Yellowstone Adventures Part 1

We drove down to Yellowstone on Wednesday last week stopping off at Helena, MT before arriving on Thursday afternoon.  We usually end up in Vegas for short breaks so this was a bit different!  My parents were already there, they missed all the storms we drove through thank goodness.  At some points I couldn't even see the road.  We lost internet access on Thursday morning, right as Calgary was starting to have problems.  It's crazy that so much can happen when you're disconnected for 4 days.

We were all staying at the Old Faithful Lodge cabins, a wee bit rustic but with a hot shower and a fabulous heater.

The cabin in the woods

Before we even arrived we stopped at Mammoth for a trail run.

Beaver Ponds Loop 9.25k 256m elev gain - Thursday June 20

This photogenic guy on the hot springs terrace delayed our start a bit!

The trail went straight up the side of a river valley, so many flowers it was gorgeous.

After that we came out onto a ridgetop before dropping into a wooded area.

My knee really started to misbehave at this stage, prompting the brilliant idea of trying to run in socks.  Man that hurt.  Idea abandoned!

Here are the ponds sans beaver.

Back onto the ridge, we found huge areas of Bitterroot, Montana's state flower.

We got this final view of the area before dropping back into the town of Mammoth.  It was so incredibly busy I cannot tell you.  Cars rotating around every lot looking for spaces.  People everywhere.  No ice cream for me!   That big rock in the foreground is Liberty Cap, a hot spring cone.  It rather symbolized the trail for me as I was not impressed with the latest round of pain at all.  Don't pretend you don't know what it looks like.