Weather: Sunny with partial cloud, strong breeze
90 miles
I was up at 8.15, and had a breakfast of cereal and a muffin in the cafeteria. Afterwards I spent a few minutes watching ground squirrels just outside the cafeteria, nervously retreating into their burrows whenever anyone came too close for their liking. I made my way over to the visitor centre, which had an exhibit on the park's bison. (While bison are commonly referred to as buffalo, although strictly this is incorrect, the name given incorrectly by early settlers as the animal resembled the buffalo of Africa and Asia.) Rather alarming was a sequence of amateur video footage showing the dangers of getting too close to the creatures.
I returned to the cabin to pick up the car, stopped to refuel and then took the road northwards from Canyon Village, one that struck me as particularly badly maintained. I stopped to admire the view as the road climbed into the mountains, and again in the Dunraven Pass by the trailhead for the ascent of the 10253ft (3125m) Mount Washburn, one of the more accessible peaks of the park. Merely reaching the information board at the trailhead required a walk across a patch of deep snow, and I did not continue further. I instead returned to the car and headed a few miles further north to the Tower Falls area.
From the parking area it was a short walk down to the impressive 132ft (40m) falls, on Tower Creek just prior to the point at which it enters the Yellowstone River. The path took one very close to the base of the falls, sufficiently so to be in a cloud of spray. Having obtained a few shots of the falls from this vantage point, I retreated to clean the spray from my glasses and camera filter. Unfortunately while doing this I allowed a camera lens to drop to the ground -- luckily it made a relatively soft landing on the muddy ground, and after some considerable cleaning proved to be in reasonable working order.
Back at the top of the trail was a shop which was the nearest source of food without returning to Canyon Village. I got myself a cheeseburger and sat outside to eat it, and soon found myself joined by an inquisitive raven, first hopping around on the ground and then climbing on to the neighbouring table. Much to my disappointment it was not heard to quoth ``nevermore''.
My aim after lunch was to head a few miles further up the road to the Petrified Tree, but after a short distance I came across a large number of vehicles stopped at the sides of the road. Evidently some sort of wildlife was about, and I soon caught a glimpse of it: a black bear wandering among the trees to the side of the road. However, I could not find room to stop there without obstructing the road, and continued a little further until I found somewhere to pull in.
Fortunately the bear was still around when I had walked back up the hill, watched by a large number of tourists, themselves watched by a considerable number of park rangers, ensuring everyone was keeping out of the way of traffic, and considerably further out of the way of the bear.
After a few minutes I realised that the bear was not alone. Two cubs were in a nearby tree, their brown coats providing excellent camouflage against the forest background. They soon came down from the tree and joined their mother on the ground, slowly making their way closer to the road. After some time, the two youngsters headed up another tree, while the mother wandered out onto the road, on which traffic had been stopped. A minute or two later the cubs left the shelter of their tree, and slowly made their way across the road to join the mother. I headed back to the car, feeling very fortunate to have had the opportunity to see such creatures in their natural habitat at (relatively) close range. I had got through well over half a film during the encounter.
I carried on to Petrified Tree, a location not surprisingly notable for its petrified tree, rather similar to logs I had seen in Nevada a couple of years earlier save for its still being in a vertical orientation. After a couple of photos, I headed back towards Canyon Village. Judging by the stationary cars on the road, the bears were somewhere still in evidence as I passed by.
I headed southwards through Hayden Valley to the Mud Volcano Area and parked, then crossed over the road to look at the Sulphur Cauldron, which I had smelled but not seen the previous evening. As the name suggests, it was not the most appealing of the geothermal features in the park, with its unpleasant smell filling the air.
On the other side of the road, a short series of boardwalks took one around the area's other features, in general less appealing than those at Mammoth, Norris and Old Faithful. Here were muddy pools, steaming mud vents and Sour Lake, a highly acidic pool.
My next stop was a few miles further on, just past Lake Junction, at which the road from the eastern entrance joins the southern loop. I first looked in the visitor centre beside Yellowstone Lake, full of stuffed birds and other creatures found in the lake area. Beyond the centre was the sandy shore of the lake, with distant mountain ranges providing a scenic backdrop. The lake fills part of the Yellowstone Caldera, and is notable that during its relatively brief (on geological timescales) history, it has drained into three different oceans: the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic. Like the majority of the park, it now drains via the Yellowstone River into the Missouri and then the Mississippi.
A mile or so further back, I stopped by the ``Fishing Bridge'', at which the lake flows out into the Yellowstone River. I took a short walk here, seeing pelicans on the water, and hearing the sounds of a large colony of frogs in the shore area, but without seeing them.
A little further around the lake, I drove into the Lake Village area. This however seemed to have little to attract one to it save lodgings and other visitor facilities and I did not linger. I took the scenic Gull Point Drive along a stretch of shoreline, and then turned back to the north, seeing more bison in the Hayden Valley, and three elk closer to Canyon Village (possibly those I had seen the previous day).
I returned to my cabin and spent a while looking at my camera to convince myself that it was not severely damaged, following the dropping of the lens in the morning and the later disintegration of a foam pad behind the mirror. I did find a slight problem with the lens, but one I reckoned I could work around for the remainder of my trip.
I returned to the cafeteria for dinner: salad and country style chicken steak. Afterwards I took another look around the gift shop, purchasing a few souvenirs to take home, then returned to the cabin to retire to bed.