EASTERN SECTION - Yellowstone Treasures - page 183

Sylvan Lake may retain its ice into early summer (2008).
Yellowstone Lake and Mountains Panorama
Far left to right:
Three sharp peaks of the Absarokas poke above the trees: Grizzly, Doane, and Stevenson.
To the south are the Tetons, 60 miles away.
Flat Mountain at the southern edge of Yellowstone Lake.
To the right and behind Flat Mountain, Mt. Sheridan, with its fire lookout.
Frank Island, Yellowstone Lake's largest island, heavily burned in a 2003 fire, and Dot Island,
with West humb Bay to its right. Behind and between the islands is high, flat Thorofare
country.
To the far right is Stevenson Island, the long, narrow one that can become two islands when
water is very high in the lake.
16.3/9.7 Lake Butte side road to the north, about 0.8 mile (1 km) to a pretty view. The
butte is the most westerly peak of Absaroka volcanics in this part of the park.
The panoramic view from the top of this road takes in more of Yellowstone Lake and dis-
tant mountains than you can see from any other road in the park. The view stretches (right to
left) from the white Sulphur Hills above rounded Mary Bay and the hydrothermally altered
rocks of Steamboat Point to the northwest, through the distant Gallatin Range in the north-
western corner of the park, across the Yellowstone Caldera to the west, to the mountains near
the southern arms of the lake and to the faintly visible Tetons.
17.0/9.0 Nine Mile Trailhead for the Thorofare Trail on a short side road to the south.
This is a long pack trail that parallels the lakeshore to the park's Thorofare corner.
The southeast area of the park is called the Thorofare. The name dates from the fur-trading
days of the 1820s and 1830s, when the only known southern route into the Yellowstone Plat-
eau was by way of Two Ocean Pass and down the Yellowstone River. Today the Thorofare
patrol cabin has the distinction of being the place farthest from a maintained road in the con-
tiguous United States.
Between here and Butte Springs, we cross into the Yellowstone Caldera; here the caldera
rim runs approximately northeast-southwest.
18.2/7.8 Sedge Bay, a canoe launching spot. Look out in the lake along this
stretch of road to see Pelican Roost, a tiny rocky point that may be all but submerged in early
summer.