Mammoth

Sue and I decided to go for a drive today... destination unknown. When we woke up it was sunny and the ground was covered in snow. We decided to drive north towards hayden valley.

it was covered with snow and so beautiful. One of the things that has struck me since coming here is the changeability of the landscape. In seconds the whole thing looks different, yet equally stunning.

we decided to drive up to Norris Basin again, to see what it looked like in the snow. It WAS snowing hard when we arrived, and it was so cold, but again stunning.

We were wet and cold when we got back to the car after about two miles of walking in the snow, but decided to make our way up to Mammoth. About 1/2 way there we hit a VERY dense fog bank. We were in fog through to Mammoth, where we were told the road back was closed due to an accident. OK, both of us have to work tomorrow.... so we went to Gardner Montana to have pizza and hopefully wait out the closure.
We went to Outlaw pizza :-) then walked around town. Small cute little town about 5 miles out of Yellowstone. It is the original entrance to the park.

We waited until it looked like the fog above us in the hills was lifting and made our way back to Mammoth. We could actually see the hot-springs (we couldn't see them for the fog earlier)  and had a quick look around.

the colors are even amazing in the snow.

The drive home was fast and when we reached Hayden again, all the snow had melted!

see the babies??? they were jumping and playing in the rain...

Now I am home and it is snowing again. Today we saw snow, sun, rain, sleet, fog and lots of wind... flowers, young leaves on aspen trees and bouncing baby bison. Loads of elk, and a lone pronghorn...