Larry A. Smail's Blog

    We stayed two nights within easy walking distance to Yellowstone lake. This allowed two mornings to capture sunrises over the lake’s eastern sky. The haze due to distant forest fires and another east of the lake allowed the sun to explode with reddish hues.

Distant smoke

Yellowstone River

Yellowstone Lake is the largest natural high-elevation lake in the North America. The waters consist of 132 square miles of surface area and 141 miles of shoreline. This is not a small body of water. The depths are around  400 feet.

   Yellowstone is famous for its geysers and hot springs. There is evidence of underwater geysers and hot springs too. Despite the hot springs the lake is frozen over half of the  year.

The Yellowstone River is a part of the lake obviously. This water exits the lake  forming the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. (A few photos of the canyon were in the #6 entry.) This river is the longest undammed river in the lower 48 states as well.                        

Smoke from closest fire

Laurie and I were up early the first morning to hike to the lake. Unfortunately, she froze out since the temperatures had reached the upper thirty degree mark overnight.  She elected to head back to the lodge when she saw a small fox-like mammal in her terms. This was a pine marten. (We would see one at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone the next day.)

  I explored the shores and nearby forests anxious to what was around the next bend. Mergansers and gulls and even pelicans were viewed around these waters. Much to soon, I had to exit this exploration to visit other unique sites.           

The lake is having an issue to deal with. The native specie of trout is called the Cutthroat Trout. It is in decline due to the introduction of the Lake Trout.  The deeper  water Lake Trout feeds on the young Cutthroat Trout of the shallower water. The Cutthroat doesn’t return the favor and the results are obvious. The park service has been hiring commercial fishermen with special nets to remove as many lake trout as they can catch.                                                                     

   The terrain changes rapidly in many areas of our travels. We are seeing lush farm country lands of Nebraska and suddenly we are witnessing prairie lands pale blue with sage brush and rocky outcrops. This day brought about our first view of the “true west” country.

The place we stayed in Cheyenne

We stayed in Cheyenne, Wyoming and later moved through Laramie. Obviously, I remember these names from western history and old western television shows.                                       

In southern Wyoming steep hills become more prevalent in certain areas. These were the Laramie Mountain ranges of the Medicine Bow National Forest. We were impressed with their stature, but the mountains of our future would dwarf these ridges.

Big Sky

We traveled across this area when suddenly we emerge in a vast basin going on for miles. We were impressed! The sage country was now in full view. We were in a very unique and beautiful land.

A sage

The very common sages are unique plants. They tend to have a pale bluish hue. The plants have a remarkable and pleasant aroma when rubbed between the fingers. Sage was used by the Indians and early settlers as a deodorizer. These people might rub some on their bodies and place in their abodes to help as a freshener.    

Blue Prairie Flax

We stopped at a visitor center or two. I noticed a small, pale “groundhog-like” mammal. They were known locally as a pocket gopher. The correct name is Uinta Ground squirrel. Laurie was fascinated with them and we managed to get close enough to observe them and take  photos. They were cute little rascals, but by the amount of ground piled up I could see they could be damaging to property.

Uinta Ground squirrel

Sage brush was very common by this time of our travels. Miles of the plants were everywhere. This was a strange beauty. Pronghorn antelopes became routine. We saw hundreds of them. Most would be over two hundred yards from the roads with few exceptions.

Pronghorn Antelopes