A Yellowstone Summer: Day Hike at Storm Point, Lunar Eclipse, Wildlife watching in Lamar Valley ( a full week of Yellowstone fun!)

Last Tuesday, Sam and myself along with two new friends (named Anna and Robbie) took a day hike near to where we live, called Storm Point. We set out walking through a nice meadow by a small pond, walking towards a small pine forest. The trees lay right on the edge of the lake on a dropoff of about 15 feet. The lake was starting to thaw at this point so it was a mix of thin ice and free flowing water ( at the time I write the lake is almost completely thawed now). The weather was beautiful during the hike, sunny skies and mild temperatures in the low 60s. After crossing a small stream with a log bridge built across it, we entered into another rock strewn open area. Looking across at one of the large rocks we noticed a small animal resting on top of it. It turns out this area is home to a large family of Yellow-Bellied Marmots, and they were sunning on nearly every rock in sight.

We hung out on the point right on the lake for a little while, seeing as this was a very short hike and we wanted to sit out and enjoy the sun. Our marmot friend in the picture above hung out with us, from about 15 feet away. He didn't seem to have a care in the world about us, and we just wanted to enjoy the same sunshine.

Once we continued the walk over the next hill we came upon some bison grazing in the field right where our trail was headed. There were only two but we kept our distance and walked around on the edge of the trees. Once we took back up the trail I looked over to the left and there was Big Papa bison looking at us through some pines. I can honestly say he is the biggest one I have seen yet, and he just lay there staring straight back at us.

We continue our walk through the pine forest until we crossed a small creek out into the field where we started our hike. Of course, there were more bison out there blocking our path. So we took the long way around, which happened to go through a nice marshy area. Luckily Sam and I wore our boots but our two friends had opted for low cut sneakers and they got wet feet. This one bison decided also to follow our path across the field so we had to keep going out of his way...eventually we made it to the road and back to the car where he had continued to follow us and was only about 10 ft. away when we got to the car. Storm Point was an excellent little 1.5 hour hike that I will definitely do again if I just want to get outdoors somewhere close by.

The next day we were supposed to go on another hiking trip overnight, but decided to visit the Old Faithful area instead. Though we didn't actually see Faithful erupt, we took the walk around to look at all the other geysers, hot springs, and colorful pools around the area. The fact that Yellowstone has more combined thermal features that anywhere else on Earth is pretty impressive. So what we walked around and saw in an hour here you couldn't see in any other area without touring the entire world basically. There are really too many to put pictures on the blog, but I will upload some into our photostream. There are some geysers that can be predicted like Old Faithful, but none are as regular or as often. We didn't see any of the others erupt on this particular day either, but plan to go back and give it another shot some other time.


Looks like the sun is resting on the treetop!

On Sunday night we went with a big group of people from the dorms to the Lake Butte Lookout point to watch a lunar eclipse. It turned out to be nice sunset, and with only cheap sunglasses we couldn't see much, but there was definitely an eclipse happening. We stayed up there about an hour watching the sunset and enjoying the scenery, but it was only partly an eclipse with a small crescent visible in front of the sun. I got some neat pictures of the sun, but unfortunately they don't show the eclipse.

On Monday, Sam and I decided to head to the Lamar Valley to try and see wolves. This has been the most popular spot for wolf sightings in the park that we have heard, though some have been spotted just north of us in the Hayden Valley as well. The wolves are usually more active later in the evening so first we took a short hike at a place called Trout Lake. There was a steep 1/2 mile hike up to the lake, which was beautiful. The lake was very small, but the scenery around it was beautiful. We made sure to take our bear spray with us, since this was a prime bear habitat. Luckily we didn't see any. We walked around the small lake, and saw a bison resting under a tree on the far side (he didn't seem interested in us at all). I didn't see any of the trout swimming in the lake, or the otters that live there, but we did see some ducks swimming around. The two males were fighting over the female duck, it was pretty interesting to watch. On the way back down we met a Russian fellow with a very large camera lens. He didn't speak English, but did manage to show us something interesting through his camera...mountain goats on the steep cliff-side opposite of our hike down. They were so far away my binoculars could barely make them out but they were there right on the top of a steep mountainside.

After our hike we headed back down the road where we watched for the wolves for nearly an hour, this one tourist apparently spotted one but they were very far away and never reappeared. We cut our losses and headed home, seeing many buffalo (with their young, called "Red Dogs") and elk along the way. The Red Dogs were really fun to watch since they run around and play with one another and butt heads. That's all for now, but next post will be about our trip to Jackson and the Grand Tetons!