Yellowstone Park

Have had a great couple of days at Yellostone Park, what a fantastic place, nothing like I expected. I expected quite rugged scenery but it is in fact gentle rolling hills surrounded in the far distance by some peaks. The thing that is interesting is the volcanic activity in the whole basin. I thing everyone knows about the geyser Old Faithful, a geyser that erupts about every 90 minutes or son, and sends a spout of boiling water somewhere between 100 and 200 ft into the air, well that is only part of the story.

The whole park is littered in volcanic sites, from numerous geysers, some bigger than Old Faithfull but not so predictable, to steam vents, to bubbling ponds to bubbling mud sites, what a variation. I was looking a a hillside today that is devoid of living trees, plenty of dead trunks though. On reading the blurb it states that in 1979 an earthquake set off a new geyser and also shifted quite a few of the trees from the hill, then at the start of this century about 7 yrs ago there were further quakes, hundreds over several days, and the ground that the hill is made up off super heated to about 200 degrees C and slowly cooked all the trees, eventually killing every one. Remember this is only 7yrs ago. Makes you think.

Within minutes of driving into the park I saw an bald Eagles nest in a tree only a matter of yards off the road, there was a no stopping policy within 1/4 mile of the tree but I pulled up before the zone and managed to take a few photo's and video, actually caught the parents doing a swop over. Then rode a further couple of mile and was stopped by a traffic jam with everyone out of the cars. I stopped and there were about half a dozed Elk just eating quietly right next to the road, including a cute little bambi.

Next thing were Bison, again right next to the road. These huge beasts cause more injury to people than any other animal in the parks. They are huge but can still run at 30 mph, how do you think Jed got that one through the wall.

Rode from Yellowstone to Cody today, and on the advice of a ranger in the park I took a slightly different route. This route took me up and over a pass on some of the best biking rides I have ever been on, 20 mph switchbacks, one after the other to the pass at 8000 feet, then a look back to see the road. Brilliant.

Am off to see the Rodeo tonight just out of town, a 2 hour show for, you've guessed, $15.00.