Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ating “frightful sounds, explosions of pent up water and steam, hissings, roarings, and earth
shaking generally.”
In the earliest years of the park, a very crude road paralleled the river and climbed the
mesa south of here, bypassing Madison Junction.
6.1/7.3 Bridge crosses the Gibbon River. The original route to Madison Junction simply went
down the middle of the river for a short distance.
High above the river to the west, the tall, pinkish gray cliffs are welded Lava Creek tuff
[GEO.9] . It was blown out of the Yellowstone Caldera 639,000 years ago. The tuff is very thick
here, because it is close to the caldera edge, and the tephra was not blown very far.
Rocks east of the river are lavas that filled in the caldera much later. To be more precise,
they flowed out from far below 90,000 and 160,000 years ago, according to geochemists' ana-
lyses.
Crossing the Gibbon River in 1884, by F. J. Haynes.
6.7/6.7 From about here to below Gibbon Falls, the original Grand Loop Road was replaced
in 2010. The road formerly followed the river closely and included a dangerous curve, which
rangers called Tanker Curve after a tanker truck overturned there in the 1970s. The new high
road essentially follows the alignment of the historic 1878 road built by Superintendent Nor-
ris and passes two picnic areas with interesting names.
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