Parks

We began the Parks section a few days ago and we got a new professor named Carl. These two pictures are from the K Bar Z. This is the main lodge area where we ate. Ari is on her computer.

Shane and Moose. Moose never stops playing fetch and Shane doesn't play fetch but never leaves Moose's side. There were four other dogs and a cat.

We spent two and half days in Yellowstone, below are Cat, Shelby, and Ari.

Artsy moss.

John Ortiz's favorite picture!

A 50,000,000 year old petrified Redwood that is anatomically identical to modern day Redwoods! Holy Shit that's cool!

We got slowed down a little bit by a bison jam!

Our first day in the park we went to Mammoth Hot Springs, it was awesome.

The terraces are made out of travertine, which is like limestone. As the water flows up, it goes through limestone and picks up calcium and then precipitates it on the surface.

David and David.

Here we are with our professor, Carl.

We love soil scientists!

Davey, Paige, and Jake.

Afterwards we got to go swimming in the boiling river, where the hot springs meet the river! It is really nice because it is really hot on one side, really cold on the other side, and perfect in the middle. We took samples of the water to see what is in the hot springs.

Ari has a waterproof camera and snapped some pictures. Science is fun! Here are Cat and Gerben.

And Carl and David CS.

Ranizzle entering Wyoming.

Ying Qi, David, Ari, Andi, Ranee, and Liza entering Montana.

Bison!!

AAAWWWWW!!!!!! This is Scout, he belongs to a park ranger whose daughter works at Dartmouth. He saw us on the side of the road and came and talked to us and let us pet Scout. He had adopted Scout the day before!

Andi loves pups more than anything else in the world!

Our second day in Yellowstone we measured the river terraces of Soda Butte Crick. It was fun and we had some good views!

Gerben, Ari, Cat, and Sam walking across the Crick.

Sam Streeter.

We used lasers and laser sensors that were on extendable poles to measure the elevation of the terraces. Sam R, David Schatz, and Jake with their pole.

Liza and Dave had a wrestling match in the crick.

Parkour!

Andi, Ranee, Ying Qi, and Cat on the palace porch.

Ari in bed.

Andi all excited about the palace!

Driving, back row: Reed, Kelly, Claire. Front row: Eric's shoulder and John.

On our third day in the Park we went to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. It looked unreal, hopefully the pictures portray it well! This is the Lower Falls.

Ying Qi and Ari.

Reed, Ying Qi, Izzy, and Jennifer.

A stranger, Andi, Joey, Kelly, and Dave.

Then we went to the Norris Geyser Basin. This is the Steam Geyser.

Artsy shadows.

Lion Hunter, Young Q, Crab Apple, Killer Whale, Ron Weasley, Dragon Slayer, Just Enough, and Silver Hammer in front of some steam. It smelled nice!

Then we went to the world's most touristy spot, Old Faithful!

But, the eruption was worth it!

We then drove on to the Grand Tits of the west, Grand Teton National Park and Jackson, Wyoming. We had a pretty drive into the town!

In the morning we had breakfast outside in the trailers and there was a hot air balloon.

Here are two of the three tits. They are called the Grand Tetons because french fur trappers hadn't seen females for a long time so they called them Les Trois Tetons!

We spent our day measuring a fault scarp at the base of the mountains. The Tetons were formed fairly recently in geological time, about 2 million years ago. They formed from normal faulting when the west was extending. There is over 5 miles of offset from one side of the fault to the other.

Artsy Trees.

Jake, Eliza, and Kelly mapping the scarp with String and Jenny Lakes in the background.

Matt with a moose antler. It was huge!

Ying Qi wants to be a moose.

Sweet picture!

After we finished mapping we jumped into the lake. The water wasn't too bad. Izzy liked it.

Today was our off day, and we went hiking. We saw a herd of elk on our drive to the trailhead. David, David CS, Sam Streeter, and Gerben went on a 19 mile loop that Gerben had done with his family a few years ago, but in one day instead of three. Izzy, Jennifer, Ying Qi, and Liza went on a little shorter one.

Liza, Ying Qi, and Jenn at Jenny Lake.

Liza, Jenn, and Izzy at Jenny Lake.

Artsy map shot.

Pretty red flowers!

Surprise!

This is Surprise Lake. The girls made it another .2 miles to Amphitheater Lake.

Amphitheater Lake.

The Grand Teton is in the background.

Tomorrow morning we leave Jackson for Dinosaur National Park in Utah. It going to be a long day of driving. We will be camping, so we can't update the blog for a few days, but hopefully we can post again in Zion or Arches.

Lots of love,
Iz and Dave