Yellowstone Day 5
Mammoth Hot Springs
Today we went to Mammoth Hot Springs. That place is pretty incredible. The area that Mammoth covers takes a bit of time to explore and the amount of geothermal is mind boggling.
Getting There
The drive to Mammoth does take some time. It is about 49 mies from the park entrance to Mammoth, and factoring in Yellowstone traffic it is reasonable to expect around 1.5 – 2 hours to get there.
The bison were out in pretty large numbers today and we did get some pretty good photos. On the way we drove in on Fountain Flat Drive, where there has been a herd every day, to check out a bike ride we had heard about. We do want to ride that one day.
There were also a lot of bison in the meadow before Lower Geyser Basin, where we often see them.
Getting close to Mammoth, we drove through a really interesting area where a large rock outcropping suddenly came into view. There is a very small side road that goes through a mini canyon in this area.
At Mammoth
We did all the walkabouts at Mammoth (see images) and drove through the village. The village is quite historic, including Fort Yellowstone. Fort Yellowstone was established in 1891 as a way to protect the area before it was established as a national park. More HERE
After visiting the village we did the Upper Terrace Drive and saw more of the springs and pools in the area.
The Drive Back
The drive back was unexpectedly and unnervingly exciting. We decided to make a stop at Sheepeater Cliff. I was slowing for the left hand turn in. Brake lights were on and left turn signal was on. I began the turn when a horn started blasting and a 4Runner came flying past us on the left side barely missing us! The vehicle then went off the road and into the meadow. We made sure they were ok before we left, then went into the attraction with our heart rates quite escalated. It took a while to get settled down from that one!
The rest of the drive went without incident, however the weather turned on the way home. We encountered high winds and snow.