| Vacation 2009 (11 of 21) : |
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Things got off to a good start today. We all slept quite well. It's either not so cold or equally likely, we are getting more accustomed to the conditions.
We went for a hike in Hayden Valley. Very nice. For us it was unusual to be flat and marshy - we're more into climbing steep dry hills. Anyway we did 2½ miles in the first hour and slowed to 1½ in the second. We had to give good distance to quite a lot of buffalo along the way. So after 4 miles we were confronted by hundreds of bison and decided to have lunch and turn back. What a sight at lunch time. We were on a little hill over looking a plane with hundreds of buffalo. Probably the only place in the world to view such a scene.
We visited some more sulphurous mud geysers, boiling lakes and smoking holes on the way home. Quite interesting. Very smelly!
In the evening we went to the spot where the Johnsons saw the wolves and bears the previous night. Apparently this is a favorite haunt of those amazing animals. Not tonight.
A more or less perfect day was completed by a talk in the auditorium by a Park Ranger about the wolves of Yellowstone. Very interesting.
So that completes our 5 great days in Yellowstone. Very interesting. Unforgettable. Yellowstone's a lot different from what I expected. It's in the Rocky Mountains of course and high. As you can see our hike today was about 7800 feet above sea level. Yesterday was more than 10,000 feet. However it's not majestic mountains like Glacier - or even the High Sierras in California. It's the world's largest volcano and it's Alpine peaks have been blown to kingdom come in the various eruptions 2, 1.3 and .67 million years ago. Let's hope there is another eruption any time soon.
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