Kayaking in Yellowstone

We decided to take off Friday night for a weekend in Yellowstone! Living so close, we do end up in the parks a lot, but we did a couple of new things. First of all, we paddled on Yellowstone Lake to the shoreline geyser basin. We actually attempted this little trip a few weeks ago, but the winds were a bit fierce and I was only three weeks off knee surgery, so much to my surprise—I couldn’t balance my kayak. Yikes! We had to turn around, but my husband actually went back out a week or two later and explored. So, now we were going together and it was such a worthwhile trip!

You start on a launch point of black volcanic sand on the West Thumb of Yellowstone Lake, and start paddling to the point on the left of the lake. This is about as far as we got last time, where we saw an elk feeding along the shorline. A little later, we were lucky enough to see her twin fawns, resting on the beach. Poor little babies...they were kind of scared but were very good and kept their heads down just like they were supposed to.

Around the point you start to see the boardwalk (full of tourists) who are looking at the fishing cone and other mini-geysers around the shorline. The fishing cone has some neat stories attached, where visitors in the early 1900s would catch a fish on a line in the lake, then dip it in the boiling waters of the fishing cone and have a freshly-caught-and-cooked meal, right on the shore! Getting to see the fishing cone up-close and personal is a bit of a rare treat.

Around the point you start to see the boardwalk (full of tourists) who are looking at the fishing cone and other mini-geysers around the shorline. The fishing cone has some neat stories attached, where visitors in the early 1900s would catch a fish on a line in the lake, then dip it in the boiling waters of the fishing cone and have a freshly-caught-and-cooked meal, right on the shore! Getting to see the fishing cone up-close and personal is a bit of a rare treat. Going around, you get to see all sorts of things from the water that you can’t see from the shore—lots of little geysers and run-offs that pour hot showers down into the lake water (which is very cold). One section has a run-off that must be really hot, because it makes the lake water feel like a bath, but then just dip your fingers down another four or five inches in the water, and it’s freezing again.

We paddled along the shore to the end of the basin, stopped for some lunch, and then turned around again. I wanted a nap so bad—the combination of the hot sun, the cool breeze, the water, and a good lunch really got me in nap mode. We sort of forgot the tent poles this time, so we had to sleep in the back of the Bronco, which was sort of different, but hey, you just have to roll with the punches, right? To tell you the truth, it was kind of fun—sort of had that “pillow fort” quality to it!

The next day we decided to get out a super-secret map to the petrified forest on Specimen Ridge, near Norris, that a friend gave me a couple of years ago. The hand-drawn map has some sort of cryptic directions to it, and a neat commentary on petrified trees by Dr. Erling Dorf. The map and directions were drawn up in 1989, and from what I was told by my friend, it was a big secret that the park rangers didn’t even want anyone to know. Woohoo! A secret map to Yellowstone. So, we started off on a steep slog up the side of the hill, then cut over to the ridge, off-trail. Suddenly, a petrified stump appeared! It was so cool—then, just up a little, another, and then several others. Very neat.

Here's a picture of me, from the top of Specimen Ridge, looking down over the valley.