Day 12 - Touring

Drove west to hit a one mile stream trail that went back to Mystic Falls, another iconic looking waterfall carved out of cascading rocks. Reminded us of Seven Springs, only with bigger mountains in the background.

From there drove toward Madison Junction and detoured onto Firehole Canyon Drive, with all the beauty you see in good travel magazine photos. Every turn, every ten steps showed a new and interesting picture opportunity.

Next up was Mammoth Hot Springs in the northwest corner of Yellowstone, near Bozeman, MT. Getting there required driving up an down some serious mountains, one of which contained an elevated roadway stuck right onto the side of a cliff, called the Golden Gate. Built in 1885, this bridge, originally made of wood, carried stage coaches over this pass many times a day. It was upgraded three times, the latest in 1977 with new materials, so we felt okay about it.

Mammoth was the original site for the US Military outpost at Ft. Yellowstone, set up after the Civil War for the purpose of providing security and protecting Yellowstone Park. The fort complex, including barracks, hospital, chapel, etc., have been repurposed into park administration buildings, done tastefully from an aesthetic viewpoints. The town has been adding buildings, done in the same theme, to build up the village. Restaurants, hotels and other resort-like features make this area a great place to consider vacationing.

The main natural attraction at Mammoth was the travertine terrace complex, a series of - you guessed it - hot spirngs, which towered over the town. Canary Spring was the most interesting given its size and yellow coloring.

From there we headed back to camp on the other side of Yellowstone. On the way, while slowly pulling into a rest area guy behind us blew his horn, not like in Manhattan, but kind of softly. It caused us to reflect that that was the first car horn we heard since leaving Pittsburgh. Maybe less TV news and more nature has an effect on attitudes.