We made the quick ride from Livingston to Gardiner, Montana yesterday morning - drug our tires as slowly as we could but still had to wait an hour until we could check in. Since this park, Rocky Mountain RV Park, is a tad expensive, we didn't want to pay another day for being early. So - we parked the truck/RV right at the street where we turn up into the park and waited for the magic hour of 1 pm. No problem getting settled, spent a nice evening watching people come in. This morning we had planned to go to the visitor's center to gather information and plan our visit. Got to the Albright Visitor's Center around 10am, toured the visitor's center, then decided to go to the hot springs since we were that close. 94% of Yellowstone National Park is in Wyoming, the other 6% is in Montana and Idaho. It was weird to see people stopped at the 'welcome to Montana' sign inside the park.
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| Water bubbling up from deep - steam rising |
Yellowstone National Park is the first national park of the US, started in 1872, and the first national park in the world, this park was the pattern for other countries to emulate. Lots of foreigners - lots! We thought that waiting until the kids go back to school would help the crunch of people - and I would say yes, very few children, but lots and lots of foreigners. I just read a statistic from the park superintendent that in 2010 there were 281 MILLION visitors to all the national parks and sites, of which 5 million visited Yellowstone. And this park is only open from May 1 to about October 31st, closing down all but this north entrance road we traveled in on, for the winter. There is winter access - snowmobiling, skiing, having the north entrance as it's hub.
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| Beautiful Canary Spring and waterfall |
Long story short - Yellowstone is situated over a huge active volcanic area, where water that seeps into the ground from rain and snow will heat and escape as steam or very hot liquid up to the surface. Hence you have geyers (Old Faithful the most recognized) hot springs, mud pots (bubbling mud holes), steam vents and lots of other things to do with volcanos. Mammoth Hot Springs area was a haven for people coming here in the late 1800's for health and medicinal reasons - all that has ceased with the advent of conservation. If you get caught touching or walking on any area you aren't supposed to be on - well, big time trouble for you. Did the loop trail looking and seeing the hot springs and travertine formations from the boiling water. Signs posted every where that says do not touch due to scalding/burning. And the smell! Sometimes you got a good whiff of sulphur then cleared up. Wasn't a huge amount of people on the loop trail, we did see a crunch of folks at the visitor's center, tho. Dave and I both said that this Hot Springs area had a definite WOW factor - we have never seen anything like this before. Can't wait to see the rest of the park.
Now we are back at the RV, needing Donna to come help us figure out what trails to hike, what to see. She was a great tour guide when she visited while we were in Glacier - we need her to come here!
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| Boardwalk over hot springs - very hot! |
Will look over the brochures, find the best fit of day hikes and sights to see. This park is known for it's wildlife viewing, one of the rangers gave us a heads up on the best areas to go see elk, grizzly and black bears, wolves, bison, moose. And speaking of elk - last evening while sitting relaxing in the RV - I happened to look out the back window and thought I saw 2 deer with pretty large racks on their heads. No - found out this morning that it was elk - should be pretty common within the next week on for 2 months to see.
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