November 29-30, 1975: A Weekend in Los Angeles
	June 8-12, 1975: A Week in Toronto, Canada
	Return to Index for 1975

The Drive to Yellowstone National Park

As it turned out, when we awoke in the morning in the Bighorn National Forest, we discovered from a sign just down the road that we were not in the Rocky Mountains at all, but in the Bighorn Mountains. No biggie- it was still very, very scenic.

The View From our Bedroom

We knew we were climbing, last night, as we entered the National Forest, but we had no idea how high we'd gotten, or what the landscape around us looked like. But when we got out of our sleeping bags in the morning, this was the sight that greeted us. We could see that we were right at the beginning of the National Forest, and the grasslands below were the valley between the area around Rushmore and where we were now.

The Bighorn National Forest is a U.S. National Forest located in northern Wyoming, and consists of over 1.1 million acres. It was created as a US Forest Reserve in 1897 and is one of the oldest government-protected forest lands in the U.S. The forest is well east of the continental divide and extends from the Montana border for a distance of 80 miles along the spine of the Bighorn Mountains, an outlying mountain range separated from the rest of the Rocky Mountains by Bighorn Basin.

Elevations range from 5,000 feet along the sagebrush and grass-covered lowlands at the foot of the mountains, to 13,189 feet on top of Cloud Peak, the highest point in the Bighorn Mountains. Around 99% of the land is above 4,900 ft. The forest is named after the Bighorn River, which is partially fed by streams found in the forest. Streams in the range are fed primarily by snowmelt and snowmelt mixed with driving rainfall.

Within the forest is the Cloud Peak Wilderness area in which no motorized or mechanical equipment is allowed. The only access into the 189,000 acre wilderness is on foot or horseback. There are 1,500 miles of trails in the forest, along with 32 improved campgrounds (we should have investigated that earlier), lodges, and three scenic vehicular byways. U.S. Route 14 in Wyoming, also known as the Bighorn Scenic Byway, crosses the middle of the 30-mile wide forest. The Medicine Wheel Passage (U.S. Highway 14A, the one we are on now) crosses in the north passing the Medicine Wheel National Historic Landmark, while the Cloud Peak Skyway (U.S. Route 16) crosses the highest pass in the forest (Powder River Pass at 9,677 ft) and is located in the southern section of the forest.

Looking Southeast Along the Range

The forest headquarters is located in Sheridan, Wyoming. There are local ranger district offices in Buffalo, Lovell, and Sheridan. Visitor centers are located at Burgess Junction (which, as it turned out, we passed about an hour after getting back on the road this morning)and near Shell Falls (which is down on Highway 14).

The Bighorn National Forest was established as the Big Horn National Forest in 1897, and encompassed 1,198,080 acres. The name was changed in 1908, and today the National Forest is about 50,000 acres smaller than it was previously.

The Bighorn National Forest contains primarily forest along with alpine meadows and lakes at higher elevations. The forest is primarily lodgepole pine, along with several species of spruce, fir, and aspen. While grizzly bears have not inhabited the forest since the early 20th century, black bears are widespread. Other large mammals include cougars, elk, mule deer, pronghorn, and moose. Coyotes are also present in this forest. Numerous lakes are found within the forest and most are naturally stocked with trout and at least 100 other fish species. Meadowlark Lake is a popular recreation area created by the construction of a dam built by Company 841 of the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1936. Water quality sampling from the lakes shows the highest acid rain deposition of any mountain chain in the Rockies.

I was pretty much bowled over by the scenery when we got up; it was made all the more interesting because it was pretty dark when we drove up into the forest, so we couldn't watch the views getting better and better. Here are two more pictures that I took before we started off for Yellowstone:

To get to Yellowstone, we had a couple of choices, and we decided to take the "northern route"- Highway 14A that would take us through Lovell and Cody. There were places along the road within the National Forest that it seemed to be under construction, or perhaps there wasn't room for two full lanes and shoulders, for there were places where the road seemed to be just one wide lane. So it was slow going in places, but very, very scenic.

This was also our first experience with open range, in which livestock are allowed to wander anywhere, even along roadways like this one.

This is the road down to the high plains East of Lovell. As you can see, a new road was being built, but only at the base of the mountains.

We came down out of the Bighorn Mountains and headed on to Lovell, where we stopped for gas and to use the service station restroom to get a bit cleaned up. Then we had a stretch of driving through rather non-spectacular farmland to Powell and down to Cody. At Cody, we took Route 14 to Yellowstone.

The Shoshone River

Just past Cody, Wyoming, we began paralleling the Shoshone River, all the way to the point where it emptied into the Buffalo Bill Reservoir. The reservoir was created by the Buffalo Bill Dam- a concrete arch-gravity dam named after the famous Wild West figure William "Buffalo Bill" Cody, who founded the nearby town of Cody and owned much of the land now covered by the reservoir formed by its construction.

The Buffalo Bill Reservoir

The dam is part of the Shoshone Project, successor to several visionary schemes promoted by Cody to irrigate the Bighorn Basin and turn it from a semi-arid sagebrush-covered plain to productive agricultural land. Known at the time of its construction as Shoshone Dam, it was renamed in 1946 to honor Cody.

The 325 feet high structure was designed by engineer Daniel Webster Cole and built between 1905 and 1910. At the time of its completion it was the tallest dam in the world. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 and named a National Civil Engineering Landmark just a couple of years ago. The land around the reservoir is maintained as Buffalo Bill State Park.

We continued west on Highway 14, passing through Wapiti, before once again coming onto National Forest/National Park lands. We were heading straight for Yellowstone National Park, with the Custer Gallatin National Forest on our right (north) and the Shoshone National Forest on our left. The scenery was pretty amazing, both right along the highway and ahead to Yellowstone:

The Hills Above Us

Yellowstone Ahead of Us

There were times, driving along Highway 14 towards Yellowstone that the hills above us looked as if they might not stay above us, but other than the obligatory "Watch for Falling Rock" signs, nothing much changed as we headed into the park.

Yellowstone National Park

We spent quite a bit of time in Yellowstone- it's a huge place, it was our first time here, and I, for one, wasn't sure I would be back this way. So we wanted to see and do as much as we could in the time we had.

It may not matter much to you when you look at these pictures just where you are in the Park, but I wanted to try to track our progress through the park for those who might want to bring back their own memories or perhaps plan their own visit.

Since it is 2019 at the moment, I have a Yellowstone National Park Map available to me online, and so I have taken a copy of it and put it in the scrollable window at left. (The actual map, large enough to be readable, won't fit all at once on most any device, so that's why you have to scroll up and down and left and right to see it all.)

I have marked some of the places we stopped on the map, and a bit of our route through the park, and so you can return to this map as you wish to see just where we are.

We came into the Park at the East Entrance on Highway 14. To find that starting point, you will need to scroll down a bit and then all the way to the right where you can see my annotation "Park Entry". From there you will be able to follow the marked route from one remarkable site to another. I'm pleased if the map helps you at all, but if it doesn't, just ignore it and have a look at the many pictures we took of this amazing place.

Sylvan Lake at Sylvan Pass

We entered Yellowstone National Park via Highway 14 at the East Entrance, and then a few miles later were going through Sylvan Pass. This mountain pass (elevation 8,500 feet) takes the automobile road through a mountain pass located in the Absaroka Range in Yellowstone National Park, and the pass provides access to the park from the east entrance.

The pass was named after nearby Sylvan Lake (derived from the Latin for "forest"); the lake was formed by frost action breaking the rocks. This park road through the pass is closed during winter (but I can report that now the Park Service keeps it open all year round at a cost, during the winter, of about a quarter million dollars a year). Alongside the road are pathways specifically allocated to snowmobiles and cross-country skiers.

The original road through the pass was designed by Captain Hiram Chittenden of the Army Corps of Engineers, and this Sylvan Pass route is the only way to enter/exit the park from the East Entrance.

Looking West from Highway 14

We have gone through Sylvan Pass, and are descending a bit into the park. We came to a scenic turnout, so we stopped to have a look. The view at left looks west into the Park, and you can see Yellowstone Lake off in the distance.

Yellowstone Lake

Yellowstone Lake, seen in my picture at right as we approached it from the east, is the largest body of water in Yellowstone National Park. The lake is 7,732 feet above sea level and covers 136 square miles. While the average depth of the lake is 139 ft, its greatest depth is at least 394 ft. Yellowstone Lake is the largest freshwater lake above 7,000 ft in North America.

In winter, ice nearly 3 ft thick covers much of the lake except where shallow water covers hot springs. The lake freezes over by early December and can remain frozen until late May or early June. Today, in mid-September, the temperature is quite mild- my guess would be about 70°.

Over on the other side of the lake, geysers, fumaroles, and hot springs are found both alongside and in the lake. After the magma chamber under the Yellowstone area collapsed 640,000 years ago in its previous great eruption, it formed a large caldera that today is partially filled by the waters of the lake. It is thought that Yellowstone Lake originally drained south into the Pacific Ocean via the Snake River, but today it drains north from its only outlet, the Yellowstone River, at Fishing Bridge.

The Mud Volcano

The Sulphur Cauldron

We stopped for lunch at Yellowstone Lake, and I was amazed at how friendly the animals were, including two birds which would sit on the table in front of me and allow me to stick bread crumbs in their mouths. I guess they've been around too many tourists. It was here we decided to allocate a significant amount of time to the park, staying as long as we needed to so that we could see all the major features.

We turned North at Fishing Bridge to our next stop at the mud volcano, the first time I had seen anything of the sort. The Mud Volcano thermal area is an area of muddy hot springs and fumaroles located near one of the Yellowstone Volcano’s vents about six miles north of Fishing Bridge. The Sulphur Cauldron, one of the most acidic features in the park with a pH of battery acid, was the first feature we saw after we parked the car and headed out on a boardwalk trail.

There were lots of signs identifying the features here; we could see the Mud Cauldron from the pathway right in front of the parking area. It is a large area of mud and water heated by steam escaping from far below.

The Churning Cauldron

We passed a mud geyser, which was just a sizzling mudpot area (as opposed to an actual geyser that shot up 50 feet in the 1880s), and then went up a short, steep section (called the "Cooking Hillside:) and then back onto boardwalk to come by the Churning Cauldron. This area is actually a relatively cool, bubbling pool filled with bacteria that can toss muddy water a few feet into the air.

Further along the boardwalk we saw the Black Dragon’s Cauldron, a large, sizzling lake of mud. It was created in 1948 along a crack in the earth, and coated nearby trees in mud when it exploded into existence. Turning back towards the parking area, we came to the Grizzly Fumarole. The sign said that its appearance depended on recent precipitation; today it was basically just a hissing vent.

Finally, we came to the eponymous feature on the trail- the Mud Volcano. We were a little late to see the 30-foot high cone erupting mud high enough to cover nearby trees; by the time the park was established in 1872, it had apparently blown itself apart and become a crater filled with bubbling mud, as it looked today.

From the mud volcano stop, we drove up towards Canyon Village, stopped in the visitor center and museum there, and then continued north on the park road about fifteen miles until we came to a series of stops and overlooks for the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is the first large canyon on the Yellowstone River downstream from Yellowstone Falls in the Tower-Roosevelt area of the park. The canyon is approximately 24 miles long, between 800 and 1,200 ft deep and from a quarter-mile to three-quarters of a mile wide.

The Upper Falls

We are driving north, and the Yellowstone River is flowing in the same direction, so the first point we came to was an overlook for the falls at the top of the canyon- the Upper Falls. The upper falls are 109 feet, and the brink of these falls marks the junction between a hard rhyolite lava flow and weaker glassy lava that has been more heavily eroded.

Actually, the Upper Falls are the first of two cascades collectively called Yellowstone Falls. As the Yellowstone river flows north from Yellowstone Lake, it leaves the Hayden Valley and plunges first over Upper Yellowstone Falls and then a quarter mile downstream over Lower Yellowstone Falls, at which point it then enters the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, which is up to 1,000 feet deep.

Inspiration Point

The next place we stopped was the trailhead for Inspiration Point, and that's where we got a good view of the Lower Falls. Cascading from the 590,000 year old Canyon Rhyolite lava flow, Lower Yellowstone Falls is the largest volume waterfall in the Rocky Mountains. These falls are over 300 feet high- twice as high as Niagara (although the flow rate is much, much less, since the Yellowstone River is about 70 feet wide while the Niagara River is over 2,500 feet wide).

Inspiration Point is a promontory cliff on the north rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone east of Yellowstone Falls on the Yellowstone River. The point was originally named Promontory Point in 1878 by W. H. Holmes but later given the name of Inspiration Point by G.L. Henderson, a park concessionaire in 1887. The point is a natural observation point over the rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

This is Artist's Point on the east side of the canyon. The road there was a long one, so we didn't visit.

Here is a good view of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. This view is one of the iconic views associated with Yellowstone.

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is one of the most beautiful places I have yet seen in my lifetime. This is only my second trip through the Western states (the first one being my own cross-country trip right after college), and on both of them I have seen some really incredible places. I think that the West must be chock full of them. Here are the other pictures I took in the area around the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone:

This is a picture we took of the Yellowstone River when the park road was paralleling it before it dropped over the upper falls. I think the forest on either side makes it much more picturesque.

Contrast that picture of the river before the Upper Falls with this view of the river down in the bottom of the canyon. The sign at this overlook said this was the deepest part of the canyon.

(Picture at left) This is the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, taken from the west rim of the canyon opposite Artist's Point, which is out of the picture to the right. The setting sun adds a beautiful accent to the view.       (Picture at right) We drove to the northern end of the canyon and found a short, late-afternoon hike that took us down pretty near the river itself. Maybe this is what Arizona's Grand Canyon looked like when it was first getting started.

When we returned from our last short hike it was getting dark, and we continued on towards the North Entrance to the Park, spending the night near the Park Headquarters. Just before nightfall, we ran up the road to Montana, so that I could cross that state off my list of states I've been to. Coming back into the park, we saw signs for the Gardiner Campground, so we drove in to see if we could find an open spot. Sadly, all the campsites were taken; Tony wasn't deterred and he asked someone if we could share a small part of their site. This would not have been something I could have done, nor if I were the site occupant would I have wanted to share the space, but Tony asked and they agreed, so we parked as far away from the campers as we could and I was able to use a blanket from my trunk to construct a makeshift lean-to against the car so we were at least partially sheltered.

Mammoth Hot Springs

The first stop in the morning was the Mammoth Hot Springs, just down the road from Park Headquarters. It is the most extensive example of the terracing effect caused by the mineral-laden springs, and there are vents, pools, hot springs and mud holes, all connected by a self-guiding nature trail. It takes about an hour, and is very interesting.

Minerva Terrace at Mammoth Hot Springs

Mammoth Hot Springs is a large complex of hot springs on a hill of travertine, and it is located in the very north of the Park just inside the north entrance. It is adjacent to the Mammoth Hot Springs Historic District. It was created over thousands of years as hot water from the spring cooled and deposited calcium carbonate (over two tons flow into Mammoth each day in a solution). Because of the huge number of geothermal vents, travertine is abundant. Although these springs lie outside the caldera boundary, their energy has been attributed to the same magmatic system that fuels other Yellowstone geothermal areas.

The hot water that feeds Mammoth comes from Norris Geyser Basin after traveling underground via a fault line that runs through limestone and roughly parallel to the Norris-to-Mammoth road. The limestone from rock formations along the fault is the source of the calcium carbonate. Shallow circulation along this corridor allows Norris' superheated water to slightly cool before surfacing at Mammoth, generally at about 170 °F. Algae living in the warm pools have tinted the travertine shades of brown, orange, red, and green.

Thermal activity here is extensive both over time and distance. The thermal flows show much variability with some variations taking place over periods ranging from decades to days. Terrace Mountain at Mammoth Hot Springs is the largest known carbonate-depositing spring in the world. The most famous feature at the springs is the Minerva Terrace, a series of travertine terraces. The terraces have been deposited by the spring over many years, and are still being deposited today. (Some years after our visit here, and another that I would make in the future), there would be some minor earthquake activity that would have the effect of shifting the location of the spring that feeds the vents. This will cut off the water flow and allow the terraces to dry.

Mammoth Hot Springs from the Parking Area Trailhead

The Mammoth Terraces extend all the way from the hillside, across the Parade Ground, and down to Boiling River. The Mammoth Hotel, as well as all of Fort Yellowstone, is built upon an old terrace formation known as Hotel Terrace. There was some concern when construction began in 1891 on the fort site that the hollow ground would not support the weight of the buildings. Several large sink holes (fenced off) can be seen out on the Parade Ground. This area has been thermally active for several thousand years.

The Mammoth area exhibits much evidence of glacial activity from the Pinedale Glaciation. The summit of Terrace Mountain is covered with glacial till, thereby dating the travertine formation there to earlier than the end of the Pinedale Glaciation. Several thermal kames, including Capitol Hill and Dude Hill, are major features of the Mammoth Village area. Ice-marginal stream beds are in evidence in the small, narrow valleys where Floating Island Lake and Phantom Lake are found. In Gardner Canyon one can see the old, sorted gravel bed of the Gardner River covered by unsorted glacial till.

We spent about an hour here early in the morning, wandering around the boardwalks and looking at the travertine terraces. And if you are curious, yes, there was the occasional whiff of sulfur if you got close to the steam vents, but this was actually more evident south of here. Here are two more pictures that I took at Mammoth Hot Springs:

The Travertine Terraces

Looking Down on the Terraces

Mammoth Hot Springs to Old Faithful

As we traveled south along the park road, from Mammoth Hot Springs all the way down to the south park entrance, there were innumerable stops and turn-offs for one geothermal feature or another. We stopped at many of them, but after a while they all started to run together. I did take a few pictures on our way south, and these are below:

Across the landscape are these signs of volcanic activity- the steam vents and hot springs.

This is Fountain Point, one area of extensive activity.

As you can see from the picture of Fountain Point, above, it is a very chilly morning.

(Picture at left) Traveling down the Southbound road, there are innumerable hot springs, many of which, like this one, require a hike to get to. Early September in Yellowstone means some chilly mornings.       (Picture at right) This is an example of the scenery along the road to the South Entrance to the park.

We weren't about to have come all this way not to stop and see Yellostone's iconic feature- Old Faithful.

Old Faithful

Old Faithful, undoubtedly the most famous geyser in the world, is a cone geyser located here in Yellowstone National Park and was the first geyser in the park to receive a name. It is a highly predictable geothermal feature (although, contrary to popular belief, the time between eruptions is not quite constant); the geyser and the nearby Old Faithful Inn are part of the Old Faithful Historic District.

On the afternoon of September 18, 1870, the members of the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition traveled down the Firehole River from the Kepler Cascades and entered the Upper Geyser Basin. The first geyser that they saw was Old Faithful. Nathaniel P. Langford wrote in his 1871 Scribner's account of the expedition:

"It spouted at regular intervals nine times during our stay, the columns of boiling water being thrown from ninety to one hundred and twenty-five feet at each discharge, which lasted from fifteen to twenty minutes. We gave it the name of "Old Faithful"."

More than a million eruptions of Old Faithful have been recorded (most by automated equipment). Harry Woodward first described a mathematical relationship between the duration and intervals of the eruptions in 1938. Old Faithful is not the tallest or largest geyser in the park; those titles belong to the less predictable Steamboat Geyser. The reliability of Old Faithful can be attributed to the fact that it is not connected to any other thermal features of the Upper Geyser Basin.

Eruptions can shoot from 4-9000 gallons of boiling water between 105-185 feet into the air, and these eruptions can last from 1.5 to about 5 minutes. The average height of an eruption is 145 feet. Intervals between eruptions can range from 60 to 110 minutes, averaging 66.5 minutes in 1939, and slowly increasing to an average of about 75 minutes today (1975), which may be the result of earthquakes affecting subterranean water levels. The disruptions have made earlier mathematical relationships inaccurate, but have actually made Old Faithful more predictable in terms of its next eruption.

Most folks think that the time between eruptions is constant, but it is in fact a bimodal distribution, with clusters of interval times centered on either 65 or 91 minutes. The best predictor of the time of the next eruption is the length of the prior eruption. When that time is less than 2.5 minutes, the next eruption will occur between 55 and 75 minutes later, but if the prior eruption lasts longer than 2.5 minutes, the next one will occur between 81 and 101 minutes later. But no matter, the time of the next eruption cannot be predicted to the minute, although there is an automated sign by the Old Faithful lodge that displays such an estimate. People like certainty, I guess, but we were told by a ranger that people either miss an eruption or have to wait a few minutes. No biggie; there are benches to sit on and neat scenery all around.

	November 29-30, 1975: A Weekend in Los Angeles
	June 8-12, 1975: A Week in Toronto, Canada
	Return to Index for 1975