Yellowstone to Missoula: truly cool

Written late Tuesday, posted Wednesday.

Last night a loud thunderstorm hit Mammoth Hot Springs around 10:00. So what did I wake up to this morning, my departure day? Bright sunshine and deep blue skies with no clouds but volcanic steam and the misty caps the highest mountains were wearing. Unlike a similar day at the Grand Canyon in February, today I had time to really look around at how the sun transformed Yellowstone. Here's a view of the hot springs from near the hotel complex - what a change! Best of all, temperatures barely reached 70 today despite the sun - I've finally escaped the muggy East.

I did more exploring as I followed the Yellowstone River to the park exit at Gardiner, and in the Paradise Valley northbound toward Livingston. The sun had just swung around to light my side of the snowy mountaintops to my east (the Absaroka Range, my map says) when I shot this photo from the Emigrant gold rush historic marker.

With time to kill I stopped at the visitor center in Butte for a bus tour, then went back to the World Museum of Mining for an underground mine tour. On the bus tour the most spectacular view was of the 1- by 4-mile open-pit mine that once swallowed up entire neighborhoods but is now closed and nearly full of water. Oddly, the lack of reference points means that this huge expanse looks quite small even when you're standing on its edge. Instead, here's a panoramic view of downtown Butte backed by the pale gashes of the former mine to the left and the smaller mine straight ahead that is still operating.

Alas, the last underground tour of the day had just left when I reached the museum. Here's a photo of the headframe which supports the cables that lowered miners down the shaft of the Orphan Girl Mine, now the museum, and to haul coal up to the surface. We saw headframes of various ages and designs on the tour.

Here in Missoula I toured Anita's clinic, tried to help her husband John with a construction project at their home, enjoyed dinner at a neighborhood restaurant with them, their younger daughter and her friend, and celebrated the results of today's Montana primary elections with some winning candidates and their supporters. It's now after 1 a.m. - time to sleep.