Moving to Alaska: Day Eleven

So last time we left off with a "tomorrow is Yellowstone" teaser. However, some Montana exploration was in the cards first for me.

In 1959 the largest earthquake ever in the Rocky Mountains, 7.3 on the Richter scale,  happened about 15 miles north of West Yellowstone just downstream from Hebgen Lake. It caused a massive landslide, with approximately 80 million tons of dirt and rock collapsing into the valley, resulting in 28 deaths, mostly of campers who were buried alive. It completely blocked the flow of the Madison River. Fears of the water buildup causing a massive flood led to the Army Corp to cut a 250 foot long by 14 foot deep channel into the slide within two weeks to allow the water to start flowing. To this day the second lake remains. There is a driving tour and a couple short hikes in the area which I wanted to go see.

Another thing I did today was that I actually rented a car rather than tow the trailer around. That was in part because I knew some of the roads I would be letterboxing on today were forest service roads, which are generally hit or miss anyway. So I had arranged to at least for one day, park my car and use one that would drive where I wanted without dragging the ground, get decent gas mileage, and accelerate when I pushed the gas!!! So I moved a few things into the car (including the cat) and we did the Earthquake tour in the morning. I then dropped him off back at the hotel after the room had been cleaned, and went off to Yellowstone.

Going in, I had done a little research and reading and knew I wanted to see Old Faithful, Grand Prismatic Spring and Yellowstone Falls as a generic hitlist. I also knew that many roads closed for the year in September and October but luckily, I would be able to get to all three of those. So for the first day I opted to head south towards Old Faithful. On the way down I actual did a detour for a letterbox only because I saw the sign that said "No Trailers" so figured I better do that one today instead of tomorrow when I would have my own car. Then I went beyond Old Faithful to the trailhead for Lone Star Geyser. I didn't know much about it other than it was a hike to get there and it only went off about every three hours. So I just parked and started walking. I have to admit, I am not very comfortable hiking alone in bear country but did have my bear bell, bear spray and talked outloud to myself a lot just to make sure every critter knew I was coming. It took the edge off but I was still jumpy; guess I should get used to having bears around since there are quite a few in Alaska... anyway, so I just started walking. eventually I passed a sign that indicated I still had 1.5 of 2.5 miles remaining. I had no idea this was a five mile roundtrip hike; guess I should have read that board at the trailhead, though I doubt it would have stopped me from going. As I finally started up the last short incline to the clearing where the geyser is located, I heard it start making noise. I literally walked within sight of the geyser as it started shooting water. Nice; no waiting for three hours now!!! So after taking lots of photos and watching it for about fifteen minutes until it stopped doing anything, I walked back out and then drove down to the Old Faithful area.

I won't go into all the details here but there is Old Faithful plus a lot of other smaller pools, springs and geysers in the area. There are a few walking trails so you can look at these other ones, all of which I find fascinating. There is also a trail to an overlook above Old Faithful, which I hiked up. And once at the top, I sat down, got my camera out and Old Faithful started erupting. So for the second time today, impeccable timing. As before, I took some photos then hiked back down to the car. By now it was dark but on the way out I did chat with an older couple from Virginia and we were talking about how I was a geyser luck charm of some sort. They were waiting on Old Faithful to erupt again (which would have been about another 30 minutes I think) but I could not stay since I had a cat waiting for dinner at the hotel and it was already a couple hours later than he expected it...

Start: West Yellowstone, Montana

Stop: West Yellowstone, Montana

0 Miles Driven (officially; unofficially 145 miles)

~15.3  Miles Walked
13 Letterboxes Found

0 Letterboxes Not Found (this is the first day on the trip I actually found all I looked for)

1 Letterboxes Planted

Pictures will be posted on Facebook in this album (and the link will be included in all future posts for this trip):

Moving to Alaska Photos