Mudpots

Muddy bubbling water. Sometimes they spew like geysers. Yuck! Most of it is alkaline enough to burn your skin!!

Yellowstone Lake

Too cold to swim, but we stopped so the girls could check out the black sand and rocks on the beach.

Old Faithful

A picnic lunch while waiting for the eruption.

Eruption!

After.

Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park

A chilly morning! We stayed at in a tiny cabin in Gardiner last night instead of camping. Good choice- look at the view that welcomed us into the park this morning!

Found this guy on our way in. Our first Yellowstone Bison.

Exploring the geyser basin on our way to Old Faithful.

We found Big Blue parked next to Big Red!! It's a popular road trip rig!!

Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park

It's amazing how the springs move and change. It looked very different then when we were here in 2003!

This is a new spring that the park ranger told us to look for. It's only 8 weeks old. If it continues they will need to move the parking lot!

We called this the mini-spew. Sam says it is like the coffee percolator.

Look who we found on the lawn of the Mammoth Hotel...

Earthquake Lake, MT

A beautiful and interesting stop just west of Yellowstone. Earthquake Lake was formed on August 17, 1959 when a magnitude 7.4 earthquake shook the area. The quake triggered a landslide that blocked the calm and meandering Madison River about 15 miles below the Hebgen Dam. The lake filled quickly washing away campsites and cabin resorts. There are ghost trees in the water showing where the forest used to edge the river. It's a beautiful spot with an amazing and very modern history. The visitor center had great exhibits and we even encountered a man who came through just after the quake in 1959. We highly recommend this stop if you are coming to Yellowstone.

A very windy day! The bare hillside is the one that slid across the river.

Looking towards the Hebgen Dam and Yellowstone.

Piles of the rock that slid across the narrow valley. There are chunks of asphalt mixed in from the road the slide took with it.

This rock came across the valley too. It is a memorial for the 28 people who died.

The Madison River winding through the spillway that was dug to release some of the water. Before the spillway Earthquake Lake was rising 9 feet per day and the Hebgen Dam was in danger of being breached. 

Ghost trees in the lake.

We walked along an old road and found this tree blocking the way.

Refuge Point where survivors gathered on high ground. Ghost cabins in the background were washed off their foundations then blown upriver and settled here.

Virginia City, MT

Another fun wild west town. There is a narrow guage railroad between the two towns.

We might trade in our Ford (Big Red) for one of these!