Day 4:
Up early again this morning, because that's how you beat the masses! First stop, Mammoth Hot Springs, which was not even 5 minutes from our campsite. All of Mammoth's distinctive features are formed by hot water, heated by volcanic activity, pushing up through limestone and then depositing calcium carbonate as it runs across the surface. There's Liberty Cap, a 37 foot tall cone, and Minerva Terrace, a series of ever-changing plateaus, the active ones covered in yellowish-orange thermophilic bacterial mats, an environment that is inhospitable to most other life forms. We walked all the way up to the upper terraces and then back down again, and then we fired up the generator to make coffee. Our next stop was the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, something Margo and I missed last time. We started at the overlook for the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River but couldn't see very well from there, so we found the trailhead to walk down to the bring of the falls overlook, a hike that was only 3/8 of a mile long but dropped 600 feet in the process! It was well worth it though, to see the falls up close, and to catch a glimpse of the Upper Falls as well. The walk back up the switchback trail was steep, but not as bad as we thought it might be. From there, we exited Yellowstone through the West entrance into West Yellowstone, MT and then on to Idaho. Idaho has about 3x as many residents as Wyoming, but felt almost as desolate at times, when we didn't see much other than cattle and potato fields. We went a good distance out of our way to visit Craters of the Moon National Monument, between Arco and Carey, ID. Arco's claim to fame is that it was the first city to be powered entirely by atomic energy, and experiment conducted in the 1950s to show that atomic energy could be used for peaceful purposes. When we entered the expanse of Craters of the Moon, we could immediately see why it was named as such. It's 750,000 acres of volcanic rocks, some of which is now covered with lichen and sagebrush, but much of which is still just bare rock. The visitor's center was small but the displays did a great job of explaining how a hot spot under the North American plate, over the past 16 million years, formed multiple volcanic calderas and lava deposits across the Snake River plain, ending at Yellowstone, where the hot spot is now. Off and on from 15,000 years ago through just 2000 years ago, lava welled up from the Great Rift, a series of fissures in the ground, forming what is essentially an "ocean of rock". And it's not finished! Geologists believe that future eruptions are likely within the next 900 years, but more likely within the next 100 years. We took the driving tour of the lava fields, spatter cones, cinder cones, and monoliths of rock deposited in the middle of the fields by flowing lava. We would have loved to have had time to get a permit to go see the lava tube caves, but we wanted to get into the Pocatello KOA before it got too late. Once at the campground, we had out first experience dumping our sewer tank and gray water tanks - yuck! Tomorrow is a travel day - 400+ miles to Cedar City, Utah, going through Salt lake City. We don't have any set plans for where to stop so we'll just see where the day takes up on the way!
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