This morning Yellowstone treated us to another amazingly beautiful sunrise. We stopped to appreciate the beauty before heading to the Mammoth Hot Springs to meet with Erin and Kieran, two members of the park’s geology crew, and Mike Coonan, an education ranger for the park.

Sunrise from Mammoth Hot Springs

As we walked the boardwalk, we learned about how the geology of Mammoth Hot Springs differs from that of the geyser basins in the southern part of the park. The Mammoth Hot Springs form terraces made of travertine, which comes from hot water dissolving limestone. The dissolved minerals precipitate out of the water to form the travertine terraces. The terraces grow very quickly, sometimes more than a foot a year! We even saw trees that previously were growing in the dirt and are now being swallowed by the travertine. 

Canary Spring at Mammoth Hot Springs, surrounded by dead trees

The park geologists also talked to us about some of their work in the park, ranging from piecing together the history of various areas of the park to being trained how to walk near thermal features in order to take measurements and retrieve trash that people lose in the hot springs and geysers, either accidentally or intentionally. A few decades ago, scientists working for the park occasionally took a small boat out on the hot springs to measure the depth. Erin and Kieran are very glad that they don’t have to do that anymore because many of the springs are close to the boiling point! The education ranger, Mike, reminded us of how special Yellowstone is. The 2.2 million acres of the park contain an intact ecosystem that is preserved and largely untouched by human development. Yellowstone’s wilderness today is very similar to how it was when the first indigenous peoples were using the area at the end of the last ice age approximately ~11,000 years ago.

After spending the morning at Mammoth Hot Springs, we packed up and headed to Bozeman to catch our flight back to North Carolina. 

Group at dinner in the Minneapolis airport celebrating Tracy’s birthday tomorrow!

On this trip, we were pushed out of our comfort zones by challenging snowshoe hikes, extreme cold, and even by taking the leap to fly across the country with a group of strangers. We proved to ourselves that we can do hard things and even thrive in challenging situations. (Having the right gear really helps!) We are exhausted, rejuvenated, and in awe of Yellowstone’s vast magnificence. We are walking back into our classrooms full of excitement and ready to share all we learned about ecology, geology and history. We hope to share with our students the understanding that nature is interconnected, fragile, and important to conserve. 

“In the end, we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand, and will understand only what we are taught.”                   

– Baba Dioum

For our last full day at Yellowstone we had two things on the docket: to go snowshoeing and to see our last ungulate, the mountain goat. We got into the park before sunrise making our way to a bison carcass we saw yesterday. While there, we watched 3 coyotes feeding on the bison (and later in the day we saw a wolf feeding on the same carcass). After that, we made two passes through the northeast corner of the park looking for mountain goats, but saw nothing.

Wolf at bison carcass

Our morning was freezing while checking things off our docket. It was -28°F as we were heading into the park, and the highest temperature we experienced today was -4°F. Throughout this “negative” day, we (unfortunately) had to use pit toilets. The toilet seat was so cold our infrared thermometer couldn’t even give us a reading on the temperature! Surprisingly, several of us mentioned how much warmer today’s temperatures felt. If you’d asked us before this trip, none of us would ever have thought -4°F was warm. However, when experiencing temperatures around -30°F, -4°F really does seem warm! This trip has taught us the importance of layers of clothing; we added and took away layers as we moved throughout the day and got in and out of cars.

We made one more pass through Lamar Valley to spot a mountain goat but came up unsuccessful yet again. With the weather in the negative teens all morning, when we stopped in Cooke City, MT to get coffee at Cooke City Coffee we were thrilled. After warming ourselves with a hot beverage, we continued our search for the elusive mountain goat. This next pass was not without issues. One of our SUVs discovered the importance of friction, when it slid on a patch of ice and got stuck in deep snow on the side of the road. No sooner had we gotten out of our vehicle to investigate when help arrived. This “help” just so happened to be Dr. John Winnie, ecology professor for Montana State University, in his truck with a tow strap! Within just a few minutes he was able to pull us out. We thanked him and offered him some baked goods (which he declined), and we exchanged information (never pass up the opportunity to network).

Before

After, with our new friend John

With our crisis averted, we moved on to our last snowshoe hike along the beautiful Pebble Creek. The trek was simple but the beauty was breathtaking. This area was devastated by the floods of 2022, and we saw evidence of this devastation on the landscape – downed trees, tangled picnic tables, and freshly eroded rocks. Our group observed canine and moose tracks along with an American dipper nest (see our earlier post for more on this amazing bird). Our group was blown away by the beauty, history and geology found within this small box canyon. While there, Klara shared a beautiful poem with our group. Everyone of our group members gained something different out of this snowshoe experience.

We ended our day in the park with one last look for a mountain goat, with no luck. We headed out of the park and made one last stop to take in a magical Yellowstone sunset!

Group on snowshoe hike

As we wrapped up our final group meeting, we realized we all managed to fulfill all the goals we set at the beginning of the trip from learning about geothermal features (Tracy) to experiencing moments of stillness (Sallie) to adopting a science point of view (Landon, our history teacher). The group shared their experiences and the many takeaways from our time in Yellowstone. We are pumped about meeting with the Yellowstone Geology Crew and an Education Ranger in the park tomorrow to further our knowledge and look for ways to bring this experience back to our students.

Our time in Yellowstone is almost up, but we all feel so thankful to have experienced this magical place with each other!

The poem Klara shared

We entered Yellowstone again in complete darkness and experienced the night sky. The number of stars far exceeds what most of us experience in North Carolina. From there we entered Lamar Valley just in time to view the sun coming up over the Absaroka mountains. It was the most spectacular view.

Lamar Valley at sunrise

As we continued into the park, we spotted a bison carcass being scavenged by a juvenile bald eagle and approximately 25 ravens. Maybe 50 yards east were 2 bedded wolves, lying in the snow across the valley. We wondered if maybe they had fed on the carcass which would explain their satisfied, docile behavior.

Afterwards we continued on to Silver Gate, MT to the home of Dan and Cindy Hartman but before we arrived we were blessed to find 2 moose, a cow and a calf, having a morning meal of willow plants. Dan and Cindy, who are wildlife photographers and naturalists, shared with our group some of their recent work creating movies about nature. Our feature film today was called “Harvest,” which was his new film on the impact of the loss of whitebark pine trees on a multitude of animals. This film was based on his study of middens, which is a cache of pine nuts made by red squirrels. After the video we talked about the invasive species, pine bark beetle which is killing off many of these tress and affecting the ecosystem. He shared with us that his mission is to encourage others to respect and appreciate nature through a deeper connection with all living things. One of our team asked Dan what we could do to help protect whitebark pine. His response: “It’s going to be up to our children to save them.” As we were leaving the Hartmans we were thrilled to see a beautiful fuzzy pine marten, a member of the weasel family, scampering up a snag outside his cabin. In addition, we saw numerous birds including some Clark’s nutcrackers, Steller’s jays, mountain chickadees, pine grosbeaks and a red-breasted nuthatch.

Pine marten at Dan and Cindy Hartman’s house. Photo by Adam Smith.

The other animals we spotted today include: lots of bison, more dippers, ducks, pronghorns, eagles, elk, ravens, a ferruginous hawk and two red foxes. We ended our day by exiting the park during daylight hours so that we could see the Roosevelt Arch.

Group at Roosevelt Arch

Even though it was a mere 3 degrees, we rewarded ourselves by taking a relaxing dip in the Yellowstone Hot Springs, a private spot outside of the national park where hot groundwater is used in manmade pools to create a lovely spot. This was much needed after the frigid week we’ve had. Our bodies should be ready for more park action tomorrow after soaking in the mineral rich geothermal waters which will help with our aches and pains from the physical activity we have endured.

Our day began with a sunrise hike to Old Faithful and Upper Geyser Basin. It was an absolutely beautiful morning with pre-dawn light tinting the sky blue and pink. We were graced with an eruption of Old Faithful at 7:47 am against that spectacular background.

Old Faithful eruption just before dawn

As we walked across the Firehole River to Geyser Hill, we measured a temperature of -27°F. We made short stops to look at geysers and hot springs, but kept ourselves moving so we wouldn’t get too cold. As we walked past Lion Geyser, we were surprised as it started to erupt! We turned around, and in the opposite direction, we watched as the sun peaked out of the far ridgeline between lodgepole pine trees. In temperatures this cold, whenever we walked through steam from a thermal feature, the moisture in the air froze to our hair and clothing, and even our eyelashes.

Angie’s hood provided the perfect site for rime ice to form!

Shortly after departing from Old Faithful in our snowcoach, we stopped to hike to Black Sands Pool through about a foot of snow. Near the rim of the spring, where heat from the hot water below had melted any snow away, we laid down on the obsidian gravel covered ground. We were able to feel thumps in the ground below us caused by small steam explosions underground.

Our next stop was Midway Geyser Basin, where the huge amounts of steam produced by Excelsior Geyser coated the trees in rime ice. The lodgepole pines looked like the trees in Whoville! We took another weather measurement and the temperature was 2.1 degrees Fahrenheit while the wind chill was -17.5 degrees Fahrenheit, quite balmy after our frigid morning!

Ice-covered trees at Midway Geyser Basin

As we traveled north towards Mammoth, we got to stop at a warming hut where they served hot chocolate and snacks. We even got to use the bathroom in a heated building (every other bathroom up until this point had been in a pit toilet which had no heat or light).

Styling and profiling while waiting in line for the pit toilet

The brief moments of warmth and luxury still paled in comparison to the splendor we experienced among Yellowstone’s most famous geothermal features. Tomorrow, we head to the Lamar Valley again to look for more of Yellowstone’s other most famous features, the wildlife.