I'd heard of Mammoth Springs many times over the years, and seen some kind of boring photos, so I wasn't that excited about visiting, but I ended up being really impressed. As we did every morning, we were out of bed by 6:30 (which was 8:30 Eastern time), and ended up being the first among a few to arrive. It was the perfect time of day, as the springs face east, and the sun was just coming up.
In this section, a cascade of pools formed one after the other. The water trickles all the way down from one pool to another, depositing tiny amounts of minerals. This has been going on since before the Egyptians were building pyramids.
Another from the same area, at the top of the big face of the springs. This is the source for the water that trickles down the biggest face of Mammoth Springs.
Here is the largest face of the springs. The whole hill we've been walking on is the accumulation of thousands (millions?) of years of trace amounts of sediments in the spring water hardening into these shapes as it flows up from below, then downhill. A little like an extreme case of hard water in your home plumbing. I love the pure white, which is all stone - probably calcium.
Wildlife seems to be doing really well in Yellowstone National Park. Of all the animals we saw, the bison ignored people more than any other. They just didn't care. You've probably seen those films and photos where the bison just walk across the road right in front of cars. That did happen to us - a big traffic jam just because there was a herd split across both sides of the road, and every once in a while one or a few would decide they wanted to cross.
We got closer than the recommended distance on foot a couple of times. I swear it wasn't on purpose! They just pop up out of the woods, and there you are, too close together. This one was taken leaning out of the car window.
This time, we were on foot and ended up closer than we should have been. We felt a little safer being up on a wooden walkway a foot off of the ground, but probably shouldn't have. That railing ends right in front of me, so there was nothing between us and him except one step up. We waited a few minutes for him to move a little further away, but instead he just came up until he was practically touching the walkway. So, we ended up turning around. Second time on the trip when we had to detour due to wildlife.
We saw black bears a few times on the trip. Twice, there were two black bears together in a single tree. The first time, the tree was right beside the road, and the rangers had set up orange cones directing all traffic into the other lane and were standing along the road every fifty feet waving people along telling us not to stop. So, no photos that time. The second, they were pretty far off the road, so we were able to stop and watch for a while. People said the mother likes to do this so any predators have to go through her to get to her cub.
Finally, near the end of the trip, we got to see grizzlies near the lake. Grizzlies are also known as brown bears. That's actually a more correct name for them, apparently. But grizzly sounds so much better! These were pretty far from the road, so we were always at a safe distance. And there were quite a few people stopped to watch. Three of them had tripods set up with very long lenses. If I lived in a place where wildlife was that plentiful, I'd definitely get one of those lenses! This first photo shows the mom and her cub together.
The cub.
The cub again.
That was pretty exciting. You never know if you'll get to see a grizzly, so we felt really lucky.
After four photo essays, we finally reached the end of this trip. Thanks for reading to the end. Hope you enjoyed!
The previous three posts cover the beautiful and amazing waterfalls, canyons, springs, geysers, and very close up moose we saw on the trip. Here are the links to those posts:
Grand Teton National Park Mountain Lakes, Bears, and Moose
Yellowstone Geysers and Grand Canyon
Yellowstone Springs and Waterfalls
