RV travels with Rich and Judy: Rainbow Point CG, Hebgen Ntl Frst, West Yellowstone, Montana; June 29 to July 6, 2015

After two delightful weeks at Baker's Hole, we moved about five miles away to Rainbow Point, since we weren't ready to leave the area. Our move was an easy one – only a few miles and we had scoped out the site earlier. We had an unexpected sighting of a red fox and a mule deer stopped by to say hello, so it was a win-win morning. We soon changed the name we used for this campground to Mosquito Point – we couldn't go outside without getting bitten multiple times.

Horse Butte Mountain Drive, West Yellowstone, MT 6-29

After we got set up in our new location, Rich suggested we take a ride to Horse Butte. We had been told it was a beautiful loop drive, but a little rough in places. That our informant asked if we had 4-wheel drive should have given us a clue as to what we would find. I have to admit, though we both enjoyed the drive and Rich was less than pleased about the rough spots, and I held to my “oh my gosh” handles the entire way, we were enchanted with the beauty. Since we didn't lose transmission or have any other misfortune, it was a success.

The road was more of a rut and rock trail up the mountain, hovering on the edge more often than I liked but the view was spectacular. The farthest point in the drive was the top of Horse Butte on which was a fire tower (about 6,500 feet) amid a beautiful wildflower meadow. The second half of the loop was was mostly two tire tracks in the two-foot high mountain grass. While that looked more welcoming than the rock and rut trail upward, we found that beneath the grass was rockier and ruttier! The grass definitely made it more interesting since we could see nothing other than grass. I think we need to come up with a way to bring along our own four-wheeler when we come west. It would have been perfect for this drive. We drove into town the next morning to replace the valve on propane tank and since we had no propane we decided to get breakfast at the Old Town Cafe while we were there – it was sadly overrated. We did get the valve, though and got the propane working again.

We left early the next morning for Yellowstone – this time to Old Faithful, which is in the Upper Geyser Basin, which contains the majority of the world's active geysers. It is one of three large geyser basins along the Firehole River. Only four other locations in the world (Russia, Chile, New Zeal and, and Iceland) have large concentrations of geysers. As you can see from the photos, it was an amazing trip. We could easily have spent two days on this leg of the park, but in our nine hours we hit the high spots. Although the early morning was chilly, it warmed up quickly and of course, there were no shade trees in the geyser basins, so we were hot and worn out by the time we headed back to camp.

Our next excursion was to a spot we had seen a sign for on our way back from Idaho Falls – Mesa Falls. We got a late start, so only did part of the drive, but what a sight. This is the last untamed section of the Snake River and it winds its way through some beautiful territory. Set about three hundred feet back from the river, the Big Falls Inn is a beautiful log building built between 1913 and 1916 and it operated as an inn until 1932. It is now used as a Visitor Center, has undergone a complete renovation and, after being restored to its historic splendor, is now listed on the Register of Historic Places.

A walkway has been built from near the inn down to several viewing spots that overlook the river and the falls. Wildflowers were abundant, although on the decline, and birds were plentiful. In spite of informative posters along the way warning us to keep our distance from black and grizzly bears, elk, moose, and other wildlife, the only animal we saw was a marmot as we drove into the parking area. Ah well, perhaps another day we'll see a moose.

A Night of Terror

On August 17, 1959, 250 people had bedded down throughout the canyon – some in campgrounds and others, finding the campgrounds full, had made camp on the roadside.

Just before midnight, an earthquake jolted campers from their sleep. A short time later, as wall of water sloshed over Hebgen Dam and raged down the river. And the worst: an enormous section of the canyon's southern wall broke loose and crashed down just below Rock Creek Campground. Scattered families fled through the darkness. Those who could, scrambled for high ground as the newly-formed lake rose to swallow their campsites and cars. Others, trapped by the rising water, screamed for help.

Dawn revealed a scene of devastation here in Madison Canyon. A 225-foot thick mountain of shattered rock, strewn with boulders and splintered trees blocked the canyon entrance. Behind it swirled a new lake, choked with mud and torn branches. The canyon echoed with the rush of water and the cries of the injured, the trapped and the lost. Wreckage was everywhere, crushed cars and campers, overturned picnic tables, fishing poles, and picnic baskets. (from signage at the Visitor's Center) Twenty-eight people lost their lives when the gigantic wall of water and high velocity wind swept through the area.

The slide is roughly one mile long and over a half-mile wide. The Visitor Center and trails are built atop the pile of rocky rubble over 225 feet thick – more than 80 million tons of mountain that crashed down. There are large, framed posters inside the center that recount many of the survivors experience that night. I read many and I noticed most visitors did the same. It was a subdued group – the farther through the display we went, the quieter it got.

In the Visitor Center, I saw my first working seismograph. The seismograph has been around since 132 AD, invented by Chinese astronomer and mathematician, Chang Heng. A typical seismograph works in a very simple way: A heavy weight is fastened to a horizontal rod, as shown in the diagram. This rod hangs from a pole (and is free to swing from side to side when the ground shakes). At the other end of the rod (away from the pole) is a pen, and directly underneath the pen is a piece of paper rolled around the cylinder. This cylinder rotates so that the pen continuously draws an line along the moving paper. If the ground does not move, the rod does not swing, and the pen stays in place so the line is smooth and straight. If the ground does move, the rod swings and the pen draws a zig-zag line as the paper turns. The stronger the shaking, the sharper the zig-zags. The evenly spaced hash marks on the paper are (I believe) on the hour and the ̺ marks denote six hours (I believe). Although I knew that small tremors happen routinely, but it was startling to see them put on paper.

The model in one of the photos gives a good visual of the changes in the river made by the earthquake – the brown is the 1 mile by ½ mile by 225 foot thick dam of mountain where once a river flowed across the wide, unobstructed valley.

The Hebgen earthquake was 7.5 on the Richter scale and was felt in eight states and Canada. If you go back to the Yellowstone photos above and find the one called the Red Spouter, you'll see that it was formed because of this earthquake. We saw several other geothermal features which were impacted as well.