Weather Forecast from http://wwwweather.com/
You can never tell, but right now it says "high of 56 degrees, low 35 degrees (F) with scattered thunderstorms, 40% chance of rain." We decided to go anyway. The picture above was taken somewhere north of Rigby.
Image of Osprey in Island Park
Shanna and I drove to Enterprise to pick up a minivan in the morning. Unfortunately they didn't have any left. Fortunately, they let me take the suburban for the same price. It was AWESOME to drive. I felt very safe. Everyone met up at our house and we loaded up and headed out. We stopped to take pictures of clouds and did a brief bit of shopping in West Yellowstone. Shanna and Heather were after earrings. Shanna had saved up since the last trip and bought a set of hand carved & painted purple hummingbird feather earrings.
Image of Roaring Mountain (notice the dark gray sky)
Storm clouds and rain followed us into the park, though mostly it was drizzly and spattery kinds of rain. We headed to Mammoth stopping along the way, for Roaring Mountain.
Image - Heather, Duo, and Katrina looking at the Bison, taken by Regina.
for Bison. We spotted this Bison on our way past. It required us to drive a bit further in order to turn the behemoth I was driving around and go back. It's always funny how surprised passengers are at the Semenza willingness to stop, turn around and take another or better look.
for Sheepeater Cliffs
Image of a view at Sheepeater Cliffs (the basalt cliffs behind us on the left)
for Ravens
This bold bird was in the parking lot at Sheepeater cliffs. I have quite a few photos of him online at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jsemenza/sets/72157625368422743/
for Waterfalls.
and for the Hoodoos.
Heather found ripe currants and shared with those of us in the car. Regina had just been talking about going berry picking for these very berries, from her aunt's cabin in Siberia.
We got to Mammoth and got out. Heather had said something about there being less water going on in Mammoth but it wasn't until I saw it that I realized that it was about 25% of the water that had been flowing in the pools last time I visited. Quite a letdown. We were talking about where to walk when the rain picked up. We turned to return to the car and the sky opened up and dropped lots of water and then hail. We were all glad that we hadn't gone too far down the trail. We sat for awhile but it didn't seem to let up. Next stop Mammoth General store. Luckily we found a parking space. Shopping and ice cream cone eating took up some time but the rain continued. Back into the car and then we went looking for the missing Elk. Usually there are Elk all over Mammoth, but not one was there this day. We drove down and around the campgrounds but there was no sign.
Giving up we headed back towards West. (Image taken in Monument Geyser Basin)
A couple more stops for the thermal features of Monument Geyser Basin.
Image - Regina & Katrina on boardwalk in Monument Geyser Basin
A rest stop in the park for a break yielded our elk sighting of a mom and a youngling.
There was a division of whether to stop for dinner but it was out voted in favor of continuing. Since we had the time and had been talking about it we swung out to Big Springs in Island Park.
This was probably Katrina's favorite stop. We used up all of our quarters getting food to feed the fish and the 'ducks' or rather, the Blue Winged Teals. Then off we went to home. The only bad part about this day was that Shanna and I didn't think about returning the car that evening, which we could have done. Instead we had to get up early and return it first thing in the morning. Ack. We'll both remember to do it differently next time.
Image of Big Springs, Island Park
While we were in the park (probably during the storm at Mammoth), West Yellowstone was hit by a serious microburst. Interestingly, none of us noticed the damage on our way home... Microburst: http://www.localnews8.com/weather/24815467/detail.html
More images from the trip can be found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jsemenza/sets/72157625368422743/
(Written Dec 2010)
