Yellowstone Upper Loop

Thursday was mainly taken with travelling up from Jackson to West Yellowstone through three states: Wyoming, Idaho and Montana. It was quite a nice scenic journey through the snake river valley as far as Idaho Falls. Although, as I was the only passenger for that part of the journey, the bus driver insisted on telling me everything he knew about England (even though some of it was about Scotland) without letting me get a word in edge ways, which is perhaps a shame for him as I feel I might have been able to provide some insight.

The next day I was picked up at 08:15 for a tour of Yellowstone's Upper Loop. The park's road system is in a figure of 8 formation dividing it into two loops. The lower loop covers most of the caldera and sees most of the geothermal activity. The upper loop is more mountainous and contains the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, although there's still plenty of volcanic activity to be had.

First to see was the Grand Canyon and its various waterfalls which are quite spectacular:

There was also a spot of bird watching here. There was a nest of Ospreys that were fishing and then feeding their chicks. Unfortunately I couldn't get any photos of this because they were too far away.

Lunch was taken at the cafeteria in the Canyon Village, which is a buffet or, as my tour guide excitedly put it - a trough. It was nice, and it was the first time I've seen any salad since I landed in America, but I didn't really have any idea what I was eating because none of it was labelled.

After lunch we drove over the Dunraven Pass to the other side of the Canyon stopping at a number of lookouts and waterfalls along the way.

Eventually we got to Yellowstone's administrative town of Mammoth. Home of the Mammoth Hot Springs and their calcium carbonate deposits. The hot springs change all the time, where there's hot water flowing they support the growth of multicoloured (orange, yellow and blue) archea, but where they are dry they quickly turn brilliant white. The guide took us to see one spring which, until five days ago had particularly active but is now completely dry and nearly all white already.

There wasn't any new wildlife today. We passed plenty of Buffalo and there was some Elk in Mammoth, but no bears yet.

I've fixed the links to the Grand Teton photos that weren't working.