Yellowstone National Park

As usual, we're up with the sun and on our way to Yellowstone Park. It was the first US national park, opened in 1872 and one of the most visited. We're about 50 miles from the park and need to drive through Grand Teton National Park first. Those are the Grand Teton mountains in the distance. Rugged, eh. FYI, this is going to be a long posting so make sure you grab a coffee and relax as we take you with us. 

Just entered the park and met the welcoming committee. If you've been to Banff, you know there are always big horn sheep to greet you; same sort of thing I suppose. Over the day we saw hundreds of animals from Elk to Buffalo to Moose to Marmots. No bears thankfully. Each year at least one person is killed by a bear in Yellowstone and I don't want to be him!

We just pulled into the parking area at Old Faithful when we saw this in the distance. Wow! Got parked and rushed to the geyser so we wouldn't miss the next eruption. 

That spectacular greeting was the geyser, Old Faithful, just going off; we missed it. Next one, 90 minutes. Oh well, gives us time to explore the area. There are hundreds of active geysers and hot springs in the area behind us; the worlds largest concentration in one area. 

Starting the day, it's well below freezing but maybe we'll warm up walking among the hydrothermal features in the background. 

The scenery outside of the active area is lovely, but not much grows where the hydro vents are. Too hot and lots of minerals seem to poison the ground.

Geysers come in all sizes. Not many are as big as Old Faithful, most are just active spots like this that spray small amounts of water constantly.

Natures hot tub. The water is crystal clear and at the boiling point. Signs tell stories of fishermen catching trout in the creek Grammie was standing beside and carrying them still on the line and plunking them in this pond to cook them. From stream to plate in 10 minutes. Look at all the vents in the background.

 Back to the viewing area for Old Faithful. We don't want to take a chance on missing it again. They post a sign saying when the next eruption will happen and they are within 3 minutes. Here it goes! I took about 20 pictures as the eruption grew but I'll only show a couple. Can you see the rainbow?

I don't normally take pictures from this angle but I tried to get as much as I could in frame. It sprays about 160 feet in the air and the heat carries it up another 50 feet or so. Lava is close to the surface here and ground water flows into the area of molten rock, the water boils and rises toward the surface. If there's a blockage to upward flow, such as happens here, pressure builds up until most of the water is superheated and turns to steam. Pressure builds until the steam forces itself thru the water and then blows itself and water to the surface as a geyser. The time it takes for this process to occur determines the time between eruptions. Old Faithful has been doing the same thing for over a hundred years although its gradually longer between eruptions. Used to be 30 minutes, now it can be up to 2 hours.

Can't spend all day at Old Faithful so let's hit the road and make up some time. Oops. Yellowstone traffic jam. They move at their own pace and where they want. The oncoming traffic will gradually be in the clear and can get going. We followed them for days before they moved to one side and we snuck by. They look better from the front. 

Maybe they are heading here. The steam vents don't seem to disturb the buffalo. Signs are posted everywhere about not walking near steam vents because the ground is unsafe. People have fallen through and been burned alive. I guess buffalo can't read. 

Stay on the boardwalks. The ground doesn't look too appealing anyway. Hundreds of square miles are active like this. There is more magma close to the surface here than anywhere on earth. Kinda scary. 

The park is beautiful with river and waterfalls everywhere. Even without the geothermal activity it's an amazing place, but it's that that makes it unique. The rivers are either ice cold or nice and warm because so many hot springs flow into the rivers. No swimming allowed because temperatures are so unpredictable. 

One thermal area is called Artists Paintpots because of the different colours of the vents. Different minerals make the various colours.

This blue-grey vent bubbles away like a pot of porridge. 

 

A board walk keeps you safe but Grammies still getting her hair uncurled. Not to mention she smelled like sulfur for hours.

The area below is full of vents of different colours. Hot ponds and boiling streams make it a place to exercise caution. 

These are the most famous falls in Yellowstone Park, the 308' Lower Falls. In the extreme cold, by the time the spray hits the ground it's frozen into ice granules which don't stick together well and act like sand. Almost unique to these falls. 

A bit closer look.The white along the sides is not water spray but steam vents which flow hot water and steam into the river. Another unique feature of these falls. 

The sign says it all. Over the centuries, the Yellowstone River has carved a deep canyon through the park. Not quite the Grand Canyon but still impressive. 

It took some coaxing to get Grammie that close to the edge. After all, it's about 1200' deep right here. If you look just to the right of Grammies left shoulder you can see a sloping point of land sticking into the gorge. 40 years ago that was level with the trees above Grammies head. An earthquake dropped that point and the viewing platform on it into the gorge. There are over 1200 earthquakes a year in Yellowstone but not often that strong. 

These are the 109' upper falls, about 1/2 mile upstream from the lower falls. Bad angle for a picture but it's still impressive.  

There  is quite a trail down to the falls and at 8500' we had to stop once in a while to catch our breath. Especially going up. 

This cave is called the Dragons Tongue. The cave is about 20 feet high and big gusts of steam blow out with a loud roar. It does sound like a dragon. When it was named years ago, waves of water accompanied the steam and apparently looked like a dragon sticking his tongue out. I waited until he inhaled otherwise the cave opening was completely obscured by foul sulfurous breath.

This is called the Mud Volcano. Early explorers said it shot mud 200' in the air and shook the ground. The sound could be heard miles away. Now it just bubbles away. That opening is about 10' across (hard to get perspective in a photo sometimes).

 As we work our way towards the exit, we came across the part of the park that was decimated by wildfire in 2012. There was a huge fire in 1988 burning over 793,000 acres.. Most of the area burned then has been reseeded naturally and the areas are growing nice and thick. This too will eventually be nice and green again. Fires do hurt the logging that is a big source of income for the park.

This is the central plateau called Hayden Valley. It is a huge flat area of marshes and meadows. Yellowstone sits on the worlds largest caldera, hundreds of square miles, and this the centre of it. A caldera is a spot where a volcano erupted and then collapsed upon itself and the centre filled in with soil and became its own ecosystem. There are 3 different calderas, each one on top of the other indicating 3 mammoth volcanos have erupted here over the centuries. One of the worlds largest magma domes sit just under the surface; when's the next eruption? 

Yellowstone lake is the North Americas largest, highest lake. It's 7733' above sea level and up to 410' deep. Geysers and steam vents dot the shoreline and more have been found underwater. We have been awed by the park and its unique features and hope that in a small way you've enjoyed the visit as well. But time and the Lemires move on.