Night Shifts and Day Dreams

Roosevelt Arch

I am SO incredibly overdue for another post!!!  I've been so absorbed in the travel and experiences themselves that I haven't been able to take a moment to write about it.  (Also, I haven't had easy access to internet.)  But never fear, I have found the perfect place to write about my Yellowstone adventures.  It's a place in Jackson Hole called The Bunnery.  Its a bakery/restaurant that has free wifi as well as Starbucks coffee!  I think I could stay here all day.  Fortunately for them I also have to get groceries (because some wild animal got half of mine the other night) and I have plans to hike this afternoon.  All of this is part of my master plan to make myself extremely tired by approximately 9 pm so I can go to bed and wake up in time for work at 6.  UGH! You try doing that after 6 weeks of night shift and see how it goes,.. It's relatively painful adjusting to being awake during the day again.  

So indulge me a bit while I reminisce about my time in the world's first national park....  I started out at Old Faithful.  I watched it erupt twice, the second time actually being better than the first!  I found a place at the Old Faithful Inn where I could order a special coffee drink and sit on the upstairs balcony in the sunshine to watch the geyser erupt.  It may not have been up close and personal but it was still really special.  My favorite part of watching it erupt was waiting for it.  The predictions were for set for every 90 minutes, give or take 15.  The most fun was listening to the comments of other park visitors sitting around me waiting for the same thing.  The most common saying was that because almost everyone had driven "all this way" especially to see Old Faithful, "just watch, it won't actually erupt this time!"  Its amazing the lack of faith humans have in the world in general.  We tend to not trust the things that have proven themselves extremely reliable and instead trust many things that have been proven not to.  

The geyser has a bit of an ego, I think.  It knows people from all over the world come just to see it erupt so it gives teaser shows.  For 5 or 10 minutes before it actually goes off, it sprays off little bursts of steam and water in intervals.  You sit up on the edge of your seat, prepared with your camera to take awesome pictures and then it simmers down again and the wait continues.  But then, when it finally does go off, it's TOTALLY worth the wait!!  What a spectacular thing to see! The force with which the water sprays upward is incredible.  The eruptions last around 3 minutes and shoot upwards approximately 180 feet.   I hope someday I'll get to go back and watch it from a different angle.  

Old Faithful eruption

Half way up Bunsen Peak

While I was in Yellowstone I was blessed with some incredible weather!  Low humidity, temps in the low 70's, and plentiful sunshine made for perfect hiking days.  Some of my favorites include a trip up north to Mammoth Hot Springs and the north entrance to the park.  The very first picture at the top of this post was of the stone entryway marking the boundary of the park and announcing entry into history, essentially.  Since 1872, very little has changed in Yellowstone National Park.  The arch is known as Roosevelt Arch. Across the top is written "For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People".    

Later that same day I hiked Bunsen Peak Trail.  It was 2 miles up and 2 miles back but it was one of the more physically exerting hikes I've done simply because of the extreme elevation change that occurred during that short distance.  I climbed to the top of a mountain in 2 miles!  The views along the way and the incredible panorama at the top made the hike well worth it.  The most difficult part of the hike, though, was persuading myself to not continue on.  I had read about a waterfall on the other side of the peak and desperately wanted to go visit it, but I was running out of daylight.  My motivation was still high, but I wasn't entirely sure I would be able to make it down and back (another huge elevation change) before the sun set.  So I suppose that hike will have to wait until my next visit to the park.

Mammoth Hot Spring Terraces

Along with the hike to Bunsen Peak, I also drove around some of the park's hot spring terraces.  The picture on the right is of a giant formation created by the hot water coming out of a spring and the bacteria associated with it. The colors are beautiful and the formations are kind of otherworldly.

Fairy Falls

One of my favorite hikes in the Old Faithful area was called the Fairy Falls Trail.  I started this hike later in the day because earlier I had already hiked 6 miles down to Shoshone Lake with a friend.  I enjoyed that hike very much but I also wanted to keep going and get more mileage that day.  I thought I had read somewhere that the Fairy Falls Trail was only a couple of miles long... I hiked it and realized that it was a lot longer than I had expected.  I ended up hiking a total of 12 miles that day between the two trails!  When the scenery is that beautiful, I could keep walking forever and not mind it a bit.  Fairy Falls waterfall was so tall I could barely fit the entire thing in the camera frame!  The water, being so feathery and light in volume, got its name "Fairy" for good reason.  I couldn't help myself and continued down the connecting trail another half mile or so to find Imperial Geyser.  The extra distance was worth it because the evening sunlight reflected off the water of the geyser pool and made the colors inside even more brilliant.  The geyser was in the process of erupting while I was standing there watching it.  Also, next to the geyser was a boiling mud pot.  Those craters of boiling mud are fascinating to me.  They smell terrible and they look gross and yet I find myself wanting to stare at them and analyze them.  They're mysterious natural occurrences.

Specimen Creek

These hikes are in no particular order.  I upload these pictures and arrange the words around them depending on how they pop up on the screen.  Moving the pictures around is way too frustrating to spend much time on.  Specimen Creek was not really one of my favorite trails but I still found value in it.  The trails on the west side of the park are a bit longer and more remote.  More appropriate for back country camping trips, it seems.  I had heard that this trail was a good place to see wildlife from a safe distance.  I didn't see any wildlife the entire time I was out hiking.  I hiked 4 miles in to a place where the creek crossed the trail.  It was so peaceful and surrounded by beautiful rock features and meadows that I decided to stay for a while.  The sunshine was warm and the water was bubbling by and I lay down by the creek and took a nap for an hour.  Then I got up and turned around and hiked 4 miles back out.  Probably the highlight of that day was dinner after the hike!  A friend had recommended a BBQ place in Big Sky, Montana.  It was called Riverside BBQ.  I stopped in, ordered the brisket street tacos and sweet potato fries, and stuffed myself before I drove the long way home.  That meal was a true treat :) 

    

The view from Purple Mountain

One of the hikes I went on happened to be quite by accident but ended up being probably my favorite one.  I woke up late one day and figured I'd get a coffee and then just be lazy around the house for the rest of the day.  But when I got to the coffee shop, the lady making my drink asked me what my plans were for the day.  I didn't have a good answer and told her I was considering a short hike.  She suggested Purple Mountain.  I didn't have any other reference for the trail.  I didn't really know how long it was or what the elevation change was like or what I would see along the way.  But I decided to try it anyway.  Turns out that at the top of the mountain I found the best view of the Madison, West, and Old Faithful areas of the park!  The picture doesn't even show half of what I could see from the top.  A winding river, winding road, geyser steam rising in the distance, cliffs and hills, mountains, and valleys, meadows, and much more, captivated me for a long while before I realized I was freezing and had to get down the mountain before nightfall.

Grand Prismatic Spring

Every weekend in Yellowstone I had the amazing opportunity to explore on foot.  I truly believe that you can't really know a park unless you leave the pavement and boardwalks.  In the places where few tourists every go, a person can really start to understand and make close acquaintance with the wild side of our national parks.  But perhaps the real reason I enjoy walking single track trails through the woods by myself at my own pace is because I gather a deeper understanding of who I am and my thoughts sound clearer in my mind.  The woods have a way of calming and relieving stress.  When I leave a trail I always find myself more at peace than I have been in a long time.  

I'm going to miss Yellowstone.  The time I spent there was special in many, many ways.  I look forward to the next time already.