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| Tower falls |
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| Elk bull in the morning |
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| morning fog near Canyon |
After driving about 30 minutes, went back
to the lodge to warm up (it was freezing in the mornings, while hot in the
daytime – mainly because the park is about 1800-2000meter over sea level. )
We checked out and headed to the final
destination of this day, the Roosevelt-Tower area without any rush, as the distance
from Canyon is only about 30kms. First we drove around the Canyon drives again
– there we saw a mule deer family (a buck, a doe and 2 fawns). The fawns were
like Bambi, white-spotted back, huge eyes and ears…
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| Bambi! |
As we had time (and I haven´t had breakfast)
we stopped at a picnic area on the way to have breakfast (blueberry muffin).
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| breakfast in the nature |
Not far from the Canyon Village, we found a
nice overview, where almost all of the crater of the super-volcano could be
overseen (the Heart of the Caldera). In the visitor center of the Canyon
Village there was an amazing and educative exhibition and videos about the
volcano, but it was still hard to imagine that all these unlimited forests
stand in the heart of a crater.
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| the heart of the caldera |
Driving forward, the scene has changed and
after the water filled Lake Area and the pine woods of the Canyon Area, we
encountered with a prairie like scenery: soft hills with short bushes and
grass. As we stopped at a pullover to take some pictures, suddenly a coyote
showed up: it appeared from the side of the parking space jogging calmly on the
other side of the road to go back to the prairie on the other side of the
parking space. The coyote was very slim but fast. Just as the tourists. Just in
one minute 5-6 cars (that´s many considering the poor traffic around here)
stopped spotting the coyote. Fortunately we were the winners here, as when it
came out, it wasn´t further than 20ms from us, so even with a compact camera´s
zoom we could take pretty good pictures. (Not to mention that we could observe
the coyote without people shouting and “ooh”-ing around.)
After our next “camera-trophy”, we headed
forward among the soft, grassy hills. Before entering the Roosevelt-Tower
Village, we stopped by at the Roosevelt-falls. The 40ms tall waterfall
resembled to the Horsetail waterfall in Yosemite National Park. Both fall into
the river below in one jet, without breaking on a rock or wall. Moreover, at
the top of the waterfall you can see strange, pinnacle shaped rocks. To me it
seemed like comb of a cock, but apparently to someone it looked like a tower.
That´s why the name: Tower falls. Anyway, the rock formations around here are
very interesting – probably due to the latest eruption (600,000years ago) of
the super-volcano, there are many basalt rocks around here, like these pinnacle
shaped rocks. Or, going a bit further from the falls, the road passes next to
octagon-shaped columns – just like the “Prismas Basalticos” in Mexico, these
columns are shaped from the sudden cool-down of the lava.
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| Tower falls and the pinnacle like rocks on the top |
The road around here (from Tower falls to
the Roosevelt-Tower Village) was under construction, so there was a bit of
waiting (about 15 minutes), but nothing serious traffic jam. It seemed that
there will be some pullovers and overlooks at the back of the waterfall, where
one can admire the unique view of these granite rocks and walls.
Arriving to the Village, after check-in and
a short break, we headed to Lamar Valley, the paradise of the animals in
Yellowstone. First, we stopped by at the “Petrified Tree” just a few 100 meters
from the village. This redwood tree was petrified millions of years ago,
standing here as an evidence of the vast redwood forests from California to
Wyoming in the old days. It seems there were 3 such giants, but the stone
collectors have chipped down 2 trees completely…that´s the reason why this last
one is behind fences now.
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| petrified redwood at Roosevelt |
Well, the petrified tree was interesting,
but took about 5 minutes, so we turned back and continued our way to Lamar
Valley. Just as we passed the first hills, we have encountered a pronghorn
family. These antelope like mammals were one of my wishes to see. The
pronghorns are native in North America, and although they are not literally
antelopes, they look and run like them. Also, just as their (far) relatives in
Africa, these animals are also extremely fast: can run as fast as 110kms/hr.
However, they can only run about 10kms at once. As during running they can´t
sweat, they have to stop or they get overheated.
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| pronghorn family |
This herd seemed to be a family with one
male (the males can be distinguished easily for their strange shaped, black
horns) and many females and babies.
On the way further in Lamar Valley, we´ve
seen again herds of bison. The guidebook says, there are deers, bison, moose,
even wolves and bears in the valley. Compared to Hayden Valley at the Canyon
Area, Lamar Valley is huge. The road crosses the meadow in the valley so the
grazing animals and those coming down to the river from the woods that spread
on both sides of the valley can be well seen. However, as the valley is vast, a
good zoom or binocular is definitely needed. We were lucky to encounter with a
bear not too far (about 200ms), so we could see through the camera quite well.
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| grizzly having lunch in Lamar Valley |
It is easy to spot animals from the road as
there is definitely a smaller traffic jam (and pulled over cars) around. The
bear is a big “trophy”, so there were about 20 cars stopped on the roadside and
some people had telescopes used for watching the stars. There was a park ranger
as well, who told us that this bear is feasting on the carcass that the wolves
left from the morning. We could see the bear first only lying and eating but
after a few minutes it stood up so we could well see that it is a grizzly and
even could see the tracking collar around its neck. After eating for a while,
the bear came down to the river to drink – as bears and other carnivores are
supposed to be approached no more than 100ms, the park ranger immediately
ordered everyone what to do in case the bear would cross the road. However, it
went only to the river to drink and later returned to the carcass to finish his
lunch.
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| the grizzly coming to drink from the river |
My husband got very excited to see a wild
bear – and not only a bear, a grizzly, the king of the bears!
However, as it was lunchtime for us as
well, after a while we drove further. Lamar Valley has continued for a while
followed by 4000m tall mountains as we got close to the eastern entrance.
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| Barronette peak near the east entrance |
The
closest town to the entrance is Silver Gate and only a few kms away is a bigger
city, Cooke City. We had planned to eat in Silver Gate, but getting there, we
had to find out that this town is really like a small village, only with a few
houses. So, we continued to Cooke City. It wasn´t much bigger than Silver Gate,
but here we could find some cafes and diners. We picked one called Beartooth
Café. My husband had elk burger and I had smoked trout. Trout seems to be
famous around here (well, must be as trout is delicious where the river is
clear), and I didn´t regret my choice. The smoked trout was very delicious! The
elk burger was as well delicious, but it had a bit particular, strong taste as
every game meat.
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| smoked trout |
As there was not much to see in Cooke City
(near the café, we found a stone shop with interesting stones and fossils from
the nearby mountains), after lunch we returned to the park.
On the way back to Roosevelt-Tower Village,
we stopped by at the Soda Butte. This lone calcium carbonate mound - according
to the sign - was formed about a century ago by a hot spring nearby. Today it
is very rare to erupt, but bison around is not – we found a lone bison enjoying
the water/mud at the back of the Butte.
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| Soda Butte... |
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| ...and the bison |
A bit further away, we found a picnic area
where first we only had wanted to take some pictures of the mountains, but soon
turned out to be more interesting than only the view of the mountains. Nearby
there was a river flowing and there was a boardwalk going to the river. Suddenly
we found out why the boardwalk: around the picnic area there were small mounds
rising from the ground. It turned out this is the home of a ground squirrel
colony. These squirrel/marmot-like creatures are brownish, their tails are not
as big as their tree-relatives but also their bodies are bigger. They were got
used to people (actually some of them were even feeding them), so we could take
pictures without any precaution.
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| ground squirrel |
As it got late, slowly we headed back to
the village. On the way we found another pronghorn family (the herds of bison I
don´t even mention any more) and just a few kms from the village, we found a
couple staring at something. We immediately stopped and were told that there is
a black bear! Although the bear was quite far away (about 5-600 meters) and
receding to the woods, we could clearly see the bear´s brown nose standing out
from its pitch-black color.
Back in the village we had a nice dinner
and in the night we took a night-tour to Lamar Valley to see the stars.
Yellowstone Park is a great place to see the stars as even in the village area
there are only a few lights. So, in the Lamar Valley, kilometers from the
lights of the village, the spot was perfect. Unfortunately, the moon was quite
bright, but even so the stars were beautiful. Staring out to the sky from the
car, listening to the growling of the bison in the night was mystical. I even
thought to hear far howl of wolves, but again, at night people hear many
things. Although, I might not have been mistaken, as next day we just missed to
see wolves in Lamar Valley. But about this, I´ll tell in my next letter…
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| sunset over Lamar Valley |
For more pictures, click on the link!→Yellowstone (part 4)
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