Day 9 - Cold and Dreary

 

 

It rained hard last night - at least twice that I know of, because it woke me up with the pattering on the roof.  This morning dawned in the high 30s, overcast, with the continued threat of rain.  After getting breakfast, I headed up to the Tower-Roosevelt section of the Park.  Mt. Washburn was clouded in mist, and it started to lightly rain towards the top of the mountain.   There was a great view of Specimen Ridge on the other side of Mt. Washburn, headed down to the Tower intersection.  The sun did try to come out, but did not make it too often.  Stopped at Tower Falls, and was not that impressed after seeing the Upper and Lower Falls in the Grand Canyon area.  There was some columnar basalt formations, one right along the road, and one across the canyon that reminded me of Devil's Postpile, but "The Postpile" was more accessable.  The Tower-Roosevelt intersection was nothing to brag about, and there were "visitor wagons" painted a bright yellow all lined up waiting to take people on a ride and then to a very overpriced cowboy dinner.  Headed into the Lamar Valley where there were fly fishermen all over the place.  In fact, on some turnouts there was not much room to pull off, because the fishermen had taken all the spots.  I got into three "bison jams" - on on Dunraven Pass going into the Tower area, and two in the Lamar Valley.  The bison are very conditioned to cars, and don't give a whip about moving out of the way.  The paved surface is much easier for them to travel on until they get where they want to get off.  In passing the cars, they don't even look at you, just keep on going.  There was a small herd of them at Soda Butte, and when they started to come towards my parked car, I climbed on top of the Butte to get a better shot.  There were several other people that did the same thing....and easy climb, but after the bison were past us, I noticed some "droppings" up top, so it appears that they can climb up there too....who knew!!!  Stopped and asked if I could take a picture of a couple of fly fishermen, who it turns out were father and son on, as the father put it, "the dreaded family vacation."  His daughter was already in the stream fishing, and soon we heard a whoop, and the son went to investigate.  It appears that she caught a cut-throat trout, and wanted someone to come see.  I told the duo that I wanted to prove to my husband that there were things for him to do in the national parks...and they told me to tell him to get his arse out west and do some fishing....  On the way back to Canyon Village, saw some antelope, but not much else.  There are two packs of wolves that are seen on a regular basis in the valley; however, they come out early in the morning and late in the afternoon.  There is a wolf study program going on in the valley, and they are keeping tabs on wolf kills, new pack members, etc.  While I was at the headquarters of the study group, thinking it was a Ranger Station that it had a sign for, an ambulance came rolling in, then a helecopter took off with an empty basket attached to one of the skids.  Later, I saw the helecopter return with the basket holding something....which I can only assume was an injured person being transported to the waiting ambulance.  Don't know where the nearest hospital is, but it is a ways away.  Tomorrow I am headed from Canyon Village over to Norris Geyser Basin and then on to Mammoth Hot Springs.  II am sure that the fire that was causing the trouble between Canyon Village and Norris has been significantly reduced with the rain we have had.  Right now it is very windy, cold, and going to rain again......WHAT FUN!!!!