Junior Ranger!

July 12, 2002 – Yellowstone National Park

Our first stop of the day was the visitor center at Mammoth Hot Springs. Delaney turned in her Junior Ranger paperwork and became an Official Junior Ranger of Yellowstone National Park. She worked very hard on the worksheets and hiking and was very proud to get her patch – as were her Mom and Dad.

The visitor center at Mammoth Hot Springs is an old officer’s residence building. For the first thirty years or so of the park’s existence there was no National Park Service and the park was managed by the Army. The village at Mammoth Hot Springs consists of the old residence and administrative buildings, most of which were built in the 1890’s. This is still the headquarters of the park and the Park Administrator still lives in the Commanding Officer’s house. We took the walking tour around the buildings and walked through the lobby of the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel. A neat place, but not nearly as striking or unique as the Old Faithful Inn. There is a room off the lobby called the Map Room where there is a huge map of the United States put together like a mosaic. Each state is made from a different type of wood.

After looking at the buildings we went to the springs themselves. It was HOT that day and the kids did incredibly well. We were on boardwalks most of the way with a lot of stairs. It seems that at every turn in Yellowstone there is some new fascinating natural wonder to see. These springs with their mineral formations were just beautiful. The clear, pooling water and the mineral terraces sparkled in the sun. One particularly large terrace, called the Minerva Terrace, was very striking. We also saw the Liberty Cap – a mineral formation 30 feet tall caused by buildup from a spring over a long period of time.

From the springs we went to Lava Creek for a picnic. The picnic area is right off the road next to the creek and is just a ¼ mile or so upstream from Undine Falls. There was a nice area where the water was calm and we played in the water a while to cool off. After lunch and cool down we walked the Children’s Fire Trail. It was an interpretive boardwalk which explained and showed how fire is natural and can be helpful in cleaning up the forest and seeding new growth.

What trip with me would be complete without a venture down a dirt road? This was the day for this trip. I found a six-mile one-way dirt road that went over a ridge and eventually connected with the main road. We didn’t see any wildlife on the side trip but saw a lot of trees, flowers, and other scenery a lot closer and slower than from the main road. Plus I got to drive the rental car on a dirt road!

Next stop was the Petrified Tree. There were once three petrified trees in this location but two were destroyed by souvenir hunters long ago. The last tree has a wrought iron fence around it. A far cry from the wide open petrified stumps and logs Chrissy and I would encounter 18 years later in Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota.

On the side road to the Petrified Tree we came across the all too familiar line up of cars again. This bunch was looking at a Black Bear. This one was much more visible than the one we saw the day before. At one point it got up and walked along a log, I’m sure just to show off so we could see it better.

We continued on from the bear sighting to Tower Falls, so named for the tower rock formations around the top of the falls. Yet another of the many beautiful spots in Yellowstone, and there is a General Store with ice cream!

On the way back to Gardiner we saw a Red Fox and Pronghorn Antelope. As we passed through Mammoth Hot Springs there was an elk in the same exact place we saw one the day before. Maybe the same one?

We got back to the hotel in Gardiner very tired from another full day and went to the same Pizza place for dinner. Walking distance and good pizza win again, but I think it is the only place we ate twice on the entire trip.