Parched Terraces

[July 13]
Today we decided to finish the upper loop. Our first big destination was Mammoth Springs. On the way there we stopped at two of our favorite type of stops… Waterfalls. One of them had water cascading along a large rock, not really a falls but still quite pretty. The other was a classic wide waterfalls, it had three big tiers and was wonderful.

We eventually made it to Mammoth, home of Fort Yellowstone. There is a village there for park employees; it reminded us of the “Other’s” village in Lost. There were a bunch of Elk loitering around the town; we didn’t stick around to see what they were selling…

We went to Minerva Terrace, the grandest and most dominant mineral spring at Mammoth. Unfortunately it, along with the vast majority of all the springs at Mammoth, is now dormant but are expected to come back again in the future. The terraces are still a spectacle to see but rather blah without the pools of water to give them life. We walked around the various trails and did get to see of few of the springs that were still active. Such pretty colors.

Next we drove to the Norris Geyser Basin. It’s much like the Old Faithful Basin but without regular geyser eruptions, seemingly less active. We’ve about had our fill of geysers by now but Terry was still keen to see the pools so we walked around the upper basin. As we approached Steamboat Geyser, it was churning away. A Park Ranger was giving a talk about steamboat geyser. He told a funny story about how one of his colleague’s first day as a ranger at Norris. She was standing right where we were at, next to the geyser, and talking about the geyser, when it went boom. It had erupted. It had hit over 400 foot high, what a scary first day at work! It hasn’t erupted in many years and today (unfortunately or fortunately depending) it didn’t go off either.

After Norris we went down south a bit to go see Gibbon Falls. To Anna it was just a good falls but to Terry, it was probably his favorite. It had many cascading levels and pieces. Quite a spectacular falls.

We drove back towards Canyon via the center of the two loops. One last waterfall to see. We took the scenic drive to Virginia Falls. We had one false trail that we started hiking on before we realized it wasn’t the correct trail at all. We got back on track and saw the falls. Another great falls. In case you can’t tell, we’re both rather fond of waterfalls. Anyone want to put a waterfalls in pour back yard?

We went back to Canyon village to walk around and then have dinner at the Canyon grill, more yummy chili. Then back to our campsite to kick back and enjoy a big fire.