Hard to believe that it’s only mid-October. When we wake at 6:00 there’s an inch of fresh snow on the ground and the temperature is 23 degrees.
Inside the camper, however, we’re warm. While Doug fixes the usual oatmeal, I pack our lunch.
Logistics
Right now our big concern is the level of our lithium battery. Doug tracks it using an app on his phone, but there’s not much we can do about the numbers we see. There’s very little sun so the solar panels don’t do much good in terms of replenishing the battery.
We’re using propane for heat, but the system relies on the battery to run the fans that circulate that heat. In other words, to stay warm we need both propane and battery.
Normally we could run our propane-powered generator to recharge the battery. But the generator hasn’t worked since we left home. It seems to start up, but doesn’t catch. We need to find someone to service it, but that’s been a problem too. Not every RV dealer has mechanics who can work on these type of generators. Plus a lot of RV dealers are shutting down for the season.
Another way to recharge the battery might be to run the truck’s engine. But since we took the camper off the truck that’s not available. Plus, the position of the camper next to a tree means we can’t pull Big Blue alongside the camper and hook up. We didn’t consider that at the time we parked, not that this campsite offered many options. Plus we’re not sure how efficient a method that is. All of this is still new to us.
Oh well. We’re here to see bison and geysers, so that’s what we’ll do.
Off to Find Bison & Geysers
Before we leave to see the sights all day, Doug puts a 2 pound beef roast and some potatoes and carrots in the crockpot. It will be nice to come home to a meal. A crockpot draws very little energy, we experimented at home.
On the road to Old Faithful, near the spot where we encountered the bouncer-buffalos yesterday evening, we spy a lone bison. He’s silhouetted against a backdrop of snow-covered pine. His beard is crusted with icicles which swing with each step and scrape the snow.
As we watch, he comes onto the road in front of the truck.
After the bison is safely across, Doug has trouble getting the truck going again. We’re on a slight hill and it’s icy. We spin and slide, which is scary.
Doug puts Big Blue into four-wheel-drive and we pull into the right lane. We’re lucky that no other traffic came along just then. It’s slicker than a witch’s spit out here.
Not much further down the road, at Fountain Paint Pots, we see a whole herd of bison. They’re clustered near the steam between the parking lot and the boardwalk. Some bison are standing on the boardwalk itself.
A few people are on the boardwalk taking pictures. We join them and take photos and video. We have binoculars, which seem unnecessary at first, but enable us to watch the bison in minute detail. There are between 30 and 40 bison, and we speculate about possible family groupings.
A guide from another group approaches Doug, noting his interest. He says that the buffalo are rutting, though it’s not the right time of year. I had noticed a male and female who seemed to be squabbling. Now I watch another male sniff a female as she lifts her tail. I can clearly see the male licking his lips. His tongue is pink on top and black on bottom.
I notice a female with her pink utter exposed. A large calf comes along and nurses. The mother walks away to disengage and the calf follows, trying to nurse. This happens repeatedly.
“I feel you Mom,” I tell the buffalo.
We spend more than an hour watching these bison, a cold, thrilling hour. Eventually they drift away toward the woods in small clusters.
We then walk the boardwalk that loops along the side of a hill through steaming pots of mud. The temperature is 25 degrees so the steam is fabulous. A bit of blue sky and sun attempt to peek through the patchy clouds.
We are grateful to have our new thermos in the cab, filled with decaf coffee. After warming up, we continue on to Old Faithful.
The construction I noted before is more than just a hassle. It creates the most treacherous piece of road I’ve ever been on. (And I lived in Minnesota for a decade so I know slippery roads.) A narrow construction road crosses over another road, so it’s both curved and suspended, with nothing underneath. It’s a sheet of ice. Again, Doug switches into four-wheel-drive. At the top of the curve is a traffic light. I’m grateful to see a sand-truck. There’s a guy shoveling sand literally in front of our wheels. It’s still nerve-racking.
At the Visitor Center we take in a few exhibits and then wait for Old Faithful to erupt at 11:33 AM. Waiting for a geyser to erupt is not nearly as interesting as watching bison. I feel chilled through.
When Old Faithful finally spouts off, she looks exactly the same as I remember from the summer of 1978. That’s when I lived and worked in the Old Faithful complex. Back then I could tell time by the rhythm of the crowds — a little more than an hour between eruptions. (It’s an hour and ten minutes now.)
After the eruption we walk around behind the General Store to see what I can remember. To my surprise, the dorm and kitchen and employee dining room are all unchanged. I chat with a few workers who are all my age.
Gazing into the dining room, I can remember the rhythm of that summer. I was usually responsible for breakfast because I didn’t mind the early hours. Actually, I loved working while everyone else was still asleep. At 6:00 I would fire up the enormous coffee urn, light the ovens to cook the bacon, and crank open the dining room windows. We served 60 people three meals a day, family style.
Out of nostalgia Doug and I go into the store and buy two cups of expensive, but lousy, coffee. Then we sit in Big Blue and eat our lunch. We still feel pretty pooped so we go back to camp.
Doug immediately checks the battery level and discovers that the crockpot drew much more battery power than we anticipated. He speculates that this may be related to the higher altitude. To add insult to injury, the food isn’t completely cooked. (Whatever the reason, I mentally unclutter the crockpot — bye-bye worthless item!)
Oh well. What’s to be done?
Around 3:00 we return to the Upper Geyser Basin (where Old Faithful is located). This time we walk the whole loop, parts of which are in deep snow through pine woods. In other spots the path is glare ice and the temperature is dropping.
Still, it’s gorgeous. At one point Doug says: “This is like living in a Bob Ross painting.” The man has a way with words.
Grand Geyser is supposed to erupt at 5:30. When we pass it at 4:45 there are already people waiting on a bench. “The error of margin is plus or minus 45 minutes,” a fella tells us.
But Grand Geyser is on the side of a hill exposed to the wind — we absolutely cannot stand there and wait. We keep walking through the geyser basin. Every little way we see a buffalo or two, grazing on grass exposed by the steam.
We make a point of returning to Grand Geyser by 5:20 or so. We stomp our feet and slap our arms to stay warm. Another couple is doing the same and we fall into conversation. It definitely helps pass the time. They’re from Toronto and came here on a whim. He’s a professor of chemical engineering who studies water quality, and she’s a litigator who’s rather tormented about her choice of profession. They tell us they’d flown to Billings because the flight was cheap, and now they feel ill prepared for the snow. I wish we could keep talking!
When Grand Geyser finally erupts it shoots some 250 feet into the air. There’s a second geyser on the left, Turban, that’s connected underground and begins to erupt once Grand gets going — the whole display lasts some ten minutes.
The sun is setting behind us as we watch the show. The clouds are tinged with pink, and a few bison, back-lit, are strolling through the basin. The video I took is gorgeous but I can’t share it, so here’s a photo.
BTW, did you know that the bison in Yellowstone are direct descendants of herds that have roamed here since prehistoric times?
When we return to the camper, famished, Doug slices up the roast and skillet fries a few slices. With a toasted bun and some spinach salad it’s more than adequate. After supper he finishes cooking the still-raw potatoes and carrots on the stove top. We can have them with tomorrow night’s supper.
Friday Oct 15
Overnight low was 16 degrees, but we stayed warm in our camper. (The best purchase I made for this adventure was a 12 volt electric blanket!)
We’re up early for our new morning routines. Today we bundle up in long underwear and our warmest jackets. I don’t normally notice the temperature every hour, but here I’m constantly making notes about the weather conditions.
“Twenty-one degrees,” I say as we step out of the camper. “Overcast, with a few flakes drifting down.” Meet Ruth, amateur meteorologist.
“Cold is the absence of heat,” Doug comments.
It strikes me. When I’m tromping through snow and wind the cold feels like a presence, not an absence. What’s your experience with significant cold?
Gibbon Falls and Beryl Spring
We take the road north from Madison toward Norris. We make a quick stop at the picturesque Gibbon Falls where four or five ribbons of water spread amidst a chasm created by dark rock walls.
We stop at Beryl Springs, which instantly becomes my favorite single thermal activity so far — it’s a two-fer. There’s a bubbling mineral pool in bright blue, hence the name. (Beryl is a gemstone.) AND there’s a cool vent formation in the rock face just above the spring, which makes a sound like a jet engine continually revving. Plus all around the mineral pool the pine trees are heavily coated with white frost, adding to the surreal quality. Just marvelous.
Artist Paint Pots
Doug has a vague memory of seeing Artist Paint Pots when he was 7 years old, so this site has been on our must-see list. We walk the one-mile loop which includes some elevation gain. The top of the loop gives you get a great vista of the thermal activity below.
Don’t be fooled by the photo below. In real life the colors are amazing. Red from iron oxide. Bright green from the moss that grows where the steam is continual. White on dark green from the pine trees covered with snow. Blue from the sky which begins to clear up for the first time since we arrived in the park.
The mud pots bubble continuously and make lots of belching, popping noises. They’re the stuff of adolescence. No wonder Doug remembers them fondly.
Unfortunately I can’t include video — it’s fun to listen to the mud pots gurgle.
Porcelain Basin
We drive a fairly short distance to Porcelain Basin, which is close to Steamboat Geyser, which we saw erupt two days ago. The trail is a loop with a fair amount of elevation change. We spend about an hour there. The pathway varies — it’s either hard-packed snow, gravel that’s been warmed by the steam, or glare ice.
The word Porcelain refers to the pearly white of the formation. In the middle of the basin the runoff creates a colorful formation according to temperature — bright green algae live in one long stripe while bright orange runoff, from rust, flows beside it. The living beside the rusting, because of a couple degrees difference in temperature.
Mammoth Hot Springs
After we eat our lunch in the parking lot, we drive north to Mammoth Hot Springs. There aren’t as many pine trees — the area feels more open and barren, like the scrub country of Wyoming.
We hike through all the terraces, slowly, because of the crowds. We spend a couple of hours. The formations are very different from the ones we saw further south. These formations cascade down the sides of hills, all layered and drippy. They’re as whimsical as a cake made with a child’s help — everything off-kilter and uneven and enchanting. On top of that, they’re steaming.
Lots of elk hang around the town of Mammoth Hot Springs.
The sun is intense and the temperature has risen to above 40 degrees. The Gardiner river flows through the bottom of this valley, and the hillsides are covered with sage brush and chaparral. The Absaroka range is visible in the distance.
We drive five miles up the road to the town of Gardiner, MT, which is just outside the north entrance. We hoped to take the original road that runs one-way from Mammoth to Gardiner and ends at the Roosevelt Arch, but unfortunately the road is closed.
In Gardiner, we take a picture at the Roosevelt Arch. It was built in 1903 and proclaims: “For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People.”
Then, after much investigation of the available restaurants in Gardiner, we sit down for an overpriced meal at the Cowboys Lodge and Grill.
Ahh, civilization!
I remember a conversation I had with some friends while in college; we were discussing the possibility of a literal hell. I don't think we were drunk. My BFF Lisa said that she thinks hell is a cold dark silent place with no hope of any of that ever changing. I was terrified by that thought and realized my reaction to it was because it rang true. Hell is the absence of warmth, sound, and company.
Anyway, I'm loving this blog and am feeling the temperature changes as you narrate them!
I’ve seen all of the sites you described in August. It’s amazing to imagine them as winter starts to take hold. And the driving …. Wow!