1993/07 Rockies trip - Norris and the Tetons |
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Tuesday June 29th
This day was cold, with another overnight frost, but this time it didn't warm up much. I went back to Cody early in the day and got 
the hose fixed, which they did reasonably quickly, giving us time to go off again for the day.
This time we were off towards the Norris geyser basin and others in the south west area of the park. We stopped at this relic of the 1988 fires. The forest will recover but it's a slow process when the growing season is only a couple of months long.
While we were there this cow moose and calf made their way across the road.
When we got to Norris our first instinct was to get close to a big hot spring. We didn't care too much about the smell and the steam. We just wanted to get warm!
We arrived at this geyser just as the eruption finished and the water drained away .I don't remember its name. 
It was supposed to refill with water and then erupt again, but the whole process took too long and we gave up, leaving it bubbling. We walked the trails around the Norris basin and then retreated from the rain
We were following the road from Norris towards the Old Faithful basin, passing a series of geyser basins: Monument, Lower, Midway etc.
Gibbon Falls has a very distinctive shape and it's easy to visit as it's right next to the road.
Firehole Falls is larger and easy to climb around to get those perfect pictures, but not so good in the rain.
Despite the cold and the wet, we never seemed to get back to the trailer until near midnight. Too much to see.
Wednesday June 30th
I took an early morning walk down to the lake. There had been a frost but it looked like we would have a sunny day. Far out on the lake, with a backdrop of snowy mountains were a few 
white pelicans.
This was our last full day at our campsite, and we were going to drive south and spend our day at Grand Teton National Park, stopping off at Lewis Falls on our way.
The Lewis River tumbles out of the mountains at Lewis Falls, flows under the park's road, and then meanders across a beautiful valley to join the Snake River on its way into the Teton park.
There is a rough trail along the river bank to the falls and we climbed and posed for these pictures.
We left Yellowstone Park and drove the seven miles or so on the John Rockefeller Highway to the Teton Park. The two parks do not actually touch each other, and if the space between had not been protected as a parkway it would be an ugly sprawl of motels and restaurants, like those around the borders of the Smoky Mountains 
park.
The weather had improved, and the views from Colter Bay across Jackson Lake to the mountains were as beautiful as ever.
The Tetons are fault block mountains with the land to the west of the fault line rising thousands of feet with a similar drop to the east. 
The mountains rise sheer from the lakes with no foothills. It was a great spot for a picnic lunch and we had visits from western tanagers, keen to share our food.
We drove further south and took the boat trip across Jenny Lake, and then hiked up the steep hike up Cascade Canyon to Hidden Falls.
On our way home we came across a field of computers. Yes, I did mean that! As there was a film crew there too, we assume it was an advertising session. This was before the days of computer graphics, so the "computers" were probably made from cardboard or plastic. This picture was the inspiration for my April Fool story "Biogenic Computing".
All this was in sunshine, but when we stopped off at West Thumb geyser basin on the way home, we were back into rain and a cold wind.