Sue

Mammoth Hot Springs is a far drive north from the west entrance to the park at West Yellowstone, Montana.  We drove and drove and got stuck in traffic jams and by the time we got there, we didn’t have much time to see it.  Mammoth has a thriving community of hotels, restaurants, and shops as well as a resident elk herd that beds down in the middle of the intersection, along with its own signs and rangers to watch over it.

The springs were huge, so I guess that’s why their name is Mammoth, and there are boardwalks all over the place.  We walked around a little of it and climbed to the top of one plateau, but there’s a lot to see there.  All the thermal stuff is so interesting in Yellowstone.

While we were visiting Yellowstone, we went into the park each day, but had to get Brian back early for his theater call times.  There is more driving from place to place in YNP than we anticipated, so we spent a lot of time traveling each day and then didn’t have much time to see stuff once we got there.  Especially when there were daily traffic jams due to bison near the road.  So we did a “power tour” and tried to see the high points, or what we could get to easily.

It was an overcast day but still warm and quite windy when we walked around the basin.  We saw the mud pots and some geysers going off.  Scott and I walked this area on May 1 during our quick jaunt after dropping off Brian and the pots were more liquid and bubbling like crazy.  The sign said they are more active in spring than the rest of the year and it was true.  They were much thicker and more like bubbling mud in July.  Interesting.  Also there were more people.

We hiked straight down on the North Rim to the Brink of the Lower Falls.  The trail takes you right to where the water rushes over and it was awesome and powerful!

Scott took a picture of me gazing into the water because I love all things water and moving water is the best!  I suggested we take a US tour of all the famous waterfalls in the country so I could bask in the views, but Scott didn’t take the bait.  (I was organizing photos recently and found that we actually have quite a few photos of me that look similar to this. 😉 )

After all this awesome viewing we had to climb the trail straight back up.  It’s a higher elevation than our mountain home.  Brian was breathing normally, Scott was huffing some, and I had to keep stopping because I thought my heart was going to pound out of my chest.  No, I am not in as good a shape as when Scott and I did all that hiking three years ago.  Pity, because that was a steep trail!