10-18-15

Morgan Berquist

Today was our last day in the amazing place they call Yellowstone. Instead of going on a guided tour, and looking for wildlife all day, we went deep into the geyser basins. We all piled into the fifteen passenger van, and made our way through the Lamar Valley, and up Dunraven Pass, eventually getting to the Upper, Lower, and Midway basins. Our group got to see a few waterfalls, some bigger than others. The rushing water was so clear! The hike to the lower falls in the grand canyon of Yellowstone wasn’t so bad going down, but coming back up was quite the challenge. During our time at the falls, we witnessed a proposal! It was pretty interesting, the hike back up the falls was a workout, but was worth it. We saw a weasel that was transitioning from its summer brown coat, to the wintry, white coat they get before the snow flies. Then at the top of the trail we watched a squirrel munching away on a pinecone.

After our trek, we all got into the van once again and made our way to Old Faithful. We got there just in time, because when we actually got out to the geyser and had our cameras ready – it erupted right away! If we would have missed the eruption, we would have had to wait another hour and a half for the next one. Good thing we made it! As Old Faithful died down, we split up and went gift shopping and got a bite to eat. I bought three books. One on wolverines, another on bears, and the last on elk. We then made our way back to the van for another round of traveling, and went to the mud pots and the grand prismatic. During our time at the grand prismatic, I got very frustrated. There was lots of trash in one of the geyser canyons. I think people need to learn how to respect nature. Anyways, the grand prismatic was very interesting because of all the different colors the pool had to offer. It was neat to see even though the steam from the geysers was covering most of it. On our way back towards Gardiner, we stopped at Mammoth Hot Springs and viewed what the area had to offer as well. This was the end of our amazing class trip to the Yellowstone National Park