7/6: Yellowstone's Mammoth Hot Springs

After leaving our hotel in Gardiner, Montana, just steps outside Yellowstone National Park's northern entrance, we spent a few minutes taking photos at the iconic Roosevelt Arch, the park's original entrance that dated to 1903. 

The arch had provided a great location for a train depot for the early visitors arriving by train and to pacify concerns that Yellowstone’s entrance lacked the visual flair expected of America’s first national park.  Engraved on the arch were the words that the park was "Created by an Act of Congress in 1872 for the benefit and enjoyment of people." President Theodore Roosevelt arrived in time to set the arch’s cornerstone in a grand ceremony.

From the arch, we headed south a few miles to Mammoth Hot Springs, the first sight in the park from the north. We'd passed the famous Mammoth terraces and park headquarters several times the last few days but had been too busy to stop earlier. 

Liberty Cap, located just before the terraces, was described as a hot spring cone. It was created by a hot spring that had been active in one location for a long time. The spring's internal pressure was enough to force the water to a great height, which allowed mineral deposits to build for likely hundreds of years. It was named after the knit hats worn to symbolize freedom and liberty in the French Revolution!

The hot springs in the Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces were reshaping the mountain. As the water, heated deep underground, rose to the surface, it 'percolated' through the buried limestone, dissolving the calcium carbonate. Then, above ground, the hot spring water had been building travertine terraces as it deposited the calcium carbonate. What was interesting to me was that, even if we were to return in decades, the terrain would likely look different then.

Did you know that the terraces were one of the world's best-protected examples of travertine-depositing hot springs? That was news to me, too! This stunning area in which water flowed in crisscrossing patterns in hues of orange and brown down a steep ridge was called Palette Spring. I loved the look of layer cakes, perched haphazardly on top of each other!

Gail: When we were walking at Mammoth Hot Springs, several people commented on how much they liked the mask you kindly made for me. No wonder, I loved it, too!

Micro-organisms called thermophiles thrived in the hot springs and helped create this "tapestry of color."

I read that for hundreds of years Bannock and Shoshone people collected minerals from Mammoth Hot Springs for white paint. 

We knew we would get our steps in that day walking up to the Upper Terraces!

The cascades of travertine beside the boardwalk trail at Minerva Terrace were only formed in the 1990s. Named for the Roman goddess of artists and sculptors, Minerva is dry some years. 

Back in the mid '30s, Mound Terrace was called "the most beautifully colored spring." It only began flowing again after being inactive for decades. 

As we wound our way up the steep boardwalk and stairs, we got to glimpse another view of Minerva Terrace. 

Look at the two views of Mound Spring; the difference was simply the angle and sunlight! I still can't decide which one I prefer. 

The nearer we got to the Upper Terraces, the more barren was the landscape. 

It looked like a lunar landscape to me!

After reaching the Upper Terrace Drive, we walked along the road that was closed to traffic until we reached Cupid Spring. 

Grassy Spring: 

If we could have visited in the late 1800s, Canary Spring would have been full of yellow filament bacteria. When the spring is sometimes dormant for brief periods of time, vibrant pinks and neon greens can be seen!

We didn't see such exciting colors but we were struck by the potent smell of sulfide gas rising through the vents!

More photos of Canary Spring that tied in my estimation with Palette Spring for sheer beauty. Steven and I had absolutely loved exploring the geysers the day before but these two terraces were just as spectacular in a different way. They just reinforced my belief Yellowstone had something for everyone, even buffalo lovers!

You can see how far we'd walked to reach the Upper Terraces from the parking lot so far below us!

For obvious reasons, these were called "tree skeletons."

It was hard to tear ourselves away from the gorgeous Canary Spring; once we finally did, we had to backtrack along the upper road a good distance to reach Angel Terrace. You can see in the second photo how the spring's runoff had spilled over onto the closed road. It was hard to think that the terrace had been dry and crumbling for decades before resuming activity in 1985!

Three miles later we finally reached the car and then drove south to an overlook for our final view of the beautiful Canary Spring.

South of Mammoth Hot Springs was Golden Gate Canyon. When building the first roads through the nation's first national park, engineers faced their most difficult and expensive challenges bridging the Golden Gate Canyon south of Mammoth. The first bridge was completed in 1885 when 1,275 pounds of explosives were required to remove 14,000 cubic yards of solid rock hauled off by horses and wagons.

I couldn't imagine the terror early visitors would have felt crossing the unstable bridge in heavily-laden stagecoaches with the possibility of a fatal drop into the chasm if the wooden trestle failed. The bridge was rebuilt in 1900, 1933, and 1975 with newer materials and engineering used each time.

Swan Lake Flat:

Halfway between Mammoth and Norris Geyser Basin where we'd spent our first afternoon in the park was Willow Park. Though we'd been fantastically lucky the day before arriving at geysers just minutes before they erupted, it looked like our luck had run out today! The park's wet habitat was supposed to be a great spot to catch sight of moose when they migrate down from the high country in search of nutritious aquatic plants and meadow plants.

Unlike the herds of buffalo we'd already come across in the park, moose are mostly solitary animals except for a cow moose with a calf. 

A little further on was Obsidian Cliff formed 100,000 years ago when lava flowing from a vent on the plateau filled in a landscape already shaped by earlier lava flows and glaciers. For obsidian to form, lava - which is liquid rock and gas - had to be extremely hot, very fluid, and cool quickly, so quickly in fact that minerals didn't have time to form. 

When Yellowstone's first visitors probably followed game animals into this area about 12,000 years ago, they began using the volcanic glass they discovered at Obsidian Cliff for tool making. Prehistoric people traded obsidian far and wide as a burial mound 1,500 miles away in Ohio contained ceremonial blades made from obsidian quarried from this cliff! Then about 200 years ago, Native Americans of the northern Great Plains made arrow and spear points, knives, and other tools from Yellowstone obsidian. 

Though most obsidian is black, it can also be red, green, or brown. How sad to read a sign that Obsidian Cliff was losing its shine as souvenir hunters have taken fragments of obsidian. It was a good reminder that removing a piece of the natural resource was not 'collecting' but rather stealing from everyone else. 

This shelter by the cliffs was a Yellowstone landmark as it was one of the first wayside exhibit shelters in the national park system when it was built in 1931. Entered into the National Register of Historic Places, the 'open-air museum' was built with native logs and stone that blended perfectly with the environment.

We stopped at the Clearwater Springs lookout to admire the yellow flowers in the meadow and to see if we could any moose here. No luck again.

Just minutes later was the barren-looking Roaring Mountain where we read that among its steam and sulfur-rich gases, microscopic organisms were hard at work. Though appearing so inhospitable to humans, billions and billions of thermophiles lived here, wearing away the mountain. Though the mountain was very tame when we were there in July, during the 1800s Roaring Mountain did indeed live up to its name when its fumaroles could be heard four miles away at Obsidian Cliff. 

A boardwalk led us to Frying Pan Spring, not a can't miss spot but a fun walk nonetheless on a beautiful summer's day. 

For the first time in the park, we then headed east from Norris toward Canyon Village and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Along a narrow one-way road, we, or at least I, had a pretty view of Virginia Cascade as Steven couldn't see it from his side of the car!

I just checked the distance and realized we only drove about thirty-five miles that morning - my, what a lot to see in so few miles, especially the can't miss Mammoth Hot Springs terraces! We lucked out finding this pretty picnic spot with nary a person near us.

We really enjoyed that mostly relaxing morning seeing the sights between our hotel in Gardiner and Norris that we'd just whizzed by the previous two days! But we found it frustrating that the park map didn't list all of the park's sights so Steven couldn't anticipate when to slow down for the pullouts. It made it hard to plan how to spend our somewhat limited time in the park as we wondered what might be around the next bend AND if it were safe to stop if cars were right behind us!

Next post: The phenomenal Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone!

Posted on December 1st, 2020, from our home outside of Denver - I don't know about you but I can hardly believe there's just one month left this year. Like everyone else, I hope and pray that the coming months will bring better health and peace for all.