I think from now on I will never report on spring being here. Or, if I do, I should surely knock on wood.
Last Tuesday Kelsey and I packed up the car and headed out of town in shorts and tank tops. After an hour and a half of driving we arrived in West Yellowstone with huge flakes of snow falling. Good ol' mountain weather. I hear it even snowed in Flagstaff through my favorite site
www.drunkcyclist.com .
Wed. morning was just like waking up to a December morning. Still snowing. Any ride on the road that connects West to Norris was not happening. We were just happy to be able to drive into the park. When it snows there and the plows start running they close the entrance gates until the plows are off the road. Luckily we made it in time.
We ate some darn good breakfast and visited the funniest, most cracked out (in a good way) T-shirt shop ever. The people who work there are hilarious. One lady is a barkeep at night, and the older lady was also the driver of the short bus for elderly that runs from West to Bozeman. The two put together were a riot. Did you know that Unicorns were in Yellowstone? I didn't. Until then. They had Yellowstone shirts of all varieties. Ones with bears, eagles, moose, elk, bison, and unicorns. Who would have ever thought? Of course one of us had to get one.
West Yellowstone. Everyone should go there and hang out at least once in their lives.

No unicorn sightings though. Maybe they don't come out in the snow. Or their white coats are good camo. Who knows?
We made it into the park to find the water levels higher than I have ever seen them. I guess this is our year for floods. There were parts of the park where usually there is a tiny trickle of a babbling brook turned raging river. Here is a shot of how the Yellowstone river is flowing.

As we continued to Lake Yellowstone the snow levels kept getting higher and higher. It was kind of cool. It reminded me of the couple winters I worked there.

Good times though. The night we arrived we were going to try to go to Old Faithful to try to find some of my Moms friends. But, alas!!! The roads were closed due to snow. We were stuck. Not a bad place to be stuck in though. The Lake dining room does a darn good job at fixin' some meals. After dinner we just sat and talked to some hotel guests and a few dear friends I haven't seen in about 7 years. The lobby has windows all around and the view was amazing. Lots of snowfall and it was still cold enough that the lake was still fully frozen over. Thats chilly seeing how the lake is 110 miles if you were to hike the whole shore.
The next day, the roads opened. Still snowing though. We took a jaunt to Old Faithful. I would love to show you a picture of it but it was steam on the background of snow dropping clouds. Gray. After locating friends for a quick drink, and exploring the Old Faithful Inn, we took off on the scenic route back to Lake.
Due to the weather we decided to pick 2 major stops to enjoy. The first being the midway geyser basin. Midway is a smaller basin that is technically attached to the lower geyser basin. Old Faithful is in the upper.
Midway was once referred to "hells half acre". It has 2 of the largest hot springs in the world. One being Grand Prismatic.

Which is over 370 ft. in diameter. The steam is covering it but the water is a deep blue. Also, those tracks you see in the bottom of the picture are from bison. Bison use thermal basins to help them survive the winters. The other major pool here is Excelsior geyser. Excelsior is 328 ft. in its widest point. It was the largest geyser in the world but has been dormant since the 1880's other than one eruption in '85. It used to erupt to 300 ft. but now is just a thermal pool that discharges over 4000 gallons of water per minute. Yes, per minute. Pretty amazing in my book. Once again I couldn't get a good shot due to the steam. Heh...but the walk ways were nice.

After strolling around for a while it was time to head on. The next stop was The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. It's not a small canyon being about 20 miles long. It houses 2 major waterfalls. Upper and Lower Falls. What creative naming. I guess they saved that for the geysers.

Anyway, back to the canyon. The waterfalls had a real stomach felt rumble to them due to the water being so high. Simply majestic.

It doesn't even look real.
At the completion of the lower loop the snow and cold weather had taken a toll on us so we hit the lake employee pub where I found my name still written on the wall from '98. It's kind of a tradition for employees to put their name somewhere inside the pub. There are thousands of names. It was a surprise to remember where I had put it because I'm sure I was slightly intoxicated when I put it there.
Much to our surprise we awoke to sunshine on Friday morning. With huge smiles on our faces we said goodbye to our friends and B-lined it to Norris Geyser basin. Norris is one of the hottest places on earth. I remember hearing guests tell stories of the bottoms of their shoes getting hot and almost melting because the ground was so hot. The basin changes there so much that NPS has to move the boardwalks often. To give a couple examples on why it is so hot here, average crest depth of the earth is 90 miles. In Yellowstone it is less than 40 miles. Norris is a magma intrusion. Intrusions are anywhere from 4-10 miles. Crazy to think about it. Especially while standing on that spot...knowing it is a super volcano....that could take out the world. WOW. What a big mass of energy.
I guess they tried to drill into the basin to study it once. They drilled to 265 ft. and they had to stop due to steam. The temp. at that depth was 401 deg... Holy cow...or bison for that matter. Or if you are from West Yellowstone....HOLY UNICORN!
Anyway, Steamboat geyser was being slightly active for us. Spitting water and blowing steam that sounded like a train. Steamboat is the tallest geyser in the world sometimes erupting up to 380 ft. The only thing is its unpredictability. It could be days...to years.

Norris is such a neat place. The acidity crating the barren landscape sometimes makes you feel like you are on Mars.

I am posting all of the pictures from the trip on the photo site. You can get to it by going to:
http://photos.longhaultruckettes.com
Friday night I was dropped off in lower elevations with hope for warmer weather. At this point it was just me and my bicycle. WOO HOO!!! It seemed the weather was clearing up and even the local weather man said it was going to.
Never trust the weather man.
I woke up to clouds slowly moving in. I started pedaling sometime just after 6 a.m. For most of Paradise valley it remained dry. This part of the ride was AWESOME! I saw bald eagles, bighorn sheep, mule deer, bison, elk, geese, and pelicans.

The rain started about 45 miles into the ride. After a stop in Livingston for some warm coffee and a hot dog I headed up Bozeman pass. Just before I was at the top, the temp. dropped and it started raining hard. At about 64 miles (for some reason I remember it clearly) my old Craft rain gear started failing. Pushing on I thought I would be able to make it but somewhere around my 75th mile, cold started to set in and I still had 30 to go. I turned around from ascending Jackson Creek roads pass and headed toward the interstate after calling Kelsbot for a ride home. I think I found out the wrong way what the beginning stages of hypothermia feels like. But it was worth it. Every rain drop.
After all of that, macaroni and cheese with a Fat Tire beer never tasted so good! Never heard of Fat Tire??? Where have you been?? Want to know what it is? Go to
www.newbelgium.com All right. I'm done talking all of your ears off. If you want to see more pictures, here is the link again:
http://photos.longhaultruckettes.com