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Tuesday 3rd August 2004

Grant Village Campground, Yellowstone National Park to West Yellowstone - 50 miles on route. An excellent day of cycling and sight-seeing. Set off at 10am, headed to West Thumb where we looked at the geysers - wonderful collection of hot springs and boiling mud, etc. It's a large area which drains hot water in Lake Yellowstone, not that the lake gets particularly warm though (it's c. 10 centigrade). Crossed a couple of continental divides at c. 8,300 feet, one of which had a delightful lake of waterlilies (see picture) with water that flows both to the Pacific and the Atlantic! Then we headed down to Old Faithful, which we waited to see - it went off twice while we were there - the familiar jet of steam and water. Guy was to the lee of the jet and got a dousing of cold (not hot) water. It had obviously cooled down as it fell. The Upper Basin of geysers is very impressive, with boiling water, mud, jets of steam and lots of remarkable rather sulphurous looking colours and smells! Still lots of evidence of the 1988 fire. Eventually headed to the middle geyser basin and then down the Firehole River to Madison and eventually to West Yellowstone. Steve saw an elk grazing in dense foliage, surrounded by photographers and park officials - a bit like a pop celebrity. They were trying to get traffic to move on. Was the elk tame? It didn't seem worried - just huge antlers and a brown face munching on what seemed to be small bushes. Got to West Yellowstone and checked in at the Madinson hostel/hotel (c. 40 dollars) as a treat. It is an excellent place - the access to a microwave meant endless tea, etc, and the rooms are very lovely being largely of logs. There's a nice balcony (shared) for people to sit on and there's the chance to edit/upload photos! (this was the last time I managed to get photos of my digital camera onto CD in the whole trip!).

Blue Star Spring This is a hot pool in the Old Faithful area of geysers - what a wonderful blue colour! Don't swim in it, though, because you'd be, as has happened in days gone by, boiled in second to a gory death.