On one of the days we were camped near West Yellowstone, Montana, we decided to take a drive into Idaho. The high point of the drive was the Mesa Falls Recreation Area.
From Wikipedia:
Upper Mesa Falls is a waterfall on the Henrys Fork in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest. Upstream from Lower Mesa Falls, it is roughly 16 miles away from Ashton, Idaho.
Upper Mesa Falls is roughly 114 feet high and 200 feet wide.[2]
Formation
Mesa Falls Tuff, which is the rock over which Upper Mesa Falls cascades, was formed 1.3 million years ago. A cycle of rhyolitic volcanism from the Henrys Fork caldera deposited a thick layer of rock and ash across the area.[3] This layer compressed and hardened over time.
Between 200,000 and 600,000 years ago, the river eroded a wide canyon which was subsequently partly filled with basalt lava flows. The Henrys Fork of the Snake River then carved the channel through the basalt; which is the inner canyon seen today.
References and Resources:
In all the visit’s we’ve made over the years to Yellowstone National Park, we’ve always seen plenty of wildlife. Though we’ve seen large mammals in all parts of the park, by far, we’ve seen the most along the eastern section of the Grand Loop Road.
Large numbers of buffalo can be seen from – and, often, on – the road in Hayden Valley, though we’ve seen them all along the route from Yellowstone Lake to where the road starts to climb towards Dunraven Pass. Bears and wolves can sometimes be seen in the same area, though we’ve yet to see a wolf and it’s been a long time since we’ve seen a bear there. We have seen quite a few of the wolves’ younger cousins, the coyotes. From Dunraven Pass past Tower Falls, we’ve seen bighorn sheep a number of times.
There is a bit of thermal activity along this route. The lower potion lies within the bounds of the caldera of the Yellowstone super-volcano.
The lower part of the route follows the Yellowstone River, parting from it at Canyon Village and then returning to it near Tower Falls. At Canyon, the river tumbles over two falls, the Lower Falls the more spectacular of the two, as it thunders into the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.
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Yellowstone References and Resources:
Yellowstone is one of the most popular destinations in the U.S. and there are a lot of available resources, including books and DVDs
as well as internet resources. I’ve included links to a few reliable resources below and have more on my Yellowstone page at Haw Creek.
The northeast part of the park has few of the thermal features so prevalent in the rest of the park. This section is more mountainous than some of the other parts of the brush, with striking vistas of a wilderness of high peaks and deep valleys. Vegetation ranges from grasses and sagebrush to aspens and pines. All of the wildlife found in other parts of the park may also be seen here.
Our route for this video is shown in darker red on the map. The dotted line represents a one-way dirt road – well maintained, and a favorite of ours – that crosses the Blacktail Deer Plateau.
With each visit we generally make the whole Grand Loop Road. Doing the whole loop all at once makes for a long day – and it truly is impossible to see everything in a single day.
If you’re a camper, my recommendation would be to stay at either Madison Campground or Canyon Village Campground. These are in the middle part of the long sides of the Grand Loop Road. This will eliminate a lot of repetitive travel over the same areas. In 2011, we stayed at Fishing Bridge for a week. It was plenty of time to see everything. However, we spent a lot of time just in transit, much of it in the Hayden Valley or nearby, caught up in excruciatingly slow traffic, generally caused by buffalo – or people slowing down or stopping to see the buffalo.
If you want to stay in the park, whether you are camping or staying a lodge, make reservations very early. The reason we ended up at Fishing Bridge instead of one of our preferred campgrounds was that we didn’t plan far enough in advance. Six months in advance may not bee soon enough.
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Yellowstone References and Resources:
Yellowstone is one of the most popular destinations in the U.S. and there are a lot of available resources, including books and DVDs as well as internet resources. I’ve included links to a few reliable resources below and have more on my Yellowstone page at Haw Creek.
West Thumb Geyser Basin is situated on the shore of Yellowstone Lake’s West Thumb, a submerged volcanic caldera within the larger Yellowstone caldera. It was created about 162,000 years ago when a magma chamber bulged up under the earth’s surface, which it cracked along ring fracture zones, releasing the magma as lava. Once emptied, the chamber collapsed and, later, the caldera was filled with water, forming an extension of Yellowstone Lake.
The boardwalk trails at West Thumb provide easy walks that let visitors take in the beauty of the deep thermal pools and Yellowstone Lake.
While we’ve visited West Thumb Geyser Basin over the years, before 2007 we had not looked at the Yellowstone Lake Hotel, a few miles to the northeast. The hotel is one of three hotels in the park constructed by the Northern Pacific Railroad. Originally built in 1891, it was re-designed, expanded, and remodeled in 1903, 1922-23, 1928 and 1894 to 1990. The building is a “relatively plain clapboarded Colonial Revival structure with two large Ionic porticoes facing Yellowstone Lake.1”
Yellowstone References and Resources:
Yellowstone is one of the most popular destinations in the U.S. and there are a lot of available resources, including books and DVDs as well as internet resources. I’ve included links to a few reliable resources below and have more on my Yellowstone page at Haw Creek.
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1 Lake Hotel – Wikipedia
We probably visited the Old Faithful part of the park more often this trip than any place else. We saw Old Faithful erupt at least four times that I can think of. We also made dinner reservations for one evening. Another day we hiked up to an overlook where you can view the eruption. Unfortunately the eruption occurred before we got all the way to the overlook, but we were able to get a good view of it.
Old Faithful is, without a doubt, the most popular location in the park.
The Old Faithful Inn is a fascinating hotel over a hundred years old. We stayed there one time back in the late 70s in the fall.
Reservations for lodging and camping – for those campgrounds where reservations can be made – should be made as far as possible in advance. In 2011, we waited too long to decide on our travel plans and campsites were not available in the campgrounds we preferred. We had to settle for something else.
Yellowstone References and Resources:
Yellowstone is one of the most popular destinations in the U.S. and there are a lot of available resources, including books and DVDs as well as internet resources. I’ve included links to a few reliable resources below and have more on my Yellowstone page at Haw Creek.
During our visit to Yellowstone National Park in 2007, we stayed in a campground near West Yellowstone, Montana, so, each day, no matter where we were going in the park, we traveled along the Madison River on our way in and, again, on our way back to the camper. Sometimes it was clear, sometimes, cloudy, but always a beautiful drive. One morning, the day I photographed the mists over the river, the temperature was several degrees below freezing – winter was just a few weeks around the corner.
The rest of the video slideshows from Yellowstone 2007 are arranged by regions of the park and will be posted here every three days over the next three weeks, followed by those from Grand Teton National Park, Canyonlands National Park, and Arches National Park.
Yellowstone National Park has long been a favorite of ours. I first visited in 1963, back when bears were a very common sight. Our first visits there as a family came in our second year of marriage, tent camping with a six month old with temperatures falling into the mid 30s at night. When we lived in Idaho from 1977 to 1980, we visited many times and have been back numerous times since we moved to Arkansas. We also spent a week in the park in 2010.
Yellowstone References and Resources:
Yellowstone is one of the most popular destinations in the U.S. and there are a lot of available resources, including books and DVDs as well as internet resources. I’ve included links to a few reliable resources below and have more on my Yellowstone page at Haw Creek.
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