to see it. It's very pretty. Not very tall, but quite wide, and the mountains behind it makes for a great view. We were able to grab our first picture of the four of us here. We need to be better about asking people for a picture. I'm regretting that we didn't get a family photo in front of Grand Prasmatic Spring. 

After Gibbon Falls, we made a pit stop and then continued north. Unfortunately, we hit another traffic jam of sorts, this time due to construction. The road was torn up and unpaved, so it was slow going. And it was only one way. Luckily, we must have gotten in line behind the "pace car" and didn't have to stop on the one end. It was probably only 3 miles long, but it took us a good 20 minutes. 

We found a spot to have a picnic lunch. I believe it was called Obsidian Cliff. There was a cliff of black rock with a lot of boulders at the bottom. We shared a picnic table with a couple from California with a small daughter. They had just gotten in last night and are staying in Gardiner, which is at the north entrance. We said good luck heading south in the construction. 

The kids really wanted to find another creek to swim in, but we wanted to find a hike first to work our bodies a bit before a water break. The thing about the map they give you at Yellowstone is that it doesn't have trailheads on it. There are places marked where you pull off the road for different sights, but you kind of just happen upon hikes by driving past a trailhead sign. (Will says the website isn't very helpful in terms of trails, either, and he wants Diane's company to take over the website and fix it. Get on that, Diane.) We saw a sign up the road for Bunsen Peak, so we pulled off and parked. The sign said it was 2.1 miles, meaning it would be 4.2 miles round trip. That is less than what we did yesterday, so we set off. The only one not too sure was Eleanor. She can go long distances, but she does it slowly, and talking - a lot. Every twenty steps she takes a water break, or a Red Vine break, or a picking sage break, or a "can I take a picture of this flower" break. It can take forever. Shortly after starting the hike, Ethan and I made a pact to make it to the summit, provided it the trail didn't turn too dangerous. 

The beginning section of the hike was a lot of meadow just filled with sage bushes. They were everywhere. It was also filled with mosquitos and horse flies. We bathed in deet to discourage the mosquitos, and it helps a bit with the flies. Some of them just circle your head for a while. I find running fast and screaming a little helps. For a while, Ethan and I would walk ahead and then stop to wait for Will and Eleanor. Early on, there were couple of spots with a narrower trail with maybe a 45 degree angle drop off the side. Not as bad as yesterday, though, and Will was able to do it. When we had gone almost a mile, I told Will we were going to go ahead. He kept going for a bit more with Eleanor before turning back. Ethan and I trudged along. It was a decent incline then with a lot of switchbacks as we climbed. One section was all pine trees close to the trail on both sides. It smelled like Christmas! Toward the end, the entire trail is made from large, broken rocks. Ethan said, "They should call these the Rocky Mountains." I responded, "Well, they do call these the Rockies." He didn't know it was the same range as in Rocky Mountain National Park. I explained that the mountains in Glacier and Banff were also part of the Rockies. The more you know. Anyway, we huffed and puffed, and finally made it to the top. There were few people there already, resting at this little log house. You couldn't go in the house, but it had a sign with the Peak's name and elevation. When Ethan saw "Elev," he said, "Wait, there's an elevator?!" We wish! At the top, we took some pictures, video, and just took in the view. It was pretty awesome. We could see several other peaks as well as the Mammoth Spring area down the road. It's rare on these trips that we are able to get to the very top of a mountain, so it was awesome to summit. I knew I could count on my hiking buddy. 

I actually like going up more than I like going down. I like feeling the burn, as they say, and the challenge of doing something hard. And, really, going down is harder on my body. It hurts my knees and that's when I feel rubbing of my toes inside my hiking boots. But since there wasn't an elevator, we had no choice but to go down. I started at timer, and it took us 45 minutes to go down. The whole trip took us an hour and fifty minutes, which means the way up didn't take us that much longer than the way down, especially since part of the way up was waiting for Eleanor to catch up. And we were at the top for at least 10 minutes, too. 

Of course, this 2 hour hike took up a big chunk of the day since it was close to 4 when we were done. Ethan really needed a bathroom, so we went north to the Mammoth Springs area that has all kids of shops and things. After bathroom duty (and doody) was taken care of, we walked over to the Mammoth Spring formations. I had read that the spring formations here were unlike anything else in Yellowstone. And the book was right. We saw this crazy, white thing that looked looked like icy stairs. At the top, there was water coming out and another spot at the bottom, too. It was cool enough to take video of. Again, it looked like another planet. It's wild to see these features juxtaposed with the green pine trees beyond. 

At this point, we needed to decide if we were going to go back the way we came (with the construction) or head east and do the entire top loop, knowing we probably wouldn't stop too much, but also knowing we may not have another chance to see some of the things along this route. We decided for the latter. Mammoth Springs is where you go to from the North Entrance. Since we knew the drive would take us some time, we grabbed dinner at a "grill" in the Mammoth Springs area. It was not great food, and NP food never seems to be in our experience. But waiting until after at least 8 for dinner didn't seem like a great option. 

I am actually typing from this part of the blog now from the northern part of the loop. I am typing blindly while looking at the ridiculous views. I am SO glad we took this route. It is GORGEOUS. There are really expansive views of the mountain peaks. It's different from other parts of the park. First, we went downhill quite a bit and made good time across to Tower Falls, which is at the northeast corner of the loop. At one point, a coyote went across the road just in front of us. Then, right before Tower Falls, a fox ran across the road. As we walked to down the short path to the falls, we could see people taking pictures, and they were pointing them right off the path. We looked to our left, and there was Mr. Fox, chilling in the tall grass, just a few feet away. Snapped a quick pic and skedaddled. He went across the path, full of people, again and went down the hill. That was our first fox encounter. Oh, and I forgot that we also saw mountain goats today on the way to Mammoth Springs. We basically spot all our wildlife by seeing other people taking pictures of wildlife. Sadly, we missed a moose today, I think. People were on the opposite side of the road from us taking pics. We slowed down and someone said moose. We had people behind us, though, and there wasn't a pullout to park safely at, so we had to keep moving. Will saw something but thought it was a deer. Now he's mad we may have had a chance for our first moose. We still have a couple days. For those of you keeping track, we've now seen plenty of bison, mountain goats, elk, a coyote, and a fox. I also saw a prairie dog at Tower Falls, but no one else did. Later, we saw a buck out in a field. It was hard to tell, even with the zoom lens, but it had antlers, but didn't have the darker face of an elk.

We are now almost to our last stretch of road, heading to the east entrance. It will be close to 9 when we get home, and both kids could use a shower. We had a later start today and were delayed by the traffic, so I guess that makes sense. It's just so hard to skip seeing things. And...we just ran into what appears to be another wildlife traffic jam. We have officially come full circle. Ha! It appears to be the same caravan of bison. Thankfully, it was a lot shorter slowdown. 

And now, mystery writer would like to write about the hike too. But mystery writer may not be as mysterious now since only two of us went up all the way. Here s/he is:

Howdy from the middle of Yellowstone National Park. Currently you probably know who I am considering the fact that Will is driving, Michelle just finished typing, and Eleanor is totally freaked out by her previous attack. She was listening to Disney princess music, and then she started screaming. She screamed three times, shocking everyone in the car. Will stopped the car, and everyone starting wondering what was happening, and then she shouted, "THERE'S A BEE IN THE CAR!!" I stared at her and she started pointing to the floor, where I saw a bug that was lying on it's back. It flipped over, revealing an orange and black striped back, and crawled out of sight. Oh, and I forgot about the sound. News flash: Eleanor kept screaming and screeching, the whole time. Long story short, we got the bug out of the car. Now, what was I supposed to talk about? Oh yes, Bunsen Peak. Me (totally not Ethan) and Michelle hiked up to a peak today. You can see pictures on her Instagram feed. So all four us hiked about 0.8 miles, and Will and Eleanor decided to bail out, and Michelle and Ethan went on (like usual). It was very rocky, and very tiring. Not to mention exhilarating. We went up over 8,000 feet, but the view was totally worth it. We finished our dinky bottle of water up at the top, meanwhile Will and Eleanor were in water galore down at the van. And now, mystery writer would like to write about the hike too. But mystery writer may not be as mysterious now since only two of us went up all the way. Here s/he is: The hike down was much faster, and we go down quick.