BIson jam

Yellowstone via the eastern gate has wonderous views. It took about an hour drive through the park to LakeView cabins.  We saw many acres of trees decimated --leafless yet with their trunks  still standing --so it was hard to imagine how a fire could do that.  When I finally caught a ranger to ask, it was indeed a bark beetle blight a few years back.  The park policy is to do nothing about it although he admitted a big fire to re-boot the forest would probably be a good thing. We had no idea there would actually be a lake that big,so big, that high in the mountains.  Yellowstone Lake is billed as the largest alpine lake 20miles x 14 miles.

We had dinner at the lodge cafeteria although the mist and rain shrouded most of the lake, both for dinner and for breakfast views.  The sun did get warm enough to burn off some moisture for some scenery by eleven-sies. By then we had hiked around West Thumb, walking along the shore with the geysers and fumaroles, hot springs and mudpots burbling.  We really only thought of Old Faithful when we thought "Yellowstone." Well, and Yogi Bear.  But we were amazed at the number of smaller geyers. The ground was teeming with puddles of either boiling water, bubbling mud that looked like oatmeal, steam vents, pools of acidic hot water with various colors depending on which brave bacteria could live there or which minerals peroclated there. We drove  up to the Visitor Center and saw Old Faithful was predicted to blow at 11:04. Being about 30 minutes early, we were able to snag a front row bench seat.  It was almost like a Disney event--someone has gone into thinking through the traffic needs. Castle Geyser and Grand Geyser blew in the distance--first their steam getting aggressive and then spouts of water shooting out of the hole in the ground. Then the Ooos and Aahhs of the crowd as Old Faithful erupted.  We overheard that it's not the biggest but it is the most predictable.  With all that magma and hotspot activity below, why doesn't someone wonder why it just doesn't erupt volcanic style and blow us all to the Pacific coast?  (Can't get the video to load----go to Judd's Facebook for live action movie.)

On our way out of the park we did get a bison jam.  That's where a crowd of bison start to cross the road you're on and you're stuck in traffic for a while. First you wonder why some cars pulled off the road when there was a scenic turn out. Then YOU pull off the road to snap some pics because you finally see bison across the road in a field.  Then the bison start to leave the field and you run back to your car with the mostly Japanese tourists. Then when you start to proceed driving, one or two bison as big as a VW bug shuffle slowly toward you and you stop your car. It was my turn driving and my eyes locked across the road with a kid in his back seat facing the other direction.  When I silently pointed, he yelled at his dad that one was behind them. When the bison who seemed to be the ring leader slowly pursued the boys car, I gently accelerated away. No more than 10 minutes.  The young man who checked us out at dinner said he's been stuff in a bison jam for 2 hours.  He hates bison.

And this just in from Google: