Day 14

Knowing that we would not have any hookups for a while we filled up our fresh water and dumped the grey/black at fishing bridge and hit the road for Mammoth Hot Springs. It was cold… 28 degrees cold… In July… But it made for a beautiful morning. There was a thick fog, which the occasional buffalo appeared in. Hitting one of them would do more damage than a deer.

Once we arrived in Mammoth, we got set up and saw the hot springs. I think I forgot to mention that elk roam the town of Mammoth like rats with their brazen don’t-give-a-shit attitude about people. Some of the thermal springs looked crazy, but I was surprised not to find the vibrant blues and greens I had seen in pictures. Don’t get me wrong the oranges, reds, browns, and whites were really cool.

We headed into the town of Gardner to stock up. It was a nice little town just outside the park entrance, better than Silver Gate and Cooke. There we talked to the people at the Yellowstone Association who showed us maps of how extensive the fire damage was in ’88 and also told us where we could find the springs with vibrant greens and blues (Grand Prismatic Spring).

We drove down to Old Faithful skipping most of the sights on the way down so that we could figure out the when it would erupt and hit the sights while waiting or on the way back. As we got closer the crowds grew huge. A buffalo standing next to the road really messed up traffic going the other direction with his photo shoot. When we got to Old Faithful we found an amazing parking spot right at the geyser and near the exit. We walked through the crowds that had gathered because it was about to blow and found out that Beehive Geyser was also about to erupt at the same time. We got a tip from a ranger on where to sit to see both. Right after we got situated one erupted followed by the other followed by us booking it out of there before traffic got crazy.

On the way back we stopped at a couple more places. The two best were Grand Prismatic Spring and Fountain Paint Pot. The colors were awesome and the sulfur smell was terrible (but I think I am starting to get used to it now…). With those sites out of the way we headed back to rest up around a fire watching the mountains fade into darkness.