Lake Yellowstone

We had this area on our list of places to see last year and never made it. But this year, it got bumped up and here we are! This day was beautiful and our objective was to take the River Boat ride. The time we had hoped to get was booked so we reserved the next boat and went out on a nice, short hike to "waste time." This is the Lake Yellowstone Marina from the trail.





The trees in this area are primarily the Lodge Pole Pine. So named because they were harvested to make most of the originals lodges around Yellowstone.






Note how straight and tall they grow.  There are hundreds of acres of these trees, quite a few were lost to the 1988 fire and even the fire in the southeast area around Lake Yellowstone just last summer. As they grow, the lower limbs all but fall off and all the green is at the very top trying to get to the sun.







Here's an area that had fire damage.














We were hoping to make it onto the boat that was narrated by a park Ranger but got these 2 Zantera employees instead. They were a real funny team and kept the ride informative and just plain fun. We were really glad we missed the first boat!











 Here is the Yellowstone Lake Hotel from the water (obviously :). It was built in 3 sections, the last being the most prominent in the foreground.







Cut Throat Trout is the native fish for the lake. Several years back the Lake Trout were smuggled in without the park's knowledge to increase the fishing adventures for visitors. Fishing is big all over the park even today. At any rate, the Lake Trout have grown up to around 30lbs but the Cut Throat only grow to be about 4lbs. So the result is the Lake Trout are eating the Cut Throat for food and the birds and bears and other animals have been leaving the area for better fair.

As a result in the last five years there has been an effort to vastly reduce the Lake Trout to allow the Cut Throat Trout to come back in numbers. All this to say, on this island, we saw a bald eagle in this dead tree with a pair of Osprey dive-bombing the eagle. Our boat guides were thrilled to see this. They said the birds left the island due to lack of food several years ago and this shows that the Cut Throat are coming back to provide food for the birds. 


 Here we are back at the marina. It was another beautiful day. The next blog will cover the eventful day back to the cabins.

Total miles hiked: 76