Campsite at a. Ocean Lake Wildlife Habitat Area, WY

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1 Yellowstone Dave and Helen Damouth <Dave@Damouth.org> 6/27/2006 to 7/10/2006 More photos are available at This trip was planned about six months ago as an opportunity to get together with long term friends Andy and Kat from Rochester, NY, and to give them an opportunity to see a part of the country which they had not previously visited. Dave and Helen previously visited Yellowstone in 1998 and recorded our observations and impressions in chapter 22. See We'll refrain from repeating those observations here, so the actual Yellowstone portion of this report will be quite brief. Tuesday, 6/27/06: We left home at 10:36 am, traveling via I-25 to Fort Collins, I-80 to Rawlins, and US-287 diagonally northwest through Wyoming. We've a couple of days of free time before we have to be at Yellowstone, and have planned nothing specific, on the assumption that we'll use the time whenever we see something new or interesting along the way. Nothing new or special grabbed our attention during this day, and we continued driving. By 6 pm, we were in the middle of Wyoming and thinking about finding an interesting campsite before dark. A little research in Don Wright's "Guide to Free and Low Cost Campgrounds led us to Ocean Lake Wildlife Habitat Area, which has primitive campsites at half a dozen places around the 3-mile-wide lake. Although we're in the middle of the huge Wind River Indian Reservation, this site is owned and operated by the State, with apparently some assistance from BLM. Some of the campsites seem to have no signage on the highways. We found a suitable spot on the northwest corner of the lake at N ', W ' (turn from road) or N ', W ' (campsite). Campsite at a Ocean Lake Wildlife Habitat Area, WY

2 Yellowstone 2006 page 2 Within this site, and presumably some of the others, there is a large map showing the location of the official camping areas around the lake (which seems to mean there is a pit toilet and/or a dirt boat launch ramp). We also saw other areas obviously used for camping, with no facilities and not shown on the map. We have a view out over the lake to the distant mountains, with the peaks of the Wind River Range still snow capped. To the east, we're bounded by lush fields of irrigated alfalfa and hay, some currently being cut and baled. It's quite quiet here, with the nearby farm road having very little traffic and the highways 15 miles or more away. The main sound is the songs of many different birds, most of them hidden in foliage and difficult to identify. The temperature is still in the high 80's this evening - surprisingly hot for this far north and this altitude (5300 ft). There are fresh tracks of deer or pronghorn around the area, but we haven't seen the animals yet. The mosquitoes were ferocious on our evening walks. This lake is a reservoir and is part of an extensive irrigation system. Water is rushing into the lake along a ditch adjacent to the camping area. At the campsite entrance road, there is a manually-controlled valve which diverts water into the adjacent hay field. Beside the valve is a box on a post, containing blank forms to be filled out by farmers requesting water. Once or twice a day, a guy shows up in a truck to collect the forms and open or close the valves as requested. As we walked the roads in the area, we could often hear water rushing through similar valves in front of each field, some of them fed by underground pipes rather than open ditches, thus allowing the water to flow both up and down the low, gentle hills. World s Largest Road Sign? and World s Largest Mineral Hot Springs

3 Yellowstone 2006 page 3 Wednesday, 6/28/06: We enjoyed a lazy morning "at home" and then spent the afternoon driving the Jeep northeast to and through the Wind River Canyon, and then to the town of Thermopolis, home of "the world's largest mineral hot springs", a round trip of about 120 miles. The hot springs are indeed large, and the runoff has created a huge long wall of pale orange travertine as it drops into the nearby Bighorn River. The springs and the travertine features are now a State Park, and an extensive system of boardwalks has been built to allow walking through the area. We didn't go into the park, contenting ourselves with an overview from the highway. Wind River Canyon The canyon is impressive - 13 miles long and 2400 ft. deep at the middle. It was created by a gradual bulging of the earth at this spot, forcing the pre-existing river to cut down through the successive layers of rock. Signs along the highway identified each layer. At the deepest point, halfway through the canyon, Precambrian granite is exposed. The Wind River changes name to the Bighorn River as it goes through the canyon - the upper and lower river having been named separately by different groups of early explorers. Tractor and Hay

4 Yellowstone 2006 page 4 Thursday, 6/29/06: Another lazy day. This is a pleasant place, within an easy day's drive of our Yellowstone RV Park, so we'll just hang out, exploring a bit by car and foot. The faint chug of a diesel tractor, loading huge hay bales onto a flatbed truck, blends with the rustle of cottonwood leaves and the varied bird songs to create an enjoyable bucolic ambience while we relax with a cold drink and a good book. Friday, 6/30/06: A pleasant drive to and through Yellowstone National Park to Grizzly Yellowstone RV Park, in West Yellowstone. This RV Park is a pleasant and wellmaintained place with friendly, helpful, staff. The WiFi is by NomadISP - $20/week, $4.00/day - not cheap but more reasonable than some. It was fast - I noted a transfer rate of 750 kb/s on big files. We signed up for a week, and got by with the cell phone on the last day after the week ended (good 1X connection with the external antenna on the dashboard in the front window, erratic weak signal without the antenna). Saturday, 7/1/06: We picked up our friends at the Jackson Airport at 10:30 am. This required leaving the RV Park at 7:30 am - and we just barely made it in time. Travel through both parks, Grand Teton and Yellowstone, is very slow. The speed limit is generally 45 mph, but occasional tourists are drifting along at 30 mph, passing opportunities are infrequent, and all traffic stops for every animal sighting. Our friends picked up a local newspaper at the airport and were appalled at the real estate prices in and around Jackson. Grand Tetons and Jackson Lake On the way back from the airport, we did a bit of sightseeing in Grand Teton National Park and then spent the rest of the day driving a primitive forest road west from Flagg Ranch up through the mountains to Ashton, Idaho, and then north, first on scenic SH 47 then US 20 to our campground in West Yellowstone. We were a bit disappointed with the route - we had hoped that the first part of the road would get up high in the mountains where we could enjoy some scenic vistas and alpine terrain - but in fact it stayed relatively low. We did find a stand of delicate late Glacier Lily. We didn't need 4-wheel drive at any point along this drive. There were several primitive campsites along the first few miles of road west from Flagg Ranch. Some of these might be accessible to relatively large RVs, given careful driving and good weather. Sunday, 7/2/06: We did the standard tourist things with our friends - Norris Basin, Mammoth Hot Springs, north to Gardiner and back, then east on Grand Loop road to complete the loop through the northern part of the park. The park was more beautiful than we remembered. In 1988, over a million acres in and around the park were burned by

5 Yellowstone 2006 page 5 wildfires. When we were here in 1998, the new trees were small and many areas still looked quite raw. Today, the trees are quite a bit bigger and most of the obvious evidence of fire (other than the uniformly young stands of trees) is gone. Porcelain Basin at Norris Mammoth Hot Springs Part way along the eastern loop, we turned up Blacktail Plateau Drive, a narrow one-way unpaved road which climbs onto a low plateau and runs for several miles before rejoining the main road. Along this drive, we came to another car stopped by a small herd of bison

6 Yellowstone 2006 page 6 along the shoulder of the narrow track. After a few minutes, the driver of this car got impatient and tried to edge past the bison. A young bull reared up on his hind legs, dancing and snorting, then lowered his head and threatened to charge the car. The driver accelerated away, and the bull calmed down, apparently satisfied with scaring away the intruder. Soon after this, the herd drifted back a bit further from the road and we were able to creep past uneventfully. Monday, 7/3/06: There's a bald eagle nest about 50 feet from the road, just inside the west entrance to the park, so we are driving past it twice a day. Two fledglings are visible peering over the edge of the nest, and one or both parents are usually perched on a branch just above the nest. A park ranger is always standing at the roadside near the nest from dawn to dusk, insuring that no vehicle parks within 100 yards or so either side of the nest and that no person approaches the nest area on foot. That's a very expensive nest! Today's visits were to Old Faithful and the surrounding area, Firehole Canyon, and assorted other smaller geothermal areas. This is a very large park. On each day, we drove 100 to 150 miles round-trip to see the various park features. We generally packed a lunch to take with us, since we could rarely be sure of being near a food source at lunch time. Evenings, we alternated between eating out at one of the many overpriced mediocre restaurants in West Yellowstone or preparing grilled burgers or sausages or other simple meals at the motorhome. Old Faithful

7 Yellowstone 2006 page 7 Firehole Canyon Dragon s Mouth

8 Yellowstone 2006 page 8 Bison and Tourists Tuesday, 7/4/06: We visited Biscuit Basin, Black Sands, and Hayden Valley. Lots of wildlife sightings, - bison, elk, many birds, no bear or wolf. Several bison babies and yearlings were right along the road and made cute photos. We've also noticed that bison are attracted to the geothermal features. In the evening, West Yellowstone had a large fireworks show, visible from our campsite. We were surprised that the park wasn't overly crowded on this holiday. We had no difficulties parking or viewing the various geothermal and geological features, with one exception: Artist Point, the most popular viewpoint of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, had busloads of tourists standing in line to get to the front of the viewing wall. Wednesday, 7/5/06: Andy arrived with a cold, and now we all have it. With no one feeling well, we made this a rest day, hanging out at home, doing laundry, reading, fitting picture puzzles, etc. Thursday, 7/6/06: We drove northwest to the National Forest Service Earthquake Center, just west of Yellowstone NP in the Madison River Canyon near Hebgen Lake. In 1959, this area experienced an earthquake variously measured at Richter 7.1 to 7.5, the strongest earthquake ever recorded in the Intermountain region of the United States. The earth tilted and a mountainside collapsed into a huge slide, burying an NFS campground, damming the Madison River, and flooding other campgrounds. The quake destroyed many miles of the only highway through the area. Hebgen Lake was tilted, with the north side of the lake dropping nineteen feet, creating a 20 foot high wave (seiche) which sloshed back and forth across the lake, flattening everything on both shores. When the waves subsided, 12 hours later, buildings on the north side of the lake were completely submerged, while the remains of the buildings which had been on the south shore were now in the middle of an exposed muddy plain, far from the new lakeshore. During the quake, approximately 200 geysers in Yellowstone Park erupted simultaneously, and several new ones were formed. The total water flow from geysers and springs into the Madison River increased dramatically, making the newly dammed lake rise even faster.

9 Yellowstone 2006 page 9 The Earthquake center was built high on the massive slide overlooking the most dramatic results of the quake. Exhibits include photos of the event, descriptions of the dramatic rescue of the survivors, and a great deal of interesting interpretive material about the quake and the geologic structure of the area. While at the Earthquake Center, I asked a ranger for a recommendation on a forest road that would get us up to high alpine views in the nearby mountains. We were directed to NFSD road 292, via a local road which goes west from an intersection with US Highway 287, about 2 miles north of Cameron, MT. We stopped at Cameron for lunch. Cameron is a two-building town, one building containing restaurant, bar, and general store. The adjacent building is a motel, with an RV Park behind it. The whole thing is for sale, if anyone is interested in buying a town. North of Cameron, we found the side road and headed west. After crossing the Madison River (on the only bridge for many miles in either direction), there is a somewhat confusing network of local farm roads with names that don't always match our map. The important intersection is at N ' W '. Take the right (SW-heading) fork at this intersection and continue through high pasture land for 4.5 miles, at which point the road enters the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest and heads generally southwest, eventually joining Warm Springs Road, NFSD 163, on which we continued west. Dense forest alternated with open rolling grasslands, and as we came over the top of these mountains, we began to see another broad valley to the west with open ranch land. The alpine wildflowers at the tops were in abundant bloom and we found many interesting plants to study. A dramatic storm in the East provided good backdrop for scenic photographs. Shortly after this point, we turned back, retracing our route. All of the roads we traveled were graveled and maintained. There was no need for 4-wheel drive or high clearance. Beaver-Deerhead National Forest

10 Yellowstone 2006 page 10 Friday, 7/7/06: We drove all the way across the park to the east entrance, and then continued east toward Cody, WY, on US 14. Pretty scenery as the highway twisted its way up and over a pass. But the road over the pass is being extensively re-built, and the construction delays, in both directions, were long and annoying. Saturday, 7/8/06: Dave and Andy spent most of the morning moving the motor home down to Gros Ventre Campground, at the southern edge of Grand Teton National Park only about 6 miles from the Jackson Airport, from which Andy and Kat will depart early tomorrow morning. Gros Ventre is a huge campground, spread out along the Gros Ventre River in a grove of cottonwoods. The sites are pleasant and well-spaced, but without any hookups. Helen and Kat drove the Jeep and stopped at pullouts we hadn t already visited on this trip. The early morning sunlight diffusing through heavy mists rising from the warm waters of Firehole River was beautifully eerie. Morning Mist Later, we drove to Jackson Hole Ski Area, where Helen and Dave explored a big flea market while Kat and Andy took the tramway to the top of the mountain for expansive views. The remainder of the afternoon was spent near Jenny Lake, where we took short hikes and generally relaxed in the pleasant ambience of the lake and the mountain backdrop. Sunday, 7/9/06: After dropping our friends at the airport, we headed to the National Museum of Wildlife Art. The building is an attractive rambling structure of rough-cut sandstone, blending into a hillside along the highway a few miles north of Jackson. We saw painting and sculptures by many artists who were previously unknown to us. In particular, John Clymer and Carl Rungius were represented by extensive collections, and one gallery was entirely filled by an interesting re-construction of John Clymer's studio. There was a special exhibition of Thomas Moran's sketches and watercolors of Yellowstone and Grand Teton parks, prepared as documentation when he accompanied a U.S. Geological Survey exploration of these areas in His well-known 1872 huge painting

11 Yellowstone 2006 page 11 of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone was based on these preliminary works, and played a major role in persuading Congress to make Yellowstone the first National Park. Although these early sketches and watercolors are of historical importance, they are not very successful as art. We much prefer Moran's grandiose oil paintings, done later from memory and from these sketches. Jenny Lake As the deadline for checking out of the RV Park approached, Dave drove back to the RV Park, packed up the motorhome, and drove it to the museum (there is a huge parking lot for RV's) while Helen continued enjoying the museum. Around 1:00 pm we got underway toward Denver, heading south from Jackson along US 191 to I-80. We spent a peaceful night at a rest area near milepost 188 on I-80. Monday, 7/10/06: An uneventful drive along familiar roads got us home at 2:10 pm. We covered 1307 miles in the motorhome, and drove another 1370 miles in the jeep. All rights reserved; permission granted to copy, only for personal non-commercial use, the complete unmodified document including this notice. : 2006 by David E. Damouth Damouth.org>