The Dale's Trails: Yellowstone

What a great morning, sun is shining, cool air, and we are going to finish the 1st loop in Yellowstone that we started yesterday.

We took a 6 mile gravel road up to Blacktail Plateau. There was a big forest fire there back in 1988 and remnants of the fire still here today, but lots of new growth has reemerged and has come from the natural reseeding process.

A lone petrified tree still stands after 50 million years. There were two others but souvenir seekers chipped away at them till there wasn’t anything left. This is why a fence was erected to save the last one.

Male Buffalo sometimes travel alone and we saw several singles at different places. We were wondering where the ladies were and then found a heard in the Lamar Valley. See the black dots in the valley, it’s the heard. We are trying to figure out what this critter is. Seems to big for a fox, looks too small for a wolf, we think it must be a coyote.

More buffalo were causing traffic back ups just west of Soda Butte which was formed more than a century ago by a hot spring. Now only a small amount of hydrogen sulfide gas and hydrothermal water flow from this formation now.

We detoured and took the Beartooth Byway out of Yellowstone and found Clarks Fork over look – Wow! what a view. It was worth the drive.

We saw a dirt road, of course we had to take Hooptie baha-ing. This road kept climbing and climbing and we saw a lone cloud in this big blue magnificent sky. This twisting turning road led us to this wonderful lake. We think the lake is called Lily Lake. There were a few campers way back in here and it is free camping if you dare go up there with a camper or RV.