Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Hole offers good birdwatching (look for trumpeter swans in winter and early spring) and
views of the Gallatins. A board helps identify the various peaks.
Two miles further south, turn off for the
Sheepeater Cliffs
, an amazing collection of
half-million-year-old hexagonal basalt columns, stacked like building blocks. You'll find
a scenic picnic area and walks along the river to more formations (no buses, trailers or
RVs allowed on this road). The Sheepeaters, also known as the Tukudika, were a subtribe
of the Shoshone and the park's earliest year-round inhabitants.
The road passes a nice fishing spot and wintertime warming hut near
Indian Creek
Campground
, then continues to a series of four pullouts at
Willow Park
and
Moose
Bogs
, 2 miles further south and a good place to look for some of the park's 200 or so
moose. Soon after comes a pleasant picnic spot at
Appolinaris Spring
, once a popular
stagecoach stop for parched travelers headed to Norris.
Obsidian Cliff
, to the left of the road, exposes the interior of a 180,000-year-old lava
flow. Rapid cooling prevented the formation of crystals and fused the lava into this form
of volcanic glass. Obsidian, used for spearheads and arrowheads, was widely traded by
Native Americans and was one of the major reasons early peoples visited the Yellowstone
region. The park service was forced to remove the cliffside trails of this National Historic
Landmark due to pilfering of the obsidian - leave it alone!
Just 1 mile further, the
Beaver Lake
picnic area offers a fine spot for a picnic and some
wildlife-watching. Just past here, isolated fumaroles, hot springs and other thermal fea-
tures start to appear by the side of the road, heralding the approach of the thermally active
Norris region.
Roaring Mountain
is a huge bleached hillside pockmarked with hissing fumaroles.
During its heyday around the turn of the last century, visitors could hear the roar of the fu-
maroles from over 4 miles away. The activity is much reduced today.
From here the road passes pretty
North
and
South Twin Lakes
and descends to beauti-
ful
Nymph Lake
. The lake's bubbling pools, bleached white shoreline and steaming gey-
sers lend the area a powerfully primeval air; something out of the landscapes of Tolkien or
the age of the dinosaurs. Just south of here is the unsigned but superbly named
Devil's
Frying Pan
springs. The smell of sulfur stays with you as the road quickly descends into
the Norris Geyser Basin.
The Mammoth-Norris road is scheduled for reconstruction in 2012.
