I think someone stole my pick-i-nick basket…

10/15/08

Come morning, my new friend, Tina, had to leave the Yellowstone in order to meet some friends in Seattle. We exchanged contact information, and since she was planning on being there for a few days, I told her I’d give her a call when I caught up and meet up with the group.

Being at Yellowstone is kind of like being on another planet that sort of resembles Earth. It’s difficult to be in any one spot and not be able to see steam coming out of a vent in the ground somewhere. In some areas, the geothermal activity is concentrated and the minerals that exit the ground have formed vast structures. Mammoth Springs took me about two hours to explore.

This is important. This means something...

After Mammoth Springs, I worked my way South through the park, stopping at the sights I had passed in darkness the night before. Prismatic Springs, Paint Pots, the Midway Geyser Basin, and Mammoth Hot Springs were my favorites.

So that you’re not scrolling down this page for the nest few hours, I would again suggest that you visit the Flickr Page to see the rest of the pictures.

After making my way almost down to Old Faithful again, the weather took a turn for the worse began to rain. Fortunately, I had seen much of the park already and was about ready to call it quits anyway.

More than satisfied with my stay in Yellowstone, I headed north towards the exit at Mammoth. Much to my surprise, when I entered Mammoth, I was greeted with another surprise…. A herd of elk!

This guy seemed to run the show.

The herd was parked right around the visitors center in Mammoth Springs. As if my first elk-sighting wasn’t good enough already, two of the young bucks were in the Rut.

With a ratio of 6:1, I'm surprised there was anything to fight over.

Leaving Yellowstone, I headed north and made it as far a Bozeman, Montana.  I had planned to visit a couple brewpubs, but after making dinner, all the mile of walking I had done that day caught up with me and I crashed for the night.