John-n-Sylvia's 2011 RV Trip: Yellowstone Upper Grand Loop

Yellowstone – Upper Loop Pt 2 – July 19-20 - Mammoth Hot Springs – Tower Falls

We just love Yellowstone National Park, and the town of West Yellowstone, Montana, where we are staying in an RV Park. The weather could not be better, the scenery is superb, and we have just been relaxing for the past few days after the busy schedule we have been keeping.

July 19, 2011 - Today we went back to the North Loop in the park, continuing from where we left off a few days ago. We went to Mammoth Hot Springs area, the Tower Falls area and to Canyon Village. Between us we took over 300 pictures because there are just so many beautiful things to see. I am going to have a difficult time not including many of the pictures to keep the blog size from getting too humungous. I will try to keep the pictures just to the highlights.

Talk about moonscapes….. Check out Mammoth Hot Springs

After leaving Mammoth Hot Springs on the two lane road to Tower Falls, we came to a huge traffic jam of 40-50 cars pulled slightly to both sides of the road, with people running back and forth excitedly with cameras and binoculars. This can mean only one thing in Yellowstone.. BEAR..!!

We added to the traffic jam, got the camera and telephoto lens, and got to a point where we could sort of see a very small black dot moving around on the hillside about ¼ mile away.... See the black dot just to the left of center in the picture???

Here are a couple enlargements to prove that it is a bear. Sorry about the fuzzy images but this is the sharpest I could get them. At least you can see that it is a black bear.

Further down the road, an overlook called the Bleached Cliffs, reveals the Yellowstone River winding its way through the hills. There are Calcite Springs thermal vents near the river, the caustic steam from which is turning the cliff to whitish, yellowish pulp.

There is also another fine example of Wood Art there. Check out this attacking snake.

Here is Tower Falls.

Continuing around the Upper Loop we came across some astounding hillsides of yellow daisies, lavender flowers and blue-green sagebrush, interspersed with white trunked Aspen trees. If you look hard enough you will find a beautiful nymph among the daisies.