The School of Life with Horses A blog covering my journey with horses. Horse show news from the Pacific Northwest, travel experiences, horse tips, my struggles and solutions - basically everything horse and not horse as I come across it.

Bunsen Peak

I hope I am not boring you guys with my tales of Yellowstone, it’s just that what I experienced at Yellowstone was almost religious and so I wrote about my trip in detail before those details started to fade from my memory. When I was up there on that mountain I knew without a doubt that it was exactly where I wanted to be. I was so moved and so overcome by the beauty of the park that it changed me. And even though I was sore after 3 days of hiking, I felt ALIVE, for the first time in a long time and it started a process of the reorganizing of priorities for me. Things that I thought were so important aren’t so much anymore, and some things will still just always to important to me. I know one thing for sure – I am going back next year.

So without further ado – here is another chunk of my trip.

Also I’d like you to note my music player is at the bottom of my blog now as I didn’t like the way the new HTML was presenting the player in the column so I stuck it at the bottom. Sorry it was not my intention to make you scroll all the way down to the bottom to shut it off. But if you’d like – please enjoy the music, alot of it is off of my one of my favorite movies “Into The Wild.”

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We were up and at it fairly early the next morning just before 7. I busted out the camp stove to perk some coffee and following some advice from my Grandma, on exactly how to do it, I made much better coffee than I had made in my earlier tent camping days. In fact it was almost like normal auto drip coffee, it was great to just sit there at our picnic table warming ourselves up with some coffee as the sun started to peak over the ridge. We each had a few cups of steaming coffee while we scarfed down some Costco muffins and got our packs ready for a day hike.

Trail Information Board - no recent bear activity - good!

Notice the "no dogs" sign? Sigh.... there were lots of those around the park. I don't recommend bringing your dog to Yellowstone, they are not allowed on any of the trails, not allowed more than 10ft away from your campsite - or off of any paved roads and of course you can't leave them alone in camp unless they are penned or crated (they can't be tied up either) and they absolutely cannot bark (people will complain if you have a dog that happens to make the mistake of barking, I watched it happen) - so basically if you bring one you have to have an RV to stash it in or just not do anything at all while in the park. My suggestion, if you want to travel with your dog, is to visit State Parks, they are WAY more friendly to folks camping with dogs than National Parks.

We got to trailhead a little after 8 and took some more time arranging maps and putting on our hiking boots. I made sure to wear my knee brace this time. We briefly debated taking a different hike but it was almost twice as long so we stuck to our original plan of Bunsen Peak. We headed up the trial as I was trying to explain to Hubby we had chosen the shorter but not the easier trail. According to the map we had well over 1,500 feet to climb in just over 2 miles. It seemed that immediately the trail started climbing – cutting hikers very little slack. The trail swung us out wide on a ridge and then as it neared the rocky top it started progressive switch backs all the way to the top. We took two long rests – one as a potty break, carefully following the rules on how to do that in a National Park (yes, there are rules about how that is to be done on a trail) and the other closer tp the top as we just weren’t doing well once we got above 10,000 ft.

Trail was still mild at this point.

From this view point you can see Golden Gate (left) it is the Huckleberry Tuff - the ridge left behind when the first and biggest Yellowstone super volcano eruptions took place, when the magma chamber below the ground emptied (ejecting superheated ash, lava, and gas into the air) it collapsed leaving that ridge and the one you see in the background of this photo. The ridge in the background has also experienced some erosion steaming from subsequent eruptions and glacial melting after the ice age ended - it now shows a great example of an alluvial fan. Mammoth Hot Springs is also visible in the picture.

Terrance Mountain as seen from Bunsen Peak - we hiked that yesterday - and another chuck of Huckleberry Ridge (Tuff).

Hubby

Casualty of the 1988 fires.

On our last push for the summit we had to pause in the middle of each switch back to catch our breath. On the corners of the switch backs you could see amazing views of the Mammoth Valley and the sheer rocky Rhyolite cliffs of the Mountain itself. I have to admit that it was one of the most physically challenging things I have ever done to date, Hubby was just as exerted as me and was having trouble with blisters forming on his feet. They hurt so they were making him walk differently which in turn was hurting his knees and hips. He refused to stop to put anything on his feet or take some Ibuprofen and he didn’t want to go back – so I didn’t know what to do other than continue upwards.

During one of our breaks I noticed we had some company, a small group of Blue Grouse just behind us. While cute - they also looked mighty tasty and plump and had they been on our property instead of a national park, there is a chance they would've been dinner.

Me!

Trail starts to get serious now.

Now I am a little scared of heights and every time Hubby would creep close to the edge of the cliff for a picture I would about die. I mean what if a gust of wind hit him? Or if he lost his footing?? There was no second chances up there, you’d be dead – there was nothing to grab, nothing to stop you from plunging to your death. If you fell the other way back down the trail, for instance, you may stop before you died but it was so rocky that you’d be hamburger by the time you stopped falling so I was erring on the side of caution and would almost scream at him to knock it off every time he went close for a picture.

Cathedral Rock - it's a long ways down. Basically if you slip, you are a goner.

Another view point.

During our last rest he noticed that we were high enough that we had excellent cell phone service (of course) and phoned our friends back home to see how the dogs were doing. While I was annoyed at him making a phone call near the top of our Mountain hike, I was so wanting to know how our pups were doing. Seriously we’ve never left them alone for this long before so it was nice to hear they were happy, but I was felt incredibly guilty when our friend told us that Kaiser thoroughly searched his car for us when he stopped by that morning to feed. Poor pups!

View of Electric Peak from Bunsen Peak trail

Wild Flower I spotted

View over Cathedral Rock

View of the Bunsen Peak Summit (did I mention it is named after the guy who invented the Bunsen burner - Bunsen Burners are commonly found in chemistry labs and classrooms all over the world) he needed a more efficient way to channel heat for his studies on the chemical and biological processes of the thermal features here in Yellowstone - so he invented what he needed.

View of the Summit looking in the other direction

We hit the summit soon after the cell phone stop and I was amazed by the views at the top. I have been to the top of other mountains before but that was one of the higher ones I had hiked - according to a GPS the mountain was considerably higher than the park claimed on the map, we had gone from 8,500 ft to well over 10,500 ft (a fellow climber was boosting his GPS read 10,900 ft at the summit elevation but I am not confident in that reading). It seemed like we truly were scratching the roof of heaven. It was a very deep and humbling experience and when I asked Hubby if the hike was worth it, because he had been complaining a lot, he said, “Ohhhh Yeah.” I was so thrilled to be able to share this moment with him. On the summit we joined others - there was this couple and their two older kids – they were very friendly and chatted with us while we took our packs off, ate some Cliff Bars and relaxed with a cool breeze coming up at us off the face of the mountain. They were from Connecticut and absolutely loved the hike. The father even showed off a flask he bought at the gift store and had filled with some “Yellowstone Bourbon” he also purchased at the gift store – he let us each try some and it was very nice. I liked the bourbon so much, of course, you know what I did that evening when we got back – I went and got some of my own.

Another Summit View

After a few minutes of sitting there, the wind died down we were hit with this cloud of thousands of tiny black flies – it was thick – well.... the Connecticut family wanted nothing to do with the flies so they took off in a hurry, but they didn't bother me at all. They didn't seem to be actively biting - just annoying. Now I had heard there was a box at the summit where people could put little mountain keepsakes in, and I took a couple of minutes looking for it but couldn’t find it anywhere, I had wanted to put a copy of Stephanie’s poem in it (as I know she would’ve just gone bonkers over the mere thought going to Yellowstone and going on a hike like this) but it was no where to be found. A little disappointed, but feeling rested and still in awe of the summit we decided to head back down after taking some great pictures the views.

Expansive Views

Swan Lake Flats and from left to right - Quadrant Mt, Antler Peak, Dome Mt, and Mt Holmes (part of the Gallatin Range)

While it took us just over 3 hours to hike up the Mountain it took us only 45 minutes to make our decent, I was glad I wore my knee brace and did much better coming down Bunsen Peak than I did on our last hike. Hubby learned a little about trail manners on the way down. While hiking up hill it’s polite to get off the trail and make room for people traveling down hill. He kept hopping off the trail for folks traveling up hill confusing them but by the time we reached the bottom he has the hang of it.

Obsidian Cliffs

Obsidian

Then back at the trail head we shed our gear off in the car and headed back to camp for lunch since we had to go that way anyway. After lunch we decided to visit Norris Geyser Basin just was just down the road from our camp. On the way there we stopped at the Obsidian Cliffs, which, I thought were gorgeous! It is a very rare large deposit of Obsidian in column form. In the afternoon sun the rocks were all a deep black and shimmered in the sunlight. There are signs posted everywhere to not take the obsidian so we left it alone – one exhibit explains that the cliffs have lost a lot of their luster due to tourists taking chunks of Obsidian keepsakes home with them. The exhibit also explains how Native Americans used this highly prized high quality obsidian and how arrowheads from the east coast have been traced back to the obsidian cliffs at Yellowstone, spearheads have been dated as far back as belonging to the early Clovis Indians.

Roaring Mountain - we caught it later when it was active the next day.

In heat of the day we set out on the trail from the top of Mammoth Hot Springs, and because it was not well marked Hubby was unsure if we were allowed to be on that particular trail. There were signs just littering the area everywhere else telling people to stay on the boardwalks and not to enter the thermal areas. But there was no sign marking that trail as closed so I deemed it legal and we set out across a small meadow. First thing we came to just a little ways up the trail was a spring that looked like a rather new spring that had sprung up in the middle of the trail. We picked our way around the spring and picked up the trail on the other side, then after just a little further we hear a deep thumping type of noise, there seemed to be some type of a rhythm to it, so to me, that meant it had to be traffic going over a bump in the distance or something like that. Hubby was concerned it was a bear tearing a log or stump up (which we have seen them do up here – to get at the ants, termites, grubs, or whatever else is in them) and again wasn’t thrilled about the prospect of moving on. The more I listened the more I would swear it almost sounded like boiling water – not a bear – so I insisted we continue on.

Back side of Orange Mound

Bubbling Spring

Cave flooded with Carbon Dioxide (CO2)

Further down the trail we stopped as the noise was much louder, and it was as though the vibrations crawling up through our feet. We were right on top of the source of the noise - it was water! Right underneath us, some thermal vent flooded with ground water was bubbling away – near by there was a steaming hole that looked much more like a geyser than a spring – but it was just steaming. Not dumb enough to stick my face in there to look we hung around for a bit just listening to the sound of the bubbling and belching of the water beneath us, free of the noise created by other tourists. It was just about then that I was stuck by the shear power of the caldera that powered most of the thermal features in the park. For some reason listening to that thermal was the coolest thing in the world. I tried to get it on video and if I spend some more time cleaning up the audio I might have it – but right now you can’t really hear it – the sound was just too low for my camera mic to pick up real clearly.

Back country spring along the trail.

Hole in the middle of Trail. You really have to watch your footing in the park.

You could hear some bubbling going on in this one too - but no steam so I looked inside.

Along the trail we also found several neat caves that were marked with CO2 warnings not to go in – but they were still neat to see – one even had a thermal spring just inside the entrance. By then we were approaching the tree line and I was relieved to get out of the heat as I was just sweating to death under my day pack, but that’s also where the climbing started. We made pretty good time hiking upwards when we came to a fork in the trail and being curious I wanted to see what was down the other trail – reluctantly Hubby headed down it with me, knowing that we’d only have to head back up it. I was disappointed to discover the trail was only a short cut back to a main road, but on our way back to the main trail I saw something out of the corner of my eye – it was an elk kill – a skull with horns still attached, which I though was fairly cool but soon we saw another and I started to get a little nervous thinking something likes to dine here so we snapped some photos and moved on.

One of the Elk kills.

Mountain Butterfly

We headed on up to the top of that mountain – which was more like a high ridge, but oh well. We snapped some neat pictures of the views on our way and then upon reaching the top you have the option of continuing on up the mountain behind it along snow pass, which I had originally planned to do – but we were so dang hot and as surprising as it was I think the higher elevation was getting to us as we should not have been that winded but it seemed like we couldn’t breath very well, so we decided to call it good and hike back down besides it was getting later on in the day than I would prefer it to be for hiking into unknown areas without a map, yes folks, I left the map in the car – good one huh?

Small narrow gorge next to trail.

We were able to descend the on trial in half the time it took us to climb it until my knee started to give out on me. My poor knees creek and pop constantly; years of snow skiing (one bad fall that I probably should’ve seen a doctor for), and basketball couches that knew absolutely NOTHING about safely conditioning a teenage body, and taking falls and kicks from horses have finally caught up with my knees. When I am at horse shows I usually wear a brace at least on my right knee – and when I run I usually wear one as I have zero side to side strength such that even a small rock will send one knee crashing into the other. And while I did think to bring my brace I did not think I would need it on our first hike. I was wrong. Half way down it was threatening to give out on me and I had to cut my speed in half. It’s almost funny how it will just quit on me like that – not much pain, just get real weak and suddenly nothing. Maybe someday when my back is feeling better I will get my knees checked out.

We made it back to the car with me limping along, I popped a couple Alieve (sp?) as soon as we hit the car – as a preemptive strike against what I thought would be mounting knee pain. We were so tired we practically fell in the car. I kicked the AC up full blast and we sat for a few minutes just resting. Of the other interesting things we had on the “to do in Yellowstone list” sitting in the Boiling River swimming area sounded the best. So having thrown our swimsuits, towels and sandals in the car earlier we stopped by the public restrooms in Mammoth to change – after that lovely experience I much preferred the pit toilets in our own campground over the public restrooms with flush toilets through out the park. Besides being filthy in almost every other way it was littered with dirty diapers, and the dead bodies some sort of large pine beetle that inhabits the area. Yeah nice.

Boiling River swimming area – so cool!

The Boiling River

The Boiling River as it makes it's way to the Gardiner River

When we got to the swimming area parking lot we learned it was a mile walk to the actual swimming area – but it was worth it because like everywhere else in Yellowstone the walk was beautiful. The Boiling River swimming area is where the Boiling river, a thermal heated river; (they believe that it’s run off from the Mammoth Hot Springs that heats the river) meets the Gardner River, which is still quite cold from snow run off. Where the two meet it is nice and warm. It’s only about 3 feet deep at the deepest so you get in and sit down. If you like it hotter – you get closer to where the Boiling River pours in the Gardner River if you like it cooler you sit out further into the Gardner River. I sat on some rocks right next to where the Boiling River merges with the Gardner River – letting the hot water wash over my sore muscles and up against my back. Hubby alternated between sitting in the hot water to help his muscles and the cooler water when he got too hot. It was heaven. I relaxed immediately.

Where the Boiling River meets the Gardiner River

While the area wasn’t too full when we got there after 4 o’clock by the time we left it was getting pretty full. There was a wide variety of people in there – it was pretty neat to see folks of all different nationalities getting along and enjoying a small piece of nature sit aside for the public by a wise American President. Everyone was having a great time and was really considerate and nice with the exception of some kids who thought they needed to ride the current through the swimming area whether someone was standing in front of them or not. No one would hesitate to point out the best hot spot or a good rock to sit on – a gentleman with a little girl was kind enough to point me to a spot where you could sit in a small cave under the little waterfalls where the boiling river came in. Now how neat is that! There was a faint odor of the Hydrogen Sulfide from the Boiling River rising up with the steam but it wasn’t too bad at all.

One of the few public swimming areas in Yellowstone.

We got out of the swimming area just after 6 – and by the time we walked back to the car we were completely dry, that’s how hot it still was. Relaxed and rejuvenated we decided to drive through the Mammoth Campground on our way back to our campground. We noticed that there wasn’t much to it. Lots of dirt, rocks and sage brush – it was at a noticeably lower elevation than our campground, and the spots were much more closer together – but we also noticed it was much more well suited for RVs than ours. Also this campground had WiFi!! Can you imagine that? Out roughing it in the sage brush and you can get WiFi for your computer!

Apparently this is a good area to see Pronghorn, but we didn't see any all week. ((pout)).

After our little self guided tour of Mammoth Campground we headed back to camp for a much deserved dinner and some beer! After getting all the food out and starting a fire we decided to do Hot Dogs for dinner and since we brought along some fat-free chili encase it was cold and we needed a warm meal – we added the chili and enjoyed chili dogs for dinner. In fact to avoid the pain of having to do dishes (and dispose of the dish water in the pit toilets as is required by the rules to not draw in bears) we cooked the chili in the can by the fire – a trick we learned earlier in our tent camping days. An older lady and her husband walked by that evening walking around the campground loop, and noticed our can sitting by the fire – I laughed and told her that it was the “high tech” way to cook chili – she thought it was pretty funny too and they had a good laugh at our cooking methods. The Turkey Dogs were also cooked over the fire – and we had two or three each – we were just starving from all the hiking. One thing we noticed about our campsite off the bat was those beetles I had noticed in the public restrooms were in the trees all around our campground and they spent each and every evening we were there driving out of the trees towards our lantern and/or our fire, thing is... they are terrible landers, and most of them would not hit their mark and would land on us instead.

View of the flank of Bunsen Peak from Terrance Mountain Hike

We figured out pretty fast that they didn’t smell and didn’t bite so they didn’t bother us at all, we just flicked them off whenever they’d land on us. Of course we were celebrating our first day at Yellowstone and our Anniversary with some Jack and Pendleton (not mixed together of course) all the while we were cooking so we were feeling pretty rummy and tired by the end of the meal. So we hit the sack early planning on an early morning hike of Bunsen Peak nearby. I took my pills that night so I sleep on the uncomfortable sleeping mats and so I could move the next day – but I would still wake to hear the coyotes and sounds of the forest around me.

View of Bunsen Peak from higher up on our Terrance Mountain Hike

When we first got to Indian Creek Campground a couple just packing up told us they had heard Wolves howling the two previous nights – in fact that morning she had gotten up early to try to see them and spotted them a mile or so down the river from us briefly before they moved off, so I was hoping to hear them too. But alas all we heard was Coyotes and after a bit I was bored of listening to them and drifted off to sleep a little disappointed. It seemed other than the times I woke up to listen to the coyotes hoping they were wolves; I slept pretty good – that was not the case with Hubby, the next morning he said he hardly slept at all.

At some point in time in July I floated the idea of going to Yellowstone to my hubby and thought perhaps we could do it next year depending on funds. To my surprise he didn’t shoot down the idea but didn’t know if we could swing it with his school schedule, so he suggested we go this summer. Now with it being mid-summer I didn’t know if we could go or not, I thought surely all the campgrounds would be full, but I did know that both my Hubby’s brother and sister have gone to Yellowstone on a whim and found places to stay and camp so I thought I would look into it and do some research.

The more I researched the more excited I got along with reserve-able campsites Yellowstone also offers lots of first come first serve campsites. It became clear that we could not afford to haul the camper the Yellowstone, an 8 hour drive over at least 6 mountain passes away, but we might be able to take the car and tent and camp at one of their primitive campgrounds at $12 a night. I suggested we try this option for our wedding anniversary, in Aug when my vacation time resets itself. I could take 2 days off before a weekend giving us 3 and half days in the park, we could drive most of the way there Wed night, sleep in the car, and hit the park first thing Thursday morning increasing our chances of getting one of the cheaper first come first serve camping sites. Again to my surprise Hubby went for it – he did come up with some last minute reservations the night before we left but by that time it was too late to change our plans. And things like that I expect from him, as doing things on a whim, aren’t exactly this forte – actually doing anything out of the usual is not his forte, so it didn’t dissuade me.

We spent the weeks prior to the trip carefully planning food and supply shopping trips so we wouldn’t exhaust our budgets and we picked up a few new items for our camping / hiking must have list. We decided to spend on the money on some bear spray considering that while guns are allowed in National Parks the conditions on which you can have them are rather strict and under no circumstances can you have them on you while you are hiking in the backcountry where you would actually need one the most. And we borrowed some sleeping pads from a friend of ours – since during a practice run with the tent one night we discovered that Hubby absolutely positively cannot sleep on an air mattress.....sigh....I love air mattresses they don't hurt my back at all if I keep them firm. Other than that we used our existing supplies. We even slept with the bedroom widow wide open for weeks prior to the trip (which I like anyway) to get used to outside noise, and it paid off for me at least.

The weekend before I ran up to my folk’s place to check on my boys and found them still all fat and happy out in the pasture. My parent's surprised me with an anniversary card with $200 inside for our trip. I put the money to immediate good use by booking a room at cheap hotel so that we didn’t have to sleep in the car Wed night. The evening before we left we packed everything up in my little fuel efficient Mazda 6 so that the next day I could catch a ride into work with a friend. But I was disappointed with two things: first was that I absolutely was not going to be able to fit my tri-pod in the car – just wasn’t going to happen (which meant I was not going to be able to do any cool waterfall shots or make efficient use of my big zoom lens for my film camera), secondly I was disappointed that I couldn’t fit my memory foam mattress pad in the car either – which I need for my back….sigh…..somewhere around midnight I got to bed.

On the road through Montana.

Hubby picked me up right when I got off work the next day with the car so full stuff was piled almost roof high and pushed off to the sides so that I could see out the rear-view mirror. We fueled up and hit the road on maybe 5 hours sleep. With the exception of stopping to stretch once or twice and stopping to dine at Subway using our point cards for dinner, we made the most of the 8-hour trip to Yellowstone before stopping in Bozeman, MT at a Microtel to catch 6 hours of sleep before waking up early the next morning to raid the continental breakfast before heading the rest of the way to the park.

I really enjoyed our stay at the Microtel, it was clean and the beds, much to my amazement, were exceedingly plush, honestly, I have slept in 4 star hotels that didn’t have beds that nice. Hubby was disappointed that there was no fridge in the room, but being designed for very short stays this is one way Microtel saves money and passes it along to consumers. Besides a tub of ice was adequate to keep our beer cold, I mean we really only had time to finish the other half of our sandwiches enjoy a cold beer before crashing. The room also had a nice sized clean bathroom, and a TV with plenty of channels and I mean they had just about everything – it was nice to watch Man Tracker again. I slept like a rock in our cozy ground floor room.

Approaching Livingston, MT in the early morning.

The next morning, as planned, we were up and out of the hotel by 6 AM. On the road we enjoyed views of the sun coming up over Bozeman MT and then of Livingston MT on our way through. We followed the directions on the Google map I printed out to the letter and were at the park’s entrance in just over an hour, I was as high as a kite excited just to be there. We paid our entrance fee, snapped a few photos and then we were on our way to the campground I had picked out, Indian Creek Campground. It was supposed to be a small quiet primitive campground (meaning no flush toilets, no generators allowed and no showers - hence the lower fee). It turned out to be just what my research showed. After walking around for nearly an hour we finally decided on a campsite having our pick of most of them in the campground – most of the people that were camped there were packing up to leave that morning (we learned a lot of people choose to visit Yellowstone this way, by doing to a different campground each night or every couple of nights) there were actually people out trying to convince us to take their spot as it was the "best" as they were packing up to leave. After a bit we chose a nice site with plenty of privacy with the tent pad an fire pit being close enough to the car that we didn’t have to do too much walking. This is important because when you are tent camping at Yellowstone National Park you have to keep your food inside your car or in the provided bear boxes (metal lockers designed for odorless food storage in bear country so as not to attract bears). Most of the time we used the car, the nearest bear boxes were several campsites over.

The North Entrance to Yellowstone National Park - this is called the Roosevelt Arch. President Roosevelt laid the corner stone to this arch himself, of course originally a train ran through it - when the track was moved they paved it and rerouted the road through it so people traveling by car can enjoy it as well.

Showing our maturity, or lack there of - this sign drew many snickers from me and Hubby while we were waiting to get in the park - and of course the comment of "Dang it! We were planning on molesting some animals!"

On the road near Gardner headed toward Mammoth inside the park.

Gardner River

On the way there we passed a sign and of course I had to have my picture taken by it. Hubby sighing "You are such a nerd!"

There is a creek that runs partially around the outside of the camp which as beautiful and the first thing we noticed while coming in was that Bison and Elk like to frequent the meadow that this creek runs through. On our way there we were stopped by a buffalo caused traffic jam and while we were setting up camp I could a local sheriff that responded to the traffic jam shouting at people over his loud speaker to get back in their cars. “This is your last warning!! GET back in your car!!” He, he – we giggled as we set up camp. The first thing we decided to do was to make a trip down to the Mammoth area we just traveled through and go see the famous hot springs, if we had time we planned on doing a hike that was near by that took you to some of the thermal features of Mammoth that are off the beaten path so to speak. It was hot out and only getting warming so we threw together some lunch, stuck it in the car along with our hiking packs and swimming suits encase we had time to swing by one of the famous heated swimming areas and headed down to Mammoth.

Meadow area by our camp. I do have pics of the bison caused traffic jam, but not downloaded...sorry

Our home for 3 nights and 4 days.

Indian Creek that wraps around our campground. Just beautiful!

Sheepeater Cliff - Right down the road from our campground.

Not knowing if it was allowed, we watched somebody's children climb all over this rubble pile - I hoped none of the unstable rocks would fall. Hubby asked how I knew it was unstable -- it got that way some how didn't it? Does it look stable? Duh! Yellowstone is seismically active, it has earthquakes EVERYDAY - wise up people! Keep your kids safe!

Picture of Bunsen Peak from our campground.

Meadow near Sheepeater Cliff (Sheepeater is the rough English translation of the name given to the cliff by the Native Indian tribe that lived in the area).

Bear Boxes

On the way there we stopped at Rustic Falls that we had passed on our way to camp – it is a beautiful waterfalls that flows over a bunch of blocky looking basalt columns dropping down into a ravine. After enjoying the falls for a minute and snapping a few pictures we continued on to Mammoth Hot Springs. It was a much busier area than our camp, it seemed to be absolutely crawling with people, finding a parking spot near the boardwalk area (where you are allowed to approach and view the hot springs) was a challenge but we lucked out on our second pass by and snuck in while someone was pulling out to leave. While I was dismayed with the amount of tourists there – I was amazed by the Hot Springs! Despite the rumors to the contrary we didn’t have to wait in any lines to see anything and basically zipped around at our own pace taking as many pictures as we could, even harassing an innocent looking stranger into taking our picture together.

Me in front of Rustic Falls

Doesn't he look happy! Ummm not so much, but at that point in time he wasn't grumpy at all, the guy just didn't say "smile!" Oh well.

These trees are not burned from the fires - the springs start small and then grow as they deposit limestone and calcium. The heat, the acidity of the water, and the gases kills the trees as the springs advance. It makes some of these beautiful springs looks so desolate and other worldly.

Towards the top is one of the bigger pools. They all have names of course, but I forget them. The color comes more from the bacteria that live in the Hot Springs than minerals - different colors of bacteria live at different temperatures that's what gives them a nice variety of color.

It was a hot day - but the heat radiating off these things was still impressive.

It was obvious then that it was going to be hot the whole time we were there – the weather reports we saw prior to our arrival were predicting mild temps in the 70s with cooling into the low 30s at night. So that it is what we packed for....sigh.... And while walking around to see all the hot springs at Mammoth was not that exerting – doing it in the heat, dressed like an Eskimo was. Not helping matters was the smell of the place – now of course they are hydro thermal features so they're going to smell but Mammoth Hot springs seemed to smell worse than the other areas and still stale air made getting a breath of fresh air impossible. The hot springs smelled strongly of H2S (Hydrogen Sulphide – rotten eggs) while the Geyser Basin smelled mostly of Sulfur Dioxide SO2 ( like matches). With the stale gassy air, the heat of the day combined with the heat radiating off the hot springs we were glad to be done with hot springs walk. We were so tired and hot when we finally reached the bottom again, instead of finding a picnic spot we just sat on my car in the parking lot and made lunch eating it in the car on our way to do a little drive you can take with your car above on the hill to see more hot springs. I loved my AC in the car that day, usually I hardly ever run it.

It was just so neat, after watching these things on the Discovery Channel and on my computer and reading about them in books for like my whole life, to final get to see them in person. Sounds a little over dramatic but the first day I almost couldn't believe I was there AND then when we left, I couldn't believe it took us so dang long to do this!

One of my favorite pics.

More dead trees in the middle of a spring.

Greetings, I apologize for my absence from Blogger. My only excuses are that I have been incredibly busy this summer – by design – it keeps my mind off of other things – and that….well…..it’s SUMMER! I want to be outside enjoying it – and my WiFi service unfortunately doesn’t follow me. Maybe sometime when I have money again I will get a AirCard for my laptop. Also my other time on the computer has been fairly limited - so my commenting time has been fairly limited too - sorry guys - but I have been reading.

Engagement Photo

Both of my boys are doing just fine – they are fat and happy still out on pasture, incase anyone is wondering. I’ve been making weekly to bi-weekly trips, depending on what I can afford, out to see them all summer.

Engagement Photo - because of some ill planning we were both so incredibly hung-over during this shoot!

The music currently on my playlist is the music that was played at me and hubby’s wedding. I have very fond memories of our wedding day – I know there was a lot of work that went into it but it seemed to me at the time that everything ran flawlessly (although I found out later it didn’t – but certain people made things happen for us and for that I am very thankful). I am thinking of this of course because we just had our 6^th Wedding Anniversary – and it is 15 years together for us, FIFTEEN! As a couple, technically, we began dating in the fall of 94.

YES we danced to Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing.” We took dancing lessons for weeks prior to the wedding and practiced at home whenever we could. When it came down it we were flawless and the tricky part, the ending, where Hubby would scoop me up to finish the dance worked out perfectly. When the song was over I looked around to see everyone crying and clapping and cheering for us, for a moment I was a tad embarrassed and ducked out of the spotlight – but I really did have fun during the dance.

Prior to the ceremony we had Garth Brooks “The Red Strokes” played while people were being sat and then when members of the family and wedding party started to come we had Black Hawk’s “Love Like This” (the only song I couldn’t find on playlist) played and then when we came in we had Enya’s “Only Time” played. When we exited we had Creed’s “Hide” played – now this is an important part because my wedding invitation was a mini movie/slide show on CD (cause not everyone had a DVD player in my neighborhood by then – truth), and during it played the song “Hide”.

The Wedding Party

We had the Father/Daughter – Mother/Son dance to the song “Forever Young” by Rod Steward. And one of the first free dance songs was “Dance” by Live – then there was Lifehouse’s “Hanging by a Moment” and “You and Me” also a good dancing songs turned out to be “Boot Scootin Boogie” by Brooks & Dunn, “Me and You” by Kenny Chesney and a few others. I was surprised at how much everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves and dancing. We only dance a little cause after the first dance, every time we got out to dance everyone would clear the floor for us – and we wanted everyone to dance and have fun! Not just us! So by all means – please enjoy the music. Although you may want to shut it off on my Playlist when you watch the movies, or shut the music off on the movies – one or the other. It will be annoying otherwise.

My Brothers - Both of whom I love sooo much.

Of course the wedding wasn’t without it’s glitches but I don’t really think any are. I found out later to my dismay that my brother were upset that they were part of the “groomsmen” even though I had them be ushers and completely included in the wedding party activities and photos. Me and hubby kept the numbers small for my parent’s budget and he had some really good friends and his brother than he picked as groomsmen. He didn’t know my brothers very well at all. I included my brother’s wife as a bridesmaid (good thing I did too – she was wonderful, and thoughtful) and my hubby’s sister (another good choice) so we thought the arrangement was fair. Sigh….I also found out that one of my two best friends that I had split the duties of "Maid of Honor" between was upset that she had to share the position! Sigh…..

The Wedding Party

Regardless, at the time of the wedding I was oblivious to all of that and we had a wonderful time. Although we couldn’t afford to go on a Honeymoon we did spent two days one of the nicer hotels in Downtown Spokane – the Red Lion on the River – and that was a blast. We were picked up in a limo that we had for two hours so we cruised around town for a bit before heading to the hotel. The next evening we had a wonderful dinner at the Red Lobster then returned to the hotel and watched Bruce Almighty – a movie that was so funny it made me laugh until I cried. Then we had more after wedding fun and settled in drinking a bottle of champagne that we had swiped from the wedding party as we left. We had the best time!

The ring bearer and flower girl.

Oh MY Gosh! Aren't these two cute? Rescuing the butterflies we released.

Fast forward to current time: At some point in time this July I floated the idea of going to Yellowstone to my hubby and thought perhaps we could do it next year depending on funds. To my surprise he didn’t shoot down the idea but didn’t know if we could swing it with his school schedule, so he suggested we go this summer. I thought it would be an awesome Anniversary trip if we could swing it financially and time wise. That is one of the main things that has been keeping me so busy – in my next post I will tell you all if you are interested how it turned out.

It was my idea that the boys bring their poles and do this picture - turned out great. Until the photographers' studio shut down a version of this shot hung in his studio.

When the boys figured out that the host of the venue owned this sweet classic car they immediately HAD to get pictures with it - besides it worked well with their whole gangster look.

And you know I just had to put a picture of the cake in here - cause I love all food. And I really thought the cake tasted good!

One of my favorite shots - right here.

Of course I had to get married outdoors - it's basically where we fell in love and there was this small paddock with an old QH show pony in it within eyesight of the yard so the whole time I was saying my vows that old chestnut was drapping his neck over the fencing looking at me approvingly saying "I know you" .