Today we decided to make the longest drive of our Yellowstone adventure and went up to Mammoth Hot Springs. This is the most Northern area of Yellowstone, very close to the Minnesota border. As we drove we saw several bison and beautiful scenery that changed so quickly from meadow to forest to mountains and right back to meadow again! The variety of landscapes in Yellowstone is really fantastic!
The interesting thing about the Mammoth Hot Springs area is that it is constantly changing. The water at the hot springs comes up through limestone rather than more solid rock. It is very acidic below ground and as it travels through the crevices in the rock below the surface it picks up particles of limestone that then get redeposited when the water breaks through the surface and becomes neutral again. This creates really interesting formations of travertine. The formations change all the time because as limestone builds up in one area the pathways change and water gets diverted. Also, the earthquakes that constantly happen at Yellowstone can cut off the underground "plumbing" and cause springs to stop running. The ones that are actively running are orange as a result of the microorganisms that live there. When the water stops, they die and the area becomes white. As time goes on the travertine gets more and more grey as it ages. There were some people there that had visited several years before and they were remarking how different parts of it looked.
On the ride home we stopped at Gibbon Falls for a few minutes and took a couple of side trips off of the road. The one that really paid off with a fantastic view of the river and some rapids was the Firehole Canyon Drive.
We got back to camp after a long day out and about. We had dinner, waited in long lines for showers and finally enjoyed our campfire!
I keep being shocked by how quickly you guys are progressing and then I remember that the speed limit on Rt 66 is 35 mph.
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