Itasca Travels 2017: Calcium "Carbonation"

Monday, Sept 11…

Off to Yellowstone, where we settle in quickly. The RV park is basically 4 gravel parking lots w/ full hookups. Nothing fancy, but surrounded by 3470 sq miles of fabulous parkland. (BTW, 3470 sq mi is slightly larger than the combined area of Rhode Island & Delaware.) Greg’s almost out of coffee, so we walk to the general store. We know it’ll be pricey, but don’t realize how bad – like $5.19/ 9oz box of Wheat Thins. We leave empty handed.

We are camped at Fishing Bridge. In the afternoon we drive up to the Mammoth Hot Springs area. (NOTE: Like every area we visit, we never see all of it and never remember more than maybe 25% of what we read and/or hear.) We did stop at several spots w/in this site, but even Wikipedia recognizes 69 separate “thermal features” within Mammoth Springs. (More than 2 tons of calcium carbonate flow, in solution, into Mammoth daily. Yellowstone is all about big numbers.😃) Enjoy the pics.

Random mountain stream.

Lamar Valley... broad, beautiful, and very
popular with both wildlife and tourists.
(That's the Yellowstone River running through.)

Elk relaxing at Hot Springs Visitor Center.
(Elk and bison are top dogs here. They roam freely and always
have the right of way. But they're still wild animals, not pets.)

Looking down at the village from the top of one of the spring fields.

Spring Pools

Orange Spring Mound - about 20' high and gorgeous.

Massive Mineral Deposits

Thousands of dead trees throughout the park. Most are part of nature's cycle of renewal.
These were probably killed by the heat of the underlying springs. I actually found all of them quite beautiful.

After walking and driving through many of the Mammoth Springs features, we stopped for a snack back at the village. Local salted caramel ice cream was my choice; Greg went w/ a frozen-patty burger. I won the taste test. Across the street a crowd gathered to snap pics of another huge elk.

On the way home we visited Tower Falls (the first of many we will see). Also drove over Dunraven Pass (8878') and, with other drivers, waited patiently while lots of bison (not buffalo 😃) wandered lazily across the road.