Monday, June 23, 2008

The dangers of Yellowstone







The next few posts are going back in time, tonight I cashed in my "go to hotel free" card and we are staying at a Marriott Residence Inn.  I spent 2 hrs doing laundry (!) and am now updating you guys!

Proof Yellowstone can be dangerous - ok, I was going to put a web link here, but working on Pat's new apple laptop (which I DO NOT find intuitive to use, much to my dismay), so you will just have to google the book "Death in Yellowstone:  yadda yadda"  Sorry about that - lost the Amazon page.  This apple is killing me....

Back to my story... I knew about this book, heard a multitude of warnings about situations in Yellowstone, but still found myself doing the following.  We visiting the area of Yellowstone called West Thumb, a section of Yellowstone Lake w/thermal areas on shore.  After, Pat and B went to a Ranger talk in the adjacent woody trail.  The talk was called "Scat and Tracks", and they learned lots of interesting ways to identify trails & poop of local wildlife, which has been more useful than expected.

So I had dog duty (dog not allowed many places in Yellowstone), and took Pepper through the woody section on the other side of the parking lot.  I started following a trail sign, lost the trail, but was in sight on the main road, so felt ok.  Within 10 mins, found myself looking at the back of the THERMAL BOARDWALK AREA.  The same one we'd walked earlier with signs warning to stay on the boardwalk or risk scalding a limb or losing your life.  How adventurous!  I starting turning back and found myself a few feet from 2 mud pot circles - about 4 feet across - basically a pool of bubbling mud.  Awesome!  Feeling really too much in touch w/nature now, but figuring the ground was still ok because otherwise wouldn't Pepper be screaming if the ground was burning his paws?  I headed back the quickest way I could figure, and STEPPED on a falled sign saying:  DANGER, HOT THERMAL AREA, DO NOT ENTER.  Can't believe I didn't see that before, lying in plain view on the ground like that.  I kept cool until I made it back to the parking lot, then I starting shaking.  Really, really glad I didn't end up in the next edition of the "Stupid accidents in Yellowstone" book.

Sound a little melodramatic?  (I know my rep, people)  While we were in Yellowstone, I really wanted to see the Artist's Paintpots (colorful bubbling pools of mud), but the road entrance was closed.  At the next stop, asked a park ranger when it would reopen.  It seems a tourist badly scalded his leg at the Artist's Paintpots.  I asked whether on the trail or off, the ranger said he didn't know, but that it would take several weeks to reroute the boardwalk.  So doesn't that sound like nature got too close to the "safe" area?  At any rate, I did no more exploring off well-beaten paths in Yellowstone.

See the pic of me and B?  
me:  "Pat, does my hair look okay?"
pat:  "You look fine, smile, I'm taking the picture now!"

:)

3 comments:

Oma said...

Pictures are great!! The "normal" lake water is so blue!

Glad you all got a relief at a hotel for a bit. Where are you now?

pkelly said...

we are now in Banff, Canada. i am getting over a cold, so i stayed in rv, pat and B explored the small town today. i hope to get out tomorrow. we are camped on a ridge with very large mountains on both sides.

Grandma Kate said...

You two look great! What an adventure! Sounds awesome.

Kate :)