Mammoth Springs was our next destination. This route took us back through Madison to the Artist’s Paintpot and towards the north entrance of the park.

Artist’s Paintpot involved a bit of a walk uphill and this is where we noticed we were 8,000 feet above sea level! As the name suggests, the mud pools here have the colours and consistency of artist’s paint – but are so acidic they would eat the brush. They are full of Archaea which metabolise sulphur and water into sulphuric acid that has a lower pH than battery acid.

Driving north, I saw out of the corner of my eye, a huge brown shape barrelling downhill. Initially I thought it was a bear on the rampage – no such luck. It was a huge bison all on his own – there was no visible reason for his urgent solo stampede. By dint of hard braking on both our parts, we managed to miss each other by a couple of inches. He would most certainly have totalled the car.
Then we encountered a critter jam. It was a big one so quite likely worth stopping. As we joined the group of observers we could see nothing except grass leading down to a piece of woodland, but the general excitement level was very high. The word was that there were bears in the trees! We didn’t have binoculars but during the 15 to 20 minutes we watched the trees (I am convinced that the wild life watches us watching them in amusement) we did see two large shapes with bear like heads that looked like they might be foraging. On day 2 in Yellowstone we reckoned we could claim to have seen bears.

A little while later I saw a movement by the side of the road, pulled over and we watched a little mammal climb around some obsidian streaked rocks. We took photos so we could ask a Ranger what it was. It was a Yellow Bellied Marmot. Cool!

Onto Mammoth. I’m not attempting to describe the scenery because it’s beyond words but the route into Mammoth is just extraordinary. Hopeless to try and capture it with our happy snappy camera L. Mammoth is famous for its extensive travertine (limestone) formations. These cover a hillside with terraces and limestone features which grow and change almost as you watch in contrast to other thermal areas of the Park. The boardwalk trail takes you up to the top of the hillside via the best views and most interesting features. Although it may seem tame that most of our walking took place on boardwalks it’s actually pretty essential in the thermal basins – it’s easy to damage the springs and pools or yourself and even the savvy wildlife have been known to fall into a hot spring and cook. We were rewarded for our exertions by the sight of two snakes back at the bottom of the hill.
Back at West Yellowstone, we bought a pair of binoculars.