Yellowstone National Park, Mammoth Campground, 3rd Day, Cooke City & Lamar Valley

Day 73 Wednesday August 31,2016                      Mammoth day 3

0 towing miles

Coffee and fire.  Made sandwiches for breakfast to use up our deli meats and rolls before they went bad.

Took a ride through the Lamar Valley.  It’s sometimes called the Serengeti of North America because of the extensive wildlife found there.  Today there were lots and lots of bison there.  More than we had seen in the past.  I think they all went there to get away from the smoke in the rest of the park.  The Lamar Valley was pretty clear of smoke.  Off the Mammoth-Tower road, there is a one-way 6-mile unpaved road up the Blacktail Plateau.  We took this road and got a few pictures.  We’ve seen black bear and moose on this road in the past, but no wildlife today.

We were on a plateau so we had some good mountain views.

The road seen between the trees is the main road we eventually reconnect with.

The Buffalo fire in the distant Lamar Valley.

A group of about 12 motorcycles passed us while we were stopped.

Fireweed.  This stuff is all over Alaska. 

Fall colors.

More fire.

At Tower Junction the Mammoth-Tower road meets up with the Northeast Entrance Road.  This road goes through the Lamar Valley all the way to the Northeast Entrance near Cooke City, MT.  We went all the way to Cooke City and beyond.  We checked out the Soda Butte Campground for old time sake and picked out the sites we would like to stay in if we return. 

Returned to Cooke City and had a late lunch at the Soda Butte Lodge in the Ore House Saloon.  Another yearly tradition.  I had a Reuben made with pastrami instead of the traditional corned beef.  Was very good.  Marsha had a jalapeno burger.  Was also good.  So was the Bent Nail IPA.

This is the entire town of Silver Gate, Montana, just east of the Northeast Entrance.

Cooke City is about 3 miles past the Northeast Entrance.

The place we had lunch.

Re-entered the park at the Northeast Entrance.  Proceeded through Ice Box Canyon (another beautiful place) and stopped at a turnoff where there are usually a few parked cars.  People stop here to glass the Baronette Cliffs with spotting scopes and large focal length lenses and binoculars, looking for little white dots on the cliff face.  These are mountain goats and there is usually some there.  We didn’t have camera lenses powerful enough.  I tried my 10x42 Nikons but couldn’t make out anything.  There were two people there with high power spotting scopes that let us take a look.  There were two goats on the cliff.  One was licking rocks and the other eating leaves off bushes.

We continued back through the Lamar Valley.  Noticed that the water level in Soda Butte Creek and the Lamar River were way down.  The locals told us that they did not have much snow last winter and not much rain this year.  I have never seen the rivers so low since I’ve been coming here.   There are a lot less anglers here, too. 

Here’s our photos from Cooke City back to Mammoth.

Northeast Entrance to Yellowstone National Park

Coming up on Ice Box Canyon.

Soda Butte.  It is only about 12 feet tall and is a dead geyser.  The whole area has stuff named after it.

Buffalo fire.

Buffalo fire in Slough Creek area.  Slough Creek campground is shut down because of the fire.

Buffalo fire in Lamar Valley

Lamar Canyon.

A meadows area.

Back in Mammoth we stopped at the gift shop to get some post cards and Marsha got an etched glass moose mug.  Then we played tourist and got ice cream cones.

Spent the rest of the evening in the Oliver.