Yellowstone June 2013 Trip, Part 4

On Day 8, I returned to LeHardy Rapids to try for more leaping Yellowstone cutthroat trout at LeHardy Rapids with better light. I’m pleased with the results.

A Yellowstone cutthroat trout, wearing the ruby tones of the spawning season, makes a leap upstream at LeHardy Rapids on the Yellowstone River

I don’t think he was as pleased with his success as I was with mine.

I would estimate that the ratio of unsuccessful attempts to successful attempts was about 5:1.  Two techniques were employed – jumps, as illustrated above, and shimmying over the rocks but below the surface of the water, as below.

In this video both techniques are demonstrated – neither successfully.

In this video, one leaper is successful, and one is not. Please pardon the shakes – a heavy footed person walked by on the boardwalk.

Some leap higher than others – and they are the ones that generally clear the obstacle.

Meanwhile, an American dipper kept living up to his species name, dipping for aquatic insects.

Other than a disappearing bear butt at the Fishing Bridge intersection, LeHardy Rapids action pretty much sums up the day.

Day 9 was my geyser day. Any time I spend more than a few days in the Park I spend the better part of one day in the geyser basins.

I started out at the West Thumb Geyser Basin, where the colors are always so incredible.

On the boardwalk, I came across a man bitterly balling out his wife about the bitter cold, as though it were her fault. He finds 40′s in summer ridiculous “it’s June, the middle of summer, for crying out loud.” No, I did not tell him that it is June – spring, and in the Rockies, for crying out loud. With Summer Solstice being a full week off, it was hardly the “middle of summer.” It was a pleasantly crisp spring morning.

Next up: the Upper Geyser Basin.
I had a bit of time before the next eruption of a predictable geyser, so I walked around the basin for a bit.

Chromatic Pool above and below.

I was struck by the reflected copper tones of the Anemone Geysers (with the Old Faithful Inn and the Snow Lodge in the background).

I watched an eruption of Grand Geyser then waited for Beehive to perform. While waiting for Beehive, I enjoyed visiting with, for the second time on this trip, Steven Bumgardner, of Yosemite Nature Notes fame. If you haven’t watched any of his videos, you should. Awesome work. He was in Yellowstone working on a series of videos from Yellowstone similar to the Yosemite series. He is working as an NPS volunteer and his work will be in the public domain when complete to entertain and enlighten the public for years to come.

As I waited for Beehive to erupt, I came to agree with the man I encountered on the boardwalk at the West Thumb Geyser Basin. It WAS bitter cold. I wasn’t as cold as poor people who had the misfortune to watch Beehive from the lower viewing platform, though. The wind changed direction just at eruption time and blasted them with spray. Bitter cold wind…. *shivers*

There was pretty crappy light and sky for those two eruptions, so I’m not posting any photos of those.

At the end of Beehive’s eruption, Castle Geyser started to play. Castle Geyser has a good long eruption period (something like a 20 minute water phase plus a 20 minute steam phase), so I took my time walking over there. By the time I got there, the last black cloud was east of the cone and the sun low in the western sky was shining on the plume.

Visitors even got a rainbow out of the deal.

I stopped with a view overlooking the Midway Geyser Basin to watch as the sun sunk behind plumes of steam as I ate dinner (a hot meal on a cold evening with no time invested in making it, as it heated as I drove in the RoadPro Stove – no this is not a paid endorsement).

Then I made a pass through Firehole Lake Drive. When I came out of the timber and could see the Fountain Paintpots area, I was greeted with an incredible sunset.

What a note on which to end the day!