Driving the Figure 8: the Lake, LeHardy's Rapids

LeHardy's Rapids along the Yellowstone

One of the problems with Yellowstone is that there are so many extremely spectacular sights that are completely unlike anything else you've seen on earth, that a lot of the absolutely beautiful sights get lost.

(Poor Grand Teton National Park has this problem.  It's beautiful.  It's amazing.  But it's right next door to Yellowstone so the overall impression is a relative "eh."  Put it almost anywhere else in the Lower 48 and it would breath-taking.  It's like a concert performer having to take the stage right after James Brown or Graham Parker in their prime.  How do you top that?  It's a whole lot easier to follow Blondie or A Flock of Seagulls.)

But first, Lake Yellowstone, which is right outside the front door of my hotel.

It's enormous.

The water is supposed to so cold that if you even dip a toe in, you freeze solid.  I think I used that line before.  I'm old.  Repetition happens.  Repeatedly.

The Lake Village area is kind of small, with one giant hotel, a general store, and a medical clinic (perfect for us old people in danger of having our feet chopped off).  And this.

It appears to be an abandoned gas station.

My car is getting outrageously good mileage at the high elevation, so there's no need to fuel up for the drive around the Figure 8.  All of the sights you want to see in Yellowstone, for the most part, are along two circular loops that touch, forming basically a Figure 8  Lake Village would be the southeast corner of the Figure 8.  So we head north to the Mud Volcano and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

The problem is that you can't just drive from place to place.  You'll be toddling along and see something you didn't know was worth seeing and you immediately make a hard right turn into the parking area. 

First stop:  A brief walk through the trees and then to LeHardy's Rapids.

This is the Yellowstone River, having come from the lake and, at this point, heading north.

And here be rapids:

It's no Mud Volcano, I know, but it is beautiful.

I liked this place so much that, at the end of the day, when on the same segment of the Figure 8 heading south back to the Lake Yellowstone Hotel, I stopped again:

Even more spectacular with the evening light.  I saw a duck going through the rapids:

He's a tiny spec so you can't make him out.  But seeing him shoot through the rapids was hilarious fun.  Laugh out loud, as the kids would say.  I hope the duck enjoyed it.  I did.