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By Lynx, on July 10th, 2010 If you are in Yellowstone another of its impressive natural formations that you have to see are the terraced pools of Mammoth Hot Springs. The northern entrance to the park is one of the busier ones with its closer proximity to civilization and chances are this would be the first thing you would see.
Like other places in the park vehicle parking is somewhat limited and combined with the vast network of wooden walkway trails for everyone to spread out on it was not crowded at all. Visiting by motorcycle was ideal in places like this as we could always squeeze into small spaces and find a place to park whereas most of the cars had to park at the bottom of the hill with quite a bit of walking ahead of them 😉 If you are in the park do check it out, its well worth it. Plus there’s much to do in the historic town of Mammoth Hot Springs, formerly Fort Yellowstone.
The colors are caused by the same bacteria and microbial mats I mentioned earlier that are able to thrive in the extreme heat and acidic conditions. As the precipitates build up and the water moves elsewhere the bacterias die off leaving the stark white formations seen below.
The springs were very cool, unfortunately we’d eaten lunch in town just before this and my Dagwood sandwich did not agree with me. Of course we had to be far away from the bike when I started getting sick bad, by the time we got back Cece was practically having to carry me 😉 At least we got a few good pics before we had a man down. She had a few bites of my sandwich and started getting sick a few hours after me. If you’re eating lunch in Mammoth Hot Springs don’t get the Dagwood!
Above and below are good examples of the ever changing landscape of Yellowstone where geologic changes can be seen on a human time scale. The springs have changed positions into the surrounding trees and killed off all the ones it surrounded. Along the walkways were names of all the various springs making up the Mammoth site and several of the nameplates were overlooking springs that are no longer active while fresh new ones have sprung up in other unanticipated places like the very bottom pics.
Continue reading Mammoth Hot Springs
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By Lynx, on July 9th, 2010 Another must see at Yellowstone, Upper and Lower Falls! Both of these are magnificent waterfalls and have several good and easily accessible vantage points. Upper falls was shorter but had one of the best views not requiring any hiking. Lower Falls is three times higher but without an up close viewing area except Tom’s Trail which goes down into the canyon on metal walkways.
To get here there are two roads near Canyon Village. The southern one will take you to points to see both Upper and Lower Falls and dead ends at Inspiration Point. The other is a one way loop from Canyon Village and will take you to Inspiration Point, the only easy way to get a glimpse of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.
I apologize for the poor quality of some of the pics, and the ones back on Lake Yellowstone, we left both good cameras back at camp after the soggy morning. We didnt want to get them soaked and ruined. All these were taken from the cheap throwaway one I kept in my pocket.
Uh-Oh! Bears in the area! Cece would make a nice little snack.
Continue reading Falls and the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone
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By Lynx, on July 8th, 2010 
Up the road from Lake Yellowstone is the Mud Volcano parking area. Everything here is contained in a small area and doesnt take long to see, well worth stopping for just to see the Dragon’s Mouth Spring which I thought was one of the coolest things we’d seen so far in Yellowstone.
From a distance you can hear the low roars of the steam echoing through internal chambers of the Dragon’s Mouth Spring and the eruptions of steam up ahead. It does sound like you are walking up to the lair of a living fire breathing dragon. Very Awesome!
Continue reading Mud Volcano
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By Lynx, on July 7th, 2010 We were on a mission to get to Lake Village for something to eat after the second freezing cold and wet morning and we were happy just to have sunny skies and dry roads just 5 miles from the camp. With rain clouds just up ahead and already being wet and cold we turned off as soon as we could to wait out the coming storm.
We wound up at Bay Bridge Marina where a small crowd of people had gathered. A boat tour of Yellowstone Lake was leaving in 5 mins, SWEET! Funny that this exact same scenario happened to us back at the Tetons, we wound up on a boat tour of Jenny Lake while spontaneously pulling in to avoid a rain storm.
Heres our boat, captained by a tiny little woman not much taller than Cece who took her job very seriously. The boat was fully enclosed so we could dry off, thank god! and built to withstand the severe sudden storms that develop without warning on the high alpine lake. Our tour guide was very funny and informative with lots of stories of old Yellowstone. I highly recommend going on the lake tour if you visit Yellowstone, it was awesome, and doesnt require any walking 😉
Continue reading Lake Yellowstone
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By Lynx, on July 6th, 2010 What a rough way to start the morning! Dead bike, drenched with cold freezing rain, and exhausted from pushing the bike up and down hills.
 Only dedicated motorcycle parking in one of the countries biggest National Parks So far on our trip we have used our Coleman single burner lantern and our little Coleman stove almost daily, usually several times a day at morning and at night for cooking and to keep warm. We had taken a small spare can of Coleman fuel for them and with all of the heavy usage we’d already burned through it so last night I unhooked the gas line from the bike and refilled everything. I can already hear the bikers in the audience snickering at what happened next who’ve all experienced it themselves. I FORGOT TO HOOK UP THE GAS!
 I love these old metrics a trio was riding cross country, both guys were bike mechanics. Arg! so embarrassing! Sure I’ve left the gas off before and when the bike sputtered and died a few mins later after starting it up I always realized it right away. What made it so bad this time was how hard it was raining, and how miserable we were back at camp, we wanted to get out of there right away and the bike would not fire up. What the heck? Full choke, nothing. The bike would just crank and crank. I thought it had to do with being parked in a rain forest for hours of steady drizzle all night just above freezing and kept trying to start it and fussing with the choke.
Continue reading Give me fuel give me fire
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By Lynx, on July 5th, 2010 The Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone National Park is an otherworldly sight of vivid colors and has been featured in nearly every TV program mentioning Yellowstone that I’ve ever seen. This was the place that I wanted to see above all others, not Old Faithful with its hordes of tourists or the bubbling paint pots or the stepped Mammoth Hot Springs. I wanted to see the amazing splash of colors that is the Midway Geyser Basin and it did not disappoint.
The Excelsior Geyser had some of the deepest blue waters I’ve ever seen. It also put out huge amounts of steam that reflected the blues and oranges from below, very ethereal and dreamlike. The full scope of the Grand Prismatic Spring below is hard to see from ground level, you can just make out the rainbow of colors stretching away from you when the wind is blowing just right, this one you really need to see from the air to fully appreciate but its still worth checking out on foot.
The Midway Geyser Basin was crowded with the narrowish walkways but not too bad compared to Old Faithful. The parking-lot is relatively small and was filled to overcapacity, times like this is when its really an advantage to be on a motorcycle where you can park anywhere. Because of the small parking lot I don’t think it could ever get much busier than when we saw it.
Continue reading Midway Geyser Basin
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By Lynx, on July 4th, 2010 Its always been our philosophy to take the road less traveled, to stay off the Interstates and major highways of sameness with a McD’s and Walmart on every corner and experience the Real America along the back roads. So of course on our first day in the park we made a bee-line for some of the smaller sideroads within Yellowstone mentioned by our fabulous Frommer’s Yellowstone and Grand Teton Guide .
 Firehole Spring The spectacular Firehole Lake Drive is a small one way loop down the road from Old Faithful and the Midway Geyser Basin. If you want to escape the crowds and have some beautiful scenery mostly to yourself check it out, its not on the way to any of the major tourist spots and the enterance is easily passed by and missed by those hurridly rushing around to get to the next thing on their must see list. Like I said earlier, take your time to enjoy and see places in Yellowstone or in your haste to quickly see as much as possible you’ll end up missing everything.
In-fact I was looking for the road and still ended up missing it and had to turn around and go back 😉
 White Dome Geyser Continue reading Firehole Lake Drive
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By Lynx, on July 3rd, 2010 What could these hundreds of people be sitting around watching?
And waiting for over an hour for?
Watching a big hole in the ground, waiting for a pot of water to boil. Kinda amusing.
Note: When you show up at Old Faithful and there’s hundreds of people walking the other way, its best to just walk down the trails and see the other geysers in the area instead of waiting. Our feet were killing us from walking all day anyway and a rest break seemed nice and we got front row center seats, best in the house, unfortunately its a heck of a long boring wait for anything to happen. A couple of other motorcyclists joined us and then a few more a while later.
I guess the bikers are ok with sitting down and taking their time to take it all in while all the other tourists are too busy rushing around to see everything and wind up experiencing nothing at all.
Continue reading Old Faithful Geyser Basin
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By Lynx, on July 2nd, 2010 Ok, On to Yellowstone! Like I always say it’s never an adventure if everything goes according to plan.
Thanks to a tip from our campground neighbor we knew we had to leave super early to beat the road construction near the southern entrance that starts at 8am. We left early, and they decided to close the road extra early as well. It was about 40 degrees and we were stuck on the side of the road in the shadows of tall trees on a mountain pass in some light rain, we froze our butts off!
They held us there shivering for a half hour in the rain. We were so misirible and cold that when they did let us go Cece had us pull over at one of the first campgrounds we came to instead of Norris, one of the better more secluded ones with less people that several people had recommended to us as well as my guide books. Grant Village campground is still along the mountain ridge on the southern side of the park, and unfortunately for us it stayed under a permanent cloud bank and rained every night and off and on through the days we stayed here. A few miles north of our campground the rain ended and it stayed mostly sunny. We picked the worst place to camp! After a few days of never ending rain back at camp we pulled up stakes and fled to a different campground.
Continue reading On to Yellowstone
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By Lynx, on July 1st, 2010 
Antler Arches on the Plaza in Jackson Hole Wyoming. With huge herds of elk that shed their antlers every year you have to do something with all of them. The local Boy Scouts collect them each year and sell the antlers at public auction on the plaza each May. So of course besides the arches there were antler wreaths, antler chairs and furniture, antler chandeliers etc all over town.
I like Jackson Hole, it has that old west feel like where I grew up in Lincoln County, NM.
They also had killer sculptures at art galleries all over town. It reminded me a lot of Santa Fe my current home. One of the gallery owners was also a bike rider and also used to live in Santa Fe gave us many great tips on good motorcycle roads and places to check out. He told us that the 5 biggest art markets by dollars sold were: New York City, LA, Santa Fe, Chicago, then Jackson WY. Wow who knew? both Santa Fe and Jackson are tiny population wise.
Continue reading Jackson Hole, Wyoming
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