Trip Out West: 05-15-2009 Tatonka!

This is the place we stayed after our first day in Yellowstone. The correct name for this place was Pahaska Teepee. It was really like stepping back in time. The place we checked in at was moved over from the main check in place due to it being so late. When we had walked in, it was almost like stepping back into 1890. The room was dimly lit with 3 sources of light, all of which were turned down to where they resembled candle light. The bar was made out of some sort of dark wood with a giant mirror reflecting back at us. The people were friendly enough but were all locals so we did not take part in conversation that was going about the room. We had just caught the kitchen cook before the kitchen was closed. I got chili and Matt got vegetable soup. Afterwards we went to our cabin. We had lights and that is about it when it came to utilities. Our cell phones were no good and internet was borderline useless.

Early the next morning we received a knock on the door. We both jumped up ready for anything to come through. Then we hear someone yell, “Do you want room service?” We yelled back “No”. We then scrambled to find out what time it was thinking we were late getting up. Soon we found out it was 8am and decided to go back to sleep. We finally hit the road around 9:30 with warnings for ice abundantly posted.

While driving the treacherous roads near the east gate, we saw signs declaring that we were now in avalanche territory. The park service apparently uses the howitzer cannon pictured above for avalanche control.

After 20 minutes of being in Yellowstone, we came upon a small group of buffalo. The one pictured above was very mellow. He started out perhaps 30 yards away but kept creeping closer and closer to me. He seemed interested in only the grass he was chewing on with no other cares in the world.

This is another one of the buffalo that came trotting on by.

After turning north at north at Fishing Bridge, we came across a sign telling us about river rapids. We decided to stop so that we could go see the rapids. After all these rapids must be awesome if they are advertising it on the map and on a sign telling us to pull off. The trail to the overlook was still snowy but we pressed on anyways. Once we made it to the boardwalk, we found it to be covered by at least 3 feet of snow. The walk way was where the hand rails were. We were slipping, sliding, and sinking all over the place in what turned out to be a rather hazardous exercise.

Speaking of slipping, sliding, and sinking….here is a photo of Matt after he got of the path just a little bit and sunk in. You can imagine how I was doing if Matt was sinking in this well with my more rounded size…

I also found out at this point that my shoes were neither water proof nor snow proof. So from this point forward in the day I was tromping around in wet shoes and socks.

More buffalo we found…and the picture is here just because they are sooo cool. This was at the entrance to the Mud Volcano park. He was just chilling out on our walking path. So we had to go a long ways around him.

This is overlooking some of the Mud Volcano area. The Mud Volcano itself is not pictured though.

This is a picture of two thermal events that are occurring either in or near Yellowstone River.

Shot of northern Yellowstone

Same as above...

Lower falls from Artist Point.

Same as above

Shot of the upper falls I believe.

Picture of us at either the upper or lower falls. It was hard to distinguish which one we were looking at.

Same set of falls from the opposite side of the gorge.

The falls and the bridge we used to travel across. Pretty neat arch support bridge.

This is a photo from about the same area as the last one looking away from the falls. They call this Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon. I can totally see why now. This place tended to give me a severe case of vertigo.

This is looking away from the “Bridging the Golden Gate area”. To our surprise there was a water fall that was not listed on any map we could find. We originally stopped at this location so I could take a picture of the bridge. But when we turned back towards the car we found this little gem. Very few people seemed to see it as it was hidden.

This photo was taken atop Mammoth Springs. This place is what I would imagine the moon looking like. Totally white, made of what looks to be salt deposits. Water is constantly flowing from the spring down the white colossus.

Close-up of one the pools of water on Mammoth Springs.

Wide angle view of the Mammoth Springs peak.

One of the pools had odd colors…this is a close-up of one

And another…

Some buffalo had congregated in Mammoth Springs Village. This was the first time we had seen baby buffalos.

One of the baby buffalo was just having an absolute field day. He kept running around all the others almost as if he were being chased by some doppelganger…none of the other buffalo would play with him and he finally settled down.

These two were apparently “practicing” fighting, or so we were told. Apparently if they were really fighting it gets a quite a bit worse than butting heads and poking each other with their horns. It was fun to watch them pushing each other around though…

Wide angle shot of the herd.

Hey look! The little buffalo scratch their head like dogs do! So funny.

It is something…we don’t know what to be for sure…so we car calling it a deer thing…

Big horned sheep! We were totally not expecting to find these guys but they were just camped out watching us watch them. Traffic had lined up watching them. This was on our way to the north east gate of Yellowstone.

Another Shot of the Big Horn sheep….soo cool…even a little majestic.

And another...

These buffalo were just hanging out by the road…by this time we had seen literally hundreds of buffalo…but every time we see them we just want to stop and look at them. So once again we did…and once again you get to look at them. :)