Robin: September 17

 

Captains Log Sep 17

This morning we got up early to get into the park before too much traffic and headed directly to Mammoth Springs. It was a chilly 34 degrees, but our camper heater works great!   We stopped at Ernie’s Bakery http://erniesbakery.com/ in West Yellowstone for some excellent pastries and a couple of box deli lunches for the road.   We had less delays this morning driving (from people literally stopping in the middle of the road to take pictures and backing-up traffic for miles even though signs are clearly posted that say NO STOPPING, stop at pullouts only).   The only driving issue of the day was a precarious steep decent into Mammoth on a very narrow road with no center lane or shoulder markings due to a new overlay on the road.  I was going 20 mph with white knuckles!!   

Once in Mammoth we were treated with beautiful elk roaming around and helpful rangers.  We didn’t want to compete with others for pictures of the elk, so we didn’t take any, but most of you have seen many elk.   We went to the visitor center and talked to a ranger about hiking.   We had a Bunsen Peak hike https://www.nps.gov/thingstodo/yell-trail-bunsen-peak.htm in mind and wanted some additional information about parking, bear spray, etc…   Fully armed with the proper information (park at the trailhead across the street and YES take bear spray) and after a purchase of bear spray we headed back up the narrow steep road to the Bunsen Peak trailhead (by the way, uphill was much less scary 😊).

The hike was 5 miles out and back with only a few other hikers and great views.   The first picture below was a view of Mammoth Hot Springs from the summit and the second was a look back at the narrow road with no road markings.  The road didn’t look nearly as intimidating from this perspective.

 

After the hike we ate our great Ernie’s lunches and headed back to the KOA at West Yellowstone to do some laundry, camper maintenance, etc….   Tomorrow we will head to Idaho Falls for a day and then to Shoshone Falls for 3 days before visiting family in Boise.

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--Robin and Jennifer