Ray couldn’t enjoy it as much because he had to keep his eyes on the road. We stopped twice in the park—once for lunch at a turnout on the continental divide and then by a river where we saw a herd of elk.
We camped at the Yellowstone Holiday RV campground on Hebgen Lake, 14 miles from the West entrance to Yellowstone. Wow. Miles of mountains and lake and an expansive view.
Our first excursion was not to the Park. In 1959 there was a 7.3 earthquake here. The epicenter was located about 5 miles from our campground. A huge chunk of a mountain slid down burying 28 people, blocking a river and creating a seiche, an inland tidal wave of sorts, on Hebgen Lake. The Madison River, being blocked, created a new lake which still exists today—Earthquake Lake, the destination of our excursion. (The Corp of Engineers had to quickly cut a channel in the rubble to avoid the new lake flooding even further.) It was amazing to see a huge chunk of a mountain missing and to see the effects of a quake on a natural landscape. (You can just see the missing chunk in the middle of the picture below and the tree trunks half in water were once on land.)
The next day we traveled to Yellowstone. Hot springs, Old Faithful, waterfalls, a glacier lake and the grand Canyon of Yellowstone—the pictures don’t do justice to the reality.
We stayed at a “pioneer cabin” in Canyon for one night and were visited by deer and bison. (You can see the cabins in the background.) Ravens were everywhere.
The next day we saw more of the canyon, strange rock formations, various panaramas, hot springs, and elk in the middle of Mammoth Springs.
Back closer to our campground we stopped to watch fledgling osprey get ready for flight.
Our last excursion was the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone where we got to see the animals we missed in the wild.
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