Letters from... Yellowstone (part 3)

 (text in ENG)

colorful spring at black sand basin

   The final destination on our third day was Canyon Area again. As we spent the first day there, we planned not to go back on the straight road from Lake Area to Canyon, but to take the whole day to drive around on West (the smaller loop) from Lake to West Thumb, Old Faithful up to Madison and Norris to reach Canyon Village. The whole drive was about 110kms, not much but we could enjoy the whole day with many stops at interesting places.

   In the morning (still not used to the holiday) waking up early in the morning, I left for a short walk around the lodge. It was still before 7am, and the whole area was quite (and quite cold). As I turned in the back of our lodge (one building contained two rooms), what do I see at the back? A bison calmly standing just next to our building! 

 

morning view at Lake Lodge

   Last evening, when I had taken the laundry to the main building of the lodge on foot, I also saw a mule deer strolling around the lodges, and today morning a bison! Apparently this lodge is popular among animals as well! Quietly passing in front of the bison and following my path, I headed to the small woods near our lodge. I found a path departing from the upper buildings to the Elephant Back trail, but as it was 2 miles long and haven´t noticed my husband to leave, I didn´t follow the trail. Instead took some photos of some chipmunks and headed back to our building. The bison was still there. Now, already lying and calmly chewing the cud – it didn´t seem he was bothered to leave soon. At this time people started to wake up and surprised by the unexpected visitor at the lodges. 

   After having breakfast at the small shop at Lake´s general store, we headed south to West Thumb and then turned to West towards Old Faithful. 

   On the way we saw a smaller waterfall, the Kepler Cascades. But the more impressive here was the Old Faithful Geyser that was just erupting and was seen from kms even from the overlook of this waterfall. As we had a full day later at Old Faithful, we skipped Old Faithful and visited two geyser groups instead: the “biscuit basin” and the “black sand basin”. These two basins are (together with Old Faithful Geyser) in the Upper Geyser Basin. (To the north there is the area of the Middle Geyser Basin (including the world-famous “Grand Prismatic Spring”) and the Lower Geyser Basin with the Firehole springs.) 

black sand basin

  

 First we went to see black sand basin – the view from the boardwalk was extraterritorial; the earth was white with smaller and bigger holes in it like craters, filled with bubbling and splashing water or mud. The microorganism in these pods at places colored the white earth to orange, brown and green. 

sapphire pool at biscuit basin

   Biscuit basin was a bit bigger area with bigger ponds of geysers. As we crossed the river crossing the way between the geysers and the parking lot, we found the same extraterritorial scene as at black sand basin. There were ponds with cloudy water, and beautifully transparent skyblue and blackish-brownish water. 

   We´ve seen some erupting just when we´d been there. Apparently the eruption of the geysers is due to its underground system. A geyser is called so when the vent underground is narrow and the water is boiling hot, giving the water enough energy to erupt.

   After the Upper Geyser Basin, we skipped the Middle Geyser Basin and headed to the Lower Geyser Basin. Here there are two driveways, one is the Firehole canyon drive, where you can stop to swim in the quite part of the Firehole-river. It seemed to be very popular as the sideway was full with cars and the lake with people. 

Great Fountain Geyser

   Driving further, we found the next driveway, the Firehole Lake drive. Here, there are smaller-bigger geysers on the roadside and to our luck, the first geyser (Great Fountain Geyser) just had started to erupt as we arrived there. We were lucky because according to the sign there, this fountain was to go off every 2.5 hours. We saw this fountain geyser (geyser that spread the water in every direction like a fountain) erupting for over 5 minutes and maybe over 10ms height and drove further.

White Dome geyser

  

  Just a few 100 meters from the Great Fountain, we found another one. This looked like a huge, white ant nest. As I get off the car to take pictures of the “White Dome” (as it was called), again – to our great luck – this geyser went off as well. Turns out, this type is a so called cone geyser; the characteristics of the cone geyser is that the vent inside is narrow and the cone (made of minerals spread from the erupting water) doesn´t let the water sprinkle around like in the case of fountain geysers, but erupts in one narrow jet of water. Also, as in the case of the fountain geysers, the water always came in pulses, in the case of cone geyser, the water flow was continuous. The eruption of the White Dome was shorter (maybe 2-3 minutes), but very impressive. (I think the majority of the geysers - or at least the most popular ones, like Great Fountain, Old Faithful, Grand … - in Yellowstone are fountain geysers, so it was a real joy to see this other type of geyser, too.)

   After the geysers, we drove further and turned to the left at Medison junction to the West Entrance, West Yellowstone. The small town starts right at entrance of the park, showing that this town lives on the tourists of Yellowstone. 

    The downtown is real American-cowboy style with: wooden, one-floor houses with big, square facades and wide porches at the front. The downtown is full with motels, hotels, restaurants and souvenir shops. We first drove around to see the town, but finally the main part seemed to be the closest block to the entrance of Yellowstone, so as we found a parking space, got off and strolled around among the souvenir shops. There were some really funny T-shirts, with such sayings: “If you see a bear run! Bears like fast food!” or “Camping is good. Bears like a midnight snack”. As it was lunchtime, we stopped by at an Italian restaurant: I had pizza which was really good, but my husband didn´t have luck with his spaghetti – although the pizza was like a real Italian one (think crust, mozzarella, many tomato sauce), but the spaghetti was real American (too soft pasta topped with tomato sauce which seemed to come directly from the can (so seasoning whatever)).

   Entering to the park after lunch (with the receipt, one can enter and exit anytime within 7 days – quite a bargain for 25USD) we passed Firehole falls and Gibbon falls and headed to our lodge at Canyon for the evening.

the west entrance of Yellowstone Park

 For more pictures, click on the link!→Yellowstone part 3

Letters from...Yellowstone (part 2)

 (text in ENG)

Yellowstone Lake

   On the second day we headed back south from Canyon Lodge to the Lake Area. (Even though we have planned and reserved everything for this trip in May, many of the lodgings were already full and we had to chess out the options of our stays within the park.) 

 

   So, our route in the park was: day 1: Canyon Area, day 2: Lake Area, day 3: back to Canyon Area, day 4: Roosevelt-Tower Area, day 5: Mammoth Hot Springs, day 6: Old Faithful. Although each area is less than 1 hour drive from each other (of course, without stopping for animal watching), it was fun to stay in different lodges. The roads are well maintained, mainly straight and the view is clean enough to drive with 45mph (70km/h). Also in many places you can find driveways taking a loop from the main road where you can enjoy wildlife or the scenery is nice enough to take a stop. As we couldn´t hike, we took these driveways every time we encountered with one.

   But let me get back…so, we left Canyon Area in the morning to head back to the Lake Area which – as it name says – is located around the Yellowstone Lake. The lake is huge (even so only about half the size of the Japanese Lake Biwa) and its quite surface is beautiful as it reflects the surrounding forests and mountains. However (unless you rent a boat) there is not much to do in the area, so this day we decided to go to the southern tip of the lake, to the West Thumb area. This area is famous of the hot springs found on the shore. 

bison herd in Hayden Valley

   Although I knew we would come back in the same direction again, I couldn´t miss stopping at Hayden Valley and watch the herds of bison starting their day. There was a bigger pullout at a higher ground from where the valley could be well seen. Most of the bison were in the valley, quite far away, but with the camera´s zoom, we could observe each individual bison´s movement. Not only the wallowing, but the calves sucking milk or adults swimming across the Yellowstone river to reach new fields for grazing. It was heartwarming to see as 2 bison crossed the river, one went ahead, the other waiting to reach the other shore. When the first arrived, it looked back as it to make sure the other would reach the shore without problem, and walked further on together. 

    Just when we were to leave Hayden Valley, a smaller herd of bison started crossing the road (i.e. dashed down from a small hill next to the road) just to continue their way down the valley at the pull out. There were about a dozen people there, but these bison are so got used to people, they never even looked at us. As for us, of course everybody was just astonished watching these ton-weighed animals crossing in front of us.

   

   After the herd was gone, we headed towards the lake with a short stopover at “Sulphur caldron”, which is close to Mud Volcano and the Hayden Valley. Sulphur caldron is again an area of some bubbling and steaming ponds. As it name says, the area here is filled with sulfuric acid, so you can imagine the smell around there… also, a plaque said, the water around here is pH2 (10 times more acidic than a lemon juice). Although my spa-loving Japanese husband was longing to get in these warm (hot) ponds every time he had seen one, I warned him that he might come off as a skeleton soaking in such acidic waters… however, it seemed that the bison don´t mind the acid and smell. I guess the ground is nice and warm around these places, because we´ve seen bison (or their trace – sh…t or footprints) everywhere at these spas, caldrons or geysers.

Sulphur Caldron

bison and hot springs

    After Sulphur Caldron, the Lake Village was only a short time. We took an early lunch: my husband had a fish sandwich (a specialty of the Lake Area as we haven´t found this type of sandwich anywhere else) and I quickly regretted to order chicken as the fish was so fresh and tasty, it was very very delicious. After lunch (or brunch) we headed east, towards the East entrance. The road goes here for a while just next to the lake giving a divine view in summer days, such we had in August. Not far from Lake Village there is a small pond to the north of the Yellowstone Lake, called Indian Pond. 

The Indian Pond trail

   The guidebook said there can be found a colony of marmots, so we took a stop to take the trail around Indian Pond. The trail passed the small pond, heading to the woods just to come out shortly to the shores of Yellowstone Lake. Then the trail continues along the sandy shores of the lake taking the hiker back to the woods and to the parking lot at the pond. The air was cool and fresh along the shadows of the trees in the wood and was filled with pine smell. Through the thick underbrush of the wood, we could only find squirrels, two of them chasing each other so fiercely that one of them almost bumped to my leg, just missing it with centimeters.

we also saw many colorful wildflowers and butterflies as well

    Just after the trail came out to the shore and we were about to give up the hope to see marmots, I spotted out something strange. On a rock there was something that seemed like an old bucket with some brown on top. As we had come closer, it turned out to be a log and the brownish thing was a marmot on top of it! The marmot seemed like it was on guard, standing on a high viewpoint standing still on his hind legs immobile. Therefore, it took us a few minutes to realize that brown thing was indeed an animal. 

 

the highlight of our trekking: the marmoth

  With another trophy in our camera, we followed the trail back to the Indian Pool refreshed. In the final part of the wood, we saw two squirrel babies playing around close to the trail but so into the play that they hadn´t notice us, so we could observe them for several minutes before they climbed up to a tree to continue their play there.

   Coming back to the car, my freshly operated husband was hurting his legs. Turns out the trail that we had guessed as about 3 kms was actually 3 miles! No wonder, his fresh wounds were hurt as the doctor said not to walk long distances… so, finally this was the only hike we´ve done in this trip.

   After the painful but fruitful hike, we drove a bit to relax my husband´s leg. The road from the Indian Pond took all the way to the East entrance, so we just drove along this road.     

   Unfortunately, we only found kilometers of dead forest; turns out, there was a huge forest fire in 1988 when large areas of the eastern part of Yellowstone was burned down. However, after 25 years, life finds its way back; in many of these parts we already saw fresh green trees which (by the signs around) grew back naturally. Apparently, there are 2 types of a pine cone: one that opens and ripens to start new buds from its seeds, and another that is closed and sealed with wax so when a forest fire comes, it would melt the wax and let the pine cone open once the fire is past.

dead trees after the 1988 forest fire

   Going back on the way we came on, we went a bit further from Lake Village to the south to visit “West Thumb”. This “hot spring-complex” is on the south part of the Yellowstone Lake, close to the first center (Grant Village) if one comes from the south. West Thumb is also trailed by boardwalks – as we couldn´t stroll much, we just walked around one circle. The most impressive spring here was the ones actually inside of the lake – there were three of it: “Lakeshore Geyser”, “Fishing Cone” and “Big Cone”.

black pool

   As the temperature in these geysers is hot, the legend says, you can just throw the fish you just caught in one of these cones and you´ll get back a fully prepared meal. (Actually, in a restaurant we found a vintage photo showing a cook at the side of the cone with a fishing rod - I don`t know if it was for real or only for the picture, but I can image that 50-60 years ago people still have done such things.) 

  There was another impressive geyser, the “Black Pool” which actually was beautiful sky blue. It seems that before it was pitch black due to some kind of microorganism, but as these creatures are sensitive to pH and temperature, by some change in the water killed off these microorganism. Now other kind of microorganism is living on the edge of the pool making it vivid orange, and the pool inside is sky blue as this is the only color the pool doesn´t absorb.

seismograph pool

   
  For the night we stayed at Lake Village in a lodge again. Compared to the one in the Canyon Area it was a bit smaller but cosy and cuter. We even had a coffee machine inside, it was good that we didn´t have to drive to the general store in the morning for a cup of coffee.

our room in Lake Area

 For more pictures, click here!→ Yellowstone (part 2)

Letters from... Yellowstone (part 1)

 (text in ENG)

Bison in Hayden Valley

   Our trip to Yellowstone didn´t start easily; first of all, 10 days before departure our dog ate my passport, so the next 10 days were spent rushing to embassies and police offices to get documents and re-issue my passport. As the Hungarian Embassy would issue a biometric passport in 20 days, I got a temporary passport for which I also had to apply a visa to the US. Fortunately, everything went well and I got my visa a day before departure.

When I thought everything was in order, just 2 days before our trip, my husband didn´t feel well – in the hospital it turned out he had kidney stone. Surgery immediately… he could leave the hospital next day (one day before leaving), but it was a close call. Not to mention that despite of going to an immense national park, due to his surgery the doctor prohibited him to do any exercises (including long walks). But after a series of bad luck, we arrived luckily to the airport and although the plane left over an hour late from Mexico City, it didn´t break or fell down, so we arrived to Jackson Hole (the south entrance of Yellowstone (actually of Grand Teton National Park)) without any problem.

  

  Jackson Hole is about 1 hour drive from the entrance of the Grand Teton National Park, which continues in Yellowstone National Park. Although there are many entrances to Yellowstone, I think we chose right going to Jackson Hole. Not only because the spectacular view of the Grand Teton mountain towering over the airport, but also because Jackson Hole is such a charming little town that worth a day or two. Located on the foot of huge mountains it seems to flourish all year: in summer with tourists going hiking to the national parks and skiers in winter. The downtown is made up of log and wooden houses that perfectly fit to the mountainous landscape. The rich, luxurious feeling of the shops and the flowers in every corner just increases the feeling that this is not a rotten little country town, but an escape and resort for many tourists that bring here a lot of money.

  The next day after arriving to Jackson Hole in the evening, we headed straight to Yellowstone. Comfortably, the entrance fee is the same for Grand Teton and Yellowstone. (25USD for 1 week) Grand Teton National Park is dominated by the huge, over 4000m mountain-chain which shows us different angles all the way over the park. 

  As my husband just had his surgery and we had to ditch our plans for trekking and hiking, we changed our plans to drive around peacefully and without hurry. This is what we have done from the first day, where we were heading to our first lodging at the Canyon Area, making stops to take pictures or even go for detours where we sensed something interesting.

  So, it was obvious to make a stop at our first animal sightings – first we came by with 3 female elks grazing along the road or when we saw our first bison. 

Later is turned out that they are extremely fond of the asphalt, we were astonished watching a 1-ton animal peacefully walk toward us. Of course, in these cases the traffic stops and everybody starts taking pictures. We also pulled out and got out of the car watching the 20m rule. (All animals should be 20ms in distance not to disturb their natural behavior, except for wolves and bears for which the distance is 100ms.) However, the bison didn´t know this rule, as it walked pass us about 5 meters, but it seems these animals are get used to cars and Harleys and people as it didn´t even take a notice of all the people around. Just walked off the road slowly to reach a small glade among the trees and start wallowing. In that time, I thought it was something rare I see, but then it turned out, wallowing (rolling into shallow depressions to cover themselves with dust) is quite common in the bison society. Turns out, it may be for interaction of the members of the herd, cleansing etc, but I only could think of this latter reason. I´ve seen dogs and cats, even chicken do the same in summer at home and my grandmother always explained it as a “bath” for the animals.   That it would clean them from parasites and also cool them down in the hot weather. (We even saw a chipmunk doing the same wallowing some days later.)

  

  After bison no.1, we saw a herd later, occupying a picnic area. It was quite funny, seeing about 20 bison and ….(kids) resting (cud chewing) at a picnic area. 

Moving further, we reached Hayden Valley which is one of the many paradise spots for animal watchers. Here can be found the biggest herds of the bison in Yellowstone National Park. The road crosses the valley so it is not rare that pairs or groups of bison cross the road stopping the traffic to the delight of the tourists. When we arrived, we had a smaller traffic jam in the Hayden Valley everybody stopping the cars without pulling over. We as well took photos and headed further to Canyon Valley, our place to stay for the first night.

  

  Just before the Canyon village, there is a place called "mud volcano", which let us to peek inside the unique feature of the world`s first national park and which can be mainly seen in the western part of the park at Mammoth and Old Faithful areas, the hot springs. As over half of the whole Yellowstone is a crater of a supervolcano, smaller or bigger hot springs, geysers or mud volcanos can be seen all over the park. Here, at mud volcano we saw several ponds bubbling and steaming and some mud volcano (as the name of the area says). The mud volcano is a bubbling pond of dirt, and is created where the hot water can`t surface so it melts the rock or soil above it creating a hot, steamy dirt-pond. There was even a cave, called "dragon mouth" as the water due to the hot steam was coming out from the cave as waves, resembling to the tongue of a dragon. The resemblance was even closer with the steam coming out of the upper side of the cave like steam from the nose of the dragon. 

As these areas are full with hot, sometimes acid water just below the surface, there are boardwalks showing the route. It is very convenient as they are flat and easy to walk on.

 As we still had some time until check-in, we drove to the main attraction there, the Great Canyon of Yellowstone. This place is often mentioned as one of the top 5 favorite places among the tourists visiting Yellowstone. Indeed, the steep walls of the canyon with the yellowish rocks and the 2 waterfalls (90 and 30 meters) are impressive. Also, there are two nice driveways (on the north and south side of the canyon) where those who doesn´t want (or can´t like in our case) hike the trails on the rims of the canyon still can enjoy the beautiful view. 

Even here, we discovered some new animals: the first was a chipmunk (which, in the next one week we saw every day) and the other a nest of an osprey, a typical bird of the Yellowstone. The nest was on the top of a cliff standing out of the middle of the canyon…maybe 30-50 meters high? Anyway, a beautiful view for the birds! Although it was far away, by the camera zoom we could see two osprey chicks and their mother in the nest.

  After driving through the south and north rim, we headed to the Canyon Lodge for check-in. These lodges are quite comfortable, have heating, bathroom, toilet and comfortable bed inside. Everything surrounded by pine woods. The lodges are located a bit further from the “center” of the Canyon Area, so it is quite peaceful and silent. In the “center” you can find souvenir shops, general store, restaurants and even a visitor center.  

For more pictures, click on this link! → Yellowstone (part 1)

Pie de la Cuesta - dog paradise

Hello!

Pie de la Cuesta - beach

After a long break, we took another "adventure" - fed up with the cloudy and foggy rainy season, we took off earlier from work last Friday and headed to the sunny Acapulco. Or, to be more precise, to Pie de la Cuesta, which is on a narrow landstrip between the Pacific Ocean and a lagoon just about 20kms to the north from Acapulco.
While Acapulco is modern and nice and expensive and touristic, Pie de la Cuesta still has the "old" Mexican feeling: cheap, local natural beauty. The hotels around here are mainly family-run hotels, motels with simplicity but a warm heart. Our hotel (where we stayed now the 2nd time) is called Nuestra Casa Sai, a real pet friendly hotel. Although we were there first months ago, the owner and the waiters remembered us which was a heart-warming welcome. About our stay there, I can only speak in the best terms - the hotel is simple but clean and cute with its unique and handmade decoration, the staff is extremely helpful and kind, and what I most like there is the beach.

the road to the beach  - 50ms

Although the hotel is about 50ms from the beach, there is a nice area for the hotel with hammocks, tables and comfortable beds and the waiter even brings food and whatever you wish to the beach so you can just lay on the sun (or in the shadows - as you wish) all day long listening to the murmuring of the waves.

a happy dog

After we arrived in the evening on Friday, we headed right to the beach next morning - I don`t even have to mention that our dog was excited all day, especially that the hotel has rescued two puppies and our dog was playing with them all day long. As for us, we just laid on the beach, sometimes left for a walk in the sand with Zorro and otherwise watched the pelicans and frigate birds fishing and flying by.

Zorro and his new friend - after playtime

Another great thing in Pie de la Cuesta is the remoteness - as I said, it is very local and silent, walking on the beach you can see still many lands not developed or built-in. Which makes a beach feel like your own, as there are hardly any people there. For dog-owners, this is great, because we could leave Zorro running around, we didn`t have to worry to go to strangers or somebody would mind. Also, although the waves around here are relatively big, here there are no lifesavers to yell at you to come out of the water - if you want to go into the water, it is your responsibility and your fun.

beach walk with Zorro

After one day of full play, Zorro got so tired for Sunday that he could hardly walk. He no longer needed to be looked after as he just laid next to us all morning.

Before leaving on Sunday, we took a massage (also in the hotel) which was relaxing and great before the 5 hour drive home. Unfortunately, we left quite late (around 3pm) which meant that we got into a "Sunday rush hour" near Mexico City which took plus 1.5 hours for us. However, on the way home we saw a serious accident - a car caught on fire! It is not unusual to see broken cars with boiled water, flat tire etc. on the side of the highway in Mexico, but a car caught on fire was indeed a rare sight! Hope those inside the car were OK...

terrible sight on the way home

For more pictures, click on the link! → Pie de la Cuesta