| We had planned to spend two nights in Madison but it was quite a
crowded site with no room for the slide-out and no facilities, so we decided
to move on and out of the park. Particularly since the temperature was still
below 40°F, it was snowing again, and
the wind was still adding a noticeable chill factor to that. But first we
retraced our steps slightly to pick up on a couple of bits we had been
too cold for the night before. The first was the Firehole Canyon drive,
another side loop past the fast flowing river with the inevitable
waterfalls. |  |
 | We also found a
solitary bedraggled elk grazing on the thin grassland and no doubt shivering
in the conditions as we were. He had got an admiring audience blocking the
road in both directions searching for that elusive perfect photograph. The
elk was somewhat uninterested in posing. |
| One of the famous sites is the Fountain Paint Pots which 'glooped'
satisfactorily. It is quite amazing how each of the sites has completely
different sets of characteristics and colours in its pools and geysers. Only
the steam is universal. |  |
 | Just down
the road were the 'Artists Paint Pots'. Less interesting and not even on our
map. But still the impact upon the landscape was amazing. Here at least you
had a path which went above the site so that you could get an overview. The
steam wasn't quite as thick either. |
| And then back to the hottest thermal area at Norris. This is
about halfway between Old Faithful and Mammoth Hot Springs, although they
are all on the west side of the park, and the continental divide. Again
there are dozens of features but fewer tourists. After the clear blues we
had seen further south, here the blues were more milky. But it still looks
like a scene from a science fiction movie. |  |
 | When the pools
have only appeared in recent years, you sometimes get trees still standing,
now dead of course, having had their root systems boiled or baked, but it
makes you realize how dynamic these areas are. It also underlines the
dangers of not sticking to the boardwalks. Sometimes the crust between you
and a hole full of boiling water is very thin.. |
| Again we had the variety of colours, often more than one with
each pool and waterway. I can see why people would become so interested in
studying such phenomena. |  |
 | And so out of
the park. We had entered from the south but we chose to exit from the east.
This seemed like a good idea at the time but as we approached the exit the
road sort of disappeared and when we were told to follow the grader it
became slightly 'iffy' for a while. There had been a number of rock slides
and with few alternative routes in the area they were rebuilding the road
under the passing vehicles. I'm still carrying some of that mud! |
| Once over the crater rim and past the mountains we started down
from the 8500ft we had been at to the 3500ft we would reach eventually. But
not without first having to pass a succession of spectacular features along
the way. The road was quiet and very good as one would expect given the
number of folk who travel it each year to reach Yellowstone. Cody (our
target) is some 50 miles from the park boundary which is still some 50 miles
from the park centre and it's another 40 to Old Faithful. |  |
 | As soon as you
past one mountain, you round a corner and there is another. This must have
been a very forbidding journey before the roads were built. |
| Finally we approached this long lake which turned out to be a
reservoir feeding a huge irrigation system serving a large part of Wyoming.
Now known as the Buffalo Bill Reservoir, the water is contained by the
Buffalo Bill Dam, the highest concrete dam in the world. (It isn't very
wide.) There was an interesting looking visitor centre with an exhibition
and an audio tour available so we ended the day there before camping in
Cody, just the other side of the last mountain (which we drove through - via
a tunnel). |  |
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