Superhero Suits

Jackson has been a whirlwind. After arriving last night and having a delicious dinner at our hotel, The Bentwood Inn, I went on a gorgeous run this morning with views of the Tetons. 

Then, we all piled into the van and drove to Jackson Hole Whitewater for an 8-mile trip down the rapids. They gave us polypropylene “superhero” suits, which we dutifully squeezed into. There was an inevitable mix-up of jackets, as they all look identical but are actually vastly different sizes, and then we clambered onto a school bus for the first time in years. Captain Ron was our character of a bus driver, with a posted sticker that says “My Driving Scares Me Too!” and colorful commentary as he drove us 30 minutes to the put-in point. We then transferred our care to Brian the raft guide, who has been guiding here for at least 17 years but also previously guided on the east coast. We were accompanied by two guides in the training, young blonde women who were from Pittsburgh and Chicago and had guided the prior year and already fallen in love with Jackson. They bantered throughout the trip and pointed out waypoints, and it was interesting to hear Brian impart words of wisdom on the lines he took to balance fun rapids with safety. While none of us got launched out of the boat, one of the other passengers did leap off for an early swim and even stayed out to surf a gentle rapid before we scooped him back into the boat. Given the frigid water, the rest of us waited until the end for our swim break. It wasn’t so bad once your hands settled into numbness. In between the guy’s swim interlude and ours, we paddled through multiple rapids, including Rope, California Curl, Big Kahuna, and Lunch Counter. When we finally reached the end point, Captain Ron drove the bus illegally down to meet us at the water’s edge, in true Captain Ron style.

After drying off and changing out of our (now-soaked) superhero suits, we wandered around Jackson. Highlights included flyers for llama rentals and trail running clubs, the Cowboy Bar with saddle for seats on the bar stools, and some incredibly beautiful photography in the galleries. We spent quite a bit of time wandering around David Brookover’s gallery. His shots of silver foxes were my favorites, but his stories of traveling around the world were just as engaging. He also displays photos by a cardiologist whose side hustle is absolutely incredible photography from his trips around the world. Our guide, Brenda, said that Thomas Mangelsen’s gallery is her favorite (especially the photos of the mama bear named 399 and her quadruplets), but unfortunately we ran out of time to visit.

We closed our trip with an absolutely hedonistic dinner at Gather, including scallops that were possibly the best thing I’ve eaten on this trip, and headed back to the Bentwood Inn one last time to pack and rest up before we returned to reality.

Some Jackson highlights:

The adorable under-road bike tunnel on my run, which feature all the local wildlife riding bikes

The chainsaw carving on the tree outside of the Bentwood Inn

One of four elk antler arches adorning the corners of the central square in downtown Jackson. Apparently, the antler arches have been around since 1960 and are made from the antlers of the 7,500 elk that winter on the National Elk Refuge. After the bulls shed their antlers each spring, the local Boy Scouts pick them up and sell them at public auction in the square.

An opportunity we unfortunately squandered

Josh embracing his inner moose at the Grand Tetons Visitor Center

In closing, some of the Best of:

Best food near Yellowstone: The Wonderland

Best gallery (that we successfully visited): Yellowstone Wild

Best food near Grand Tetons: Gather (get the scallops!)

Best hotel: Bentwood Inn (with its adorable swings and rocking chairs, excellent food, and accommodating staff... although not the best water pressure)

Middle School Science Projects

Our last day in Yellowstone led us to West Thumb, one point along the 140 miles of shoreline bordering Lake Yellowstone. From the lake edge, we could see the steam rising miles away where we had stood yesterday, and edge of the lake also boasted thermal features.

These thermal features melt holes in the thick ice during the winter, and otters use the melt holes to fish. Humans also used to fish here regularly and would then dip their catch into one of the hot springs to cook their meal. As a result, one of the many “cones” here is called Fishing Cone. There’s also Little Cone and Big Cone nearby, as well as other unnamed tiny cones that we jokingly called Micro Cone and Cone, Jr and a few that looked like middle school science projects.

Middle school science project? Most likely.

Fishing Cone

Big Cone

While people no longer fish here, cliff swallows with iridescent blue backs darted about, calling to one another.

After that, it was finally time to leave this amazing park and venture into its nearby sister, the Grand Tetons. 

Mere miles separate the edges of these parks, and the intervening lands were owned by the Rockefellers before they donated it to the government. The Grand Tetons rise sharper than the mountains we saw in Yellowstone and are snowier. These mountains were the last of the Rocky Mountains in the lower 48 to be pushed up. And they are beautiful. Grand Teton is the tallest of the Tetons, while Mount Moran is apparently the most difficult to climb. Mount Moran is a bit flatter on top and has Skillet Glacier (so named because of its shape) At their base, Jenny Lake is crystal clear and flat as glass. A little ways away, Snake River winds its way away from the range. Here, too, the water is so clear you can watch a duck’s feet as it paddles and see the rocks at the bottom. 

One disappointing fact about the Grand Tetons was that all of the hiking/climbing permits are snatched up by climbers. However, the climbing seems like it would be pretty fun. Our guide, Brenda, told us about a hostel-style climbing camp where most of the climbers stay so they can head to the peaks early. For those who can’t secure a pass, there are other ways to see the park. A few years ago, they added bike paths through most of the park, which also connect to the ski slopes and to the nearby towns. They’re pretty amazing.

The best spot of the day was a female moose, grazing near the side of the road. Apparently, the locals call these majestic beasts swamp donkeys, although, after watching her for a while, we felt she was more of a deer-giraffe hybrid. The moose lose their antlers each year, usually around February, although the timing depends on the age of the moose. These antlers can weigh up to 75 pounds and are regrown throughout the season, with more points and breadth suggesting greater age.

We were supposed to close the day with a ride on the tram to the peak, but it was sadly closed due to a gas leak. Instead, we retired to our hotel, the beautiful Bentwood Inn, and got to try out some of those bike paths for a beautiful walk with views of the mountains.

Spotted: Fantastic license plates. Montana has great ones, but South Dakota’s “Great Faces, Great Places” motto never fails to crack me up.

Beyond the Reach of Human Art

Today we ventured into the Hayden Valley, with the hope of seeing bears. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any (it was a sparse wildlife day), but we still had plenty of beautiful places and (stinky) thermal features to visit.

We first stopped for some gorgeous mountain views over Yellowstone Lake, getting our first glimpse of the Tetons as the morning fog burned off. Next, we stopped to admire the river and saw our first harlequin ducks, the males showing off their dramatic coloring next to the demure brown females. A trail along the river was filled with pussy willow bushes and hopping birds, and the trees were hung with the chartreuse old man’s beard.

Harlequin ducks

Old Man's Beard

Pussy willows

Then, it was time for some thermal features, this time of the highly acidic variety. The hydrogen sulfide gas bubbling up through these pools made them inhospitable to life, gradually killing off the surrounding vegetation after the vents formed. We looped around, seeing Mud Caldron and climbing past the Cooking Hillside, so named because the ground started to steam in 1978 after a series of earthquakes. The ground temperature soared to 200F, killing the trees on this hillside. They gradually toppled, and no new life regrew. 

Mud Caldron

Next up were Sizzling Bason and Churning Caldron, whose waters roiled not because of temperature – that sits just below boiling – but because of the gas rising from underground vents. Black Dragon’s Caldron is a mudpot that arrived in a hurry, blowing out the nearby trees in 1948 and erupting in 10- to 20-foot bursts of black mud for the next several decades. In recent years, it has quieted, and we were greeted with only a gently bubbling surface.

Churning Caldron

Black Dragon's Caldron

Next to Black Dragon’s Caldron is Sour Lake, a beautiful, peaceful lake whose acidity prevents much life. Yellow crystals of sulfur dot its shores. We ventured on to the Grizzly Fumarole, which changes from day to day and season to season, morphing from a fumarole to a bubbling mudpot depending on how wet the conditions are.

Sour Lake

Crystallized sulfur

Grizzly fumarole

Next up was Mud Volcano, after which the area is named. After a large eruption in 1870, Mud Volcano blew itself apart and instead became a pool of bubbling, muddy water. Its main claim to fame, though, is the lowest pH of any of the pools; its pH gets as low as 2! Our group morbidly debated how long it would take for that acid to eat through various things… including a person. We decided it would be a matter of hours. The other fun fact about Mud Volcano is that bison are often seen to hang out here for days, and they think its because they get high on the hydrogen sulfide gas.

Mud Volcano

To finish off our loop, we stopped at Dragon’s Mouth Spring. This fantastic name came from a park visitor in 1912, who felt that the water surging from the cave mouth resembled a dragon’s tongue lashing out. These gushes of water reached all the way to the boardwalk, but the dragon has held its tongue since about 1994. The cavern also used to emit roaring echoes of the water surging within. Recent earthquakes have caused rocks to fall into the cavern, effectively muzzling the site.

Dragon's Mouth Spring

Killdeer

Our other main stop for the day (which we saw from all angles) was the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River. This gorgeous canyon was carved by the river out of the rhyolite (hardened lava) and tuff (welded ash) over the past 500,000 years and overlies the underground Yellowstone Volcano. The canyon reaches up to 1200 feet deep and 4000 feet across, and stretches for 20 miles. and features colorful walls painted by the different ores. When early overseers of the park were trying to convince the government to fund park rangers to protect these national wonders, one of them brought a painter and a photographer to document the beauty and natural marvels. That painter was Thomas Moran, who called the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River “beyond the reach of human art”. We first admired the Upper Falls, which drop 109 feet, and then the dramatic Lower Falls, which boast a 308-foot drop. 

Spotted: A very hungry squirrel

Fun fact of the day: osprey always carry fish with the head facing forward to reduce wind drag

Fuming

 We piled into the car for another day of adventuring, this time heading toward the ultimate destination of the Hayden Valley and the Lake Yellowstone Hotel. Along the way, there was plenty to be seen. Trumpeter swans glided along lakes of glass, and the earth transformed from an elk-filled wonderland to a mysterious, hazy land of steam. Plumes rose from the earth all around us for mile after mile. Today was a day to see Yellowstone’s many thermal features.

Our first stop was Roaring Mountain, an area where the steam rising from the earth was particularly concentrated. This area is a fumarole, otherwise known as a steam vent, which forcefully expels a small amount of heated water (as steam) along with other gases such as hydrogen sulfide and other sulfur gases. This water generally comes from melting snow, trickles into the fumarole’s underground plumbing system (a feature of all of these thermal features), and then exits under pressure through narrow vents (constriction points). This and other steamy features are best seen in the winter and on cold mornings, when the steam is most dramatic. Roaring Mountain now offers a gentle hiss, but it used to be much louder. During the 1800s, it could sometimes be heard four miles away at Obsidian Cliff. Over the years, changes to the plumbing system occur due to erosion by the water, deposits of silica, or – most dramatically – earthquakes. This can blow out the entire plumbing system, transforming a fumarole into a hot spring.

Next, we stopped at Beryl Spring, which is the hottest spring close to the road. Its temperature is just below boiling. Our guide, Brenda, told us that when the water is blue, the hot spring temperature is high, because it’s too hot for the thermophilic bacteria to grow. Beryl is a steamy one, bathing you in a faintly sulfuric mist. In the winter, the surrounding trees get a constant misting and are coated in ice crystals, creating “ghost trees”.

We continued on, admiring Gibbons Falls, which has a heated watering hole that gets up to 80 degrees dur to the thermal springs and is open for swimming during the summer. 

As we journeyed on, trailing the river, an osprey flew alongside the car, showing off its black wing underbars. When we reached open plains, we saw the other herd of Yellowstone bison, the central herd. Their grassy plains were already starting to dry out, revealing large patches of silica. This silica wears down the teeth of the grazing animals and can shorten their lifespan in areas where the silica content is highest.

Fountain Paint Pots

Red Spouter

Clepsydra

Jet Geyser

We continued to visit thermal features dotting the ghostly landscape, next visiting some geysers. We wandered past Fountain Geyser, which only erupts every 5-7 hours. Its partner, Clepsydra, with which it shares a water source, is a smaller geyser but has been erupting continuously since the 1950s. As we made our way out, we had a welcome surprise from Jet Geyser, which erupts more erratically. The trees within the silica plain were white around the bottom, creating a “bobby sock forest”. These trees are actually being petrified from the ground level up. You can see a marked difference in the appearance of these trees versus the surrounding forest. Bordering the geysers are paint pots, which are essentially bubbling mud pits. One of the largest ones is relatively new; there used to be a parking lot here before the thermal activity moved to this spot. When watching the muddiest spots, you see the most frequent bubbles in the middle but the largest “splooshes” at the edges.

Next up were some very pretty hot springs, including the famous Windows 7 screensaver: Grand Prismatic. This was one time that the cold weather worked against us, as the steam covered up some of the iridescence. The steam was so thick we had to take off our sunglasses and shuffle through areas of 2-foot visibility, waiting for the direction of the wind to change. People walking the other direction were writing out their hair from the wet, and the warm moisture turned freezing as soon as the hot mist dissipated. Several large pools lie in close proximity: Excelsior Geyser, Grand Prismatic, Opal Pool, and Turquoise Pool. Besides being beautiful, Grand Prismatic is Yellowstone’s largest hot spring, measuring 200 feet across. Its brilliant colors come from a combination of light scattering and thermophilic bacteria. Between the thermal features, a bacterial mat bears witness to the visiting wildlife, all of whom clear out before the two-legged tourists arrive each day. We spotted both wolf and bison tracks leading up to Grand Prismatic.

The steamy walk to the hot springs

Excelsior Geyser

Grand Prismatic

Buffalo and wolf prints

Opal Pool

Turquoise Pool

Last but not least, we stopped at the Yellowstone classic, Old Faithful. Erupting every 96 minutes (give or take 10 minutes), it spews water 100 feet in the air for a total of 4,000-8,000 gallons each time.

We managed to arrive 10 minutes before the eruption, then ducked into the Old Faithful Inn for lunch. This building looms six stories tall and is built from lodgepole pine trunks. A Crow’s Nest at the top rises 76.5 feet above the floor. During the early years of the Inn, they would host large parties where an orchestra would play from a room at the top of the Inn, spectators would watch from upper balconies, and guests wound dance on the lobby floor below. Unfortunately, the Crow’s Nest is now closed to visitors because the 1959 earthquake moved some of the structural supports.

We ended our day at the Lake Yellowstone Hotel, a large, historic yellow building that was where all the fancy folks used to stay back in the day. Luckily, our hiking pants were sufficient attire. It has all the quirks of an old hotel – no wifi, cool lower floors and sweltering upper floors, and one inch of clearance between the toilet and the bathroom door. The best part was meeting the young staff members who had just arrived from all over the country for the summer season (the hotel is only open during the summers, as not enough tourists want to brave the -40F temperatures in the winter to justify staying open). Everyone we met was on their first season and so excited to live in this incredibly beautiful place the next few months.

Some other pictures from the day:

An otter we saw at a quick roadside stop

Spotted: Diving ducks and cutthroat trout. Cutthroat trout are a native species and a major food source for bears, so fishing has been banned near their spawning areas. In the same area, goldeneye ducks (which actually have bright red eyes) floated atop the water before rearing back and diving down, paddling with quick, frog leg-like strokes.

Spotted part 2: Two sisters trying to stay warm as it snowed on us