The Olsen's Odyssey - Westward 2013: Yellowstone (Day 2) - Mammoth Hot Springs and Norris Geyser Basin

I'm likely to be hitting you all with posts from Yellowstone consecutively - it's amazing how remote and inaccessible you are to the world when when you are in this part of the country and now it's catch up time!

Day 2 in Yellowstone was packed with excitement. As a rule, we always look for Ranger-led programs when we're in National Parks since you learn so much - a hike becomes a real learning experience instead of a walk in the woods. Graeme, in particular, is always right by the Ranger so he can ask questions or answer them. It's fun to watch as a parent since we know that the kids are really into learning about what's there instead of looking at things aimlessly.

It was quite a haul up to Mammoth from camp - a good hour if you're not held up by bison. In our case we were held up by a sedan from Minnesota but I put Gigantibeast into MINI Cooper mode and we made it just in time for the program. Mammoth was pretty spectacular - we learned about how the hot springs make a brand new rock called travertine. And in the early days of the park, entrepreneurs would accept trinkets from visitors, set them up in the slow moving water and in a few days the trinkets would be covered in travertine to be returned to the visitor for a price. Pretty neat.

As spectacular as Mammoth was, it was our picnic next to the Gardner River that I may remember the most. The "incident" that happened later in the day still stings a little in the memory banks as a dad, but we'll talk about that later... For lunch, we were basically shut out of a picnic table at a place called Sheepeaters so out came the picnic blankets and our lunch table was set! The kids loved to be in the stream - they could care less about eating and quickly made for the cool water. It was a photographer's dream - the kids and a beautiful landscape and I have a feeling that you may just see a couple pictures from this picnic on our Christmas card this year.

Scarlett almost goes down. Eventually she did.

I do believe hopping from stone to stone would have lasted all day...

Annalise - step on THAT rock!

Gigantibeast hiding in the woods

Norris Geyser Basin & Steamboat Geyser

Steamboat geyser in it's "steam" phase of a major eruption

After our picnic lunch by the river, it was off to Norris Geyser basin which is a huge series of geothermal features whose major attraction is Steamboat Geyser. Steamboat is the most powerful and highest geyser feature on Earth and will spout to heights of 200-300 feet in the air. As a comparison, Old Faithful spouts to less than 100 feet. The only problem with Steamboat is that is very unpredictable and can go years before a "major" eruption. We arrived to our Ranger led program (which happened to meet at Steamboat) and the Ranger was positively giddy. I don't know that I've ever seen a Park Ranger so excited. Why the excitement? The night before, Steamboat had a major eruption.

When we arrived (Aug. 1 @ 2 pm) we could see the steam over the tree tops from the road. We just thought it was a normal "Yellowstone" thing, but it turns out we were seeing Steamboat in it's "steam" phase after the water eruption. The sound from Steamboat in this phase was impressive. During it's water phase, the Ranger described it as sounding like a train roaring through the basin and while the steam phase wasn't quite as loud, it rumbled. It was pretty cool to be here when we were - the last major eruption was in 2005. That was the year that Graeme was born!

The Olsen's at Steamboat Geyser for a rare geothermal event!

Annalise & Graeme at peace after Steamboat

After Steamboat it was off to explore the rest of Norris Geyser Basin. We started off on the boardwalks feeling pretty good. Some of the features here were new to us and we learned about the four basic geothermal features that are here at Yellowstone - geysers, hot springs, mud pots and steam vents. All of them are dependent on the amount of water present. Geysers and hots springs have the most water present and mud pots and steam vents have the least amount of water. Geysers tend to build up pressure over time and erupt; hot springs have a fairly constant amount of water and tend to bubble and have fantastic colors. Mud pots vary in color and texture based on what the water is passing through on the way to the surface and steam vents are basically small amounts of water that is steamed through a relatively hard, rocky surface. So there's your basic geology lesson - I'm sure it's more complicated than that, but you get the idea...

This is a steam vent that looks like mud pot.
But it's a steam vent since steam is present

Aunt Maribeth and Scarlett consoling Annalise

So the Olsen's headed off on the boardwalk and got a little spread out as we typically do on any hike. I have to take pictures of EVERYTHING and we all sort of check out things differently. At Stuff & Puff Steam Vent, something went amiss with Graeme & Annalise. There are differing accounts of the "incident", but the end result was Annalise falling off the

boardwalk into a muddy run-off area from the Stuff & Puff Steam Vent. Aunt Maribeth was closest to the little ones as she almost always is on a hike and she sprung into action! Annalise was back on the boardwalk in an instant. I was a good 50 feet behind the kids around a turn taking pictures at Green Dragon Springs when the commotion started. All that I knew is that either Laryssa or Scarlett ran back to me yelling, "Annalise fell in!!!!" and it was instant panic. Mind you, Yellowstone is good about warning signs. And they make it pretty clear that the ground can break through at any point off of the boardwalk and you can be plunged into scalding hot water. Many visitors each year are injured because they don't pay close enough attention... So when I get to Annalise, she's in tears, she's muddy and we're all quickly assessing whether she's burned or frightened. Her skin's not red and I swish my fingers into the mud she fell in.

Graeme was taking the 5th and refusing to incriminate himself

Thankfully, it's room temperature so her crying is really out of fright. To this day, no one knows exactly what happened. Did Graeme push Annalise? Did Annalise try to push Graeme and she got the fuzzy end of the lolly pop stick? We'll never know, but one thing is for sure - I wasn't at all happy. After an appropriate amount of warnings from Mommy, Aunt Maribeth and I about the dangers of all this hot water around us at Yellowstone, Graeme & Annalise acted as if they were home in the back yard.
We had our "cooling off time" as a family in silence; Laryssa & Scarlett were miffed that I wouldn't console Annalise, but it was clear to me that she had forgotten the rules and there's no consoling after that. We had a hug and a talk eventually, but her big sisters did the consoling. Just like it should be, I think.

The boardwalk - a good place to walk
when geothermal features are present

After the "incident", Graeme and I eventually bonded with a business teacher from, of all places, Flint, Michigan. Flint is the hometown of Harlan Foley, a great friend from back home that almost all of Lisa's sibling's (and Lisa and I) have worked for since he runs a successful landscaping business. We bonded with this business teacher because of a splinter - Graeme had a good one in his finger from running his hand along the railing of the board walk. A splinter from this boardwalk is a problem due to the sulfur content - geothermal features constantly emit sulfur. I was trying to push this splinter out by hand and our friendly business teacher from Flint came along and happened to have the perfect pen knife with a small pair of scissors. I was able to cut a large enough hole in Graeme's finger with those scissors to be able to get the splinter out. I still can't get over how strong Graeme was. The kid never cried once and trust me - it didn't happened in 30 seconds with me and a miniature pair of scissors from a borrowed pen-knife. From a business teacher from Flint, Michigan... You can't make this stuff up. By the way, he didn't know Harlan or Harold & Sharon (Harlan's parents), but he did know an Eric Foley. We'll have to see if that's some relation.