Day 17- The Mammoth Hot Springs Loop

We got up even earlier today because the first 100 miles was a repeat of yesterday, road travel that is but not the animal sightings. Today we were really lucky to find several more bison bulls close to the truck but still no cows with calves nearby, just off in the distance. But the luck or skill came when I spotted what I thought was a cow moose. We parked the truck, walked up the road a few hundred feet and it was the n I discovered the white target surrounding her tail. It was a cow elk. We watched her for several minutes, just long enough to cause our own “Elk Jam”. It didn’t help the cause much because half the distance from the road to the elk was a huge Bison bull taking a dirt bath. By the time I lost track of the cow elk in the thick conifer brush, there were more than enough cars on both sides of the road and Carl and I took our leave. We found another beautiful spot for our lunch looking at the deep blue waters of Phantom Lake with no one else around. I can tell you that doesn’t happen very often on a Saturday in Yellowstone, never mind that it’s a holiday weekend. I had two places I wanted to visit in the park, one was grand Prismatic Spring and the other was The Terraces. Today, we found and walked into Jupiter’s Terrace, a gorgeous series of flat calm pools that trickle mineral rich waters over their edge. Each drop has created a different depth of shelf and the minerals determine the color. This structure must have been forming for hundreds of years. In another part of the Terrace is Minerva’s Terrace which some people think is even lovelier than Jupiter’s. I chose to find a place for lunch instead of hiking down to see Minerva’s. After lunch we headed off and before we’d gone too long, we came upon a “Bear Jam” and this time I mean Bear. Some distance from the road was a black bear sow and two very small cubs, maybe no more than 4 months old. Carl got the tripod and we stood with probably 50 other people and took pictures until the congestion in the road was just too much. The bear was moving away with each mouthful of grass she ripped off so that was my cue. Without my super lens, I couldn’t bring them near enough. I hope this doesn’t backfire on me when I get to Alaska. We left the park by way of the same gate we entered, considering ourselves to have had a great second day. Tomorrow is our last day in the park. We’ll spend the 4th of July doing laundry, taking showers and preparing for our departure on the 5th. We’ll finish off the 4th with The Cody Stamped. Carl got us tickets for the evening’s rodeo.