Yellowstone National Park 2010 – Day 2

Artists Paintpots is one of the more popular viewing sites in Yellowstone, and with its typical small parking lot, we thought we’d get ahead of the crowds by arriving early.  The concept was good, and we did get a good parking spot, but the combination of cool morning air and heated ground made so much steamy fog, that we were unable to see the famous colors of the area.

Yellowstone is one of those places that is different each time you visit, and even with the lessened visibility, it still has charm.  The boardwalk surrounding the area climbs to an overlook.   

        

The Paintpots (or mudpots) are acidic thermal features with a limited water supply.  Various gases escape upward through the hot clay mud, causing bubbles to continually rise to the surface and pot.   Artists Paintpots was given its name due to the many colors from the presence of agents such as sulfur, iron and chlorophyll. 

Although visibility was clearing by the time we finished the mile long walk, we’ll still have to return another time to witness all the colors of Artists Paintpots.

Norris Geyser Basin, is the hottest geyser basin in Yellowstone.  Many of the springs and fumeroles (steam vents) have temperatures above the boiling point.

It’s hard to imagine a setting more volatile, as it is part of one of the world’s largest active volcanoes, and sits on the intersection of three major faults.

It is so volatile, in fact, that this area has been closed occasionally to tourists in times of extreme activity.

All of Yellowstone’s thermal features are fueled by magma (molten rock) beneath the park.  Geysers form when an underground channel contains a constriction.  Between eruptions, temperatures in the pressurized water builds up, creating steam, which eventually has to erupt from the gro

Steamboat Geyser is the world’s largest active geyser.  Its eruptions occur on an irregular basis, from as little as a few days to as far apart as 50 years.  When it does, water shoots as high as 300 - 400 feet or more, and often showers down on any watchers on the boardwalk.

Today, it was quite steamy and was sending shoots of water up several feet.

Porcelain Basin is another section of the Norris Basin.  A short walk on the encircling boardwalk lets one view several of its colorful features.

   

 

Leaving Norris Basin, we headed southwest again, taking a short side trip through Firehole Canyon drive, and came upon this beautiful waterfall next to the road, Firehole Falls.

It’s hard to say which of Yellowstone’s many features are the most impressive, but our last stop of the day has to rank toward the top of the list.

Midway Basin contains Excelsior Geyser Crater, a hot springs.

Until 1890, it was an active geyser that often erupted to 300 feet high. It is believed that powerful eruptions damaged its internal plumbing system, and it now boils as a hot spring most of the time.  The Excelsior Geyser pool discharges 4,000 to 4,500 gallons of 199 °F  water per minute directly into the Firehole river. In the first photo below, the hot water is streaming over the colorful mineral beds.  In the next 2 pictures, it is seen falling over the steep bank in to the river.   As you continue around the boardwalk, the striations in the stone have an artistic quality to them, similar to a marble slab.

Then you round the corner and your sight is arrested by one of the most colorful scenes in the park, Grand Prismatic Spring, the largest hot springs in the U. S. and the third largest in the world.

Seeing the Grand Prismatic Spring is like seeing a rainbow on the ground.  A photo cannot do the colors justice.  The vivid colors in the spring are the result of pigmented bacteria in the microbial mats  that grow around the edges of the mineral-rich water, and vary in color with the season, more oranges and reds in the summer, greens in the winter.  The water in the spring is a vivid blue.   I couldn’t resist showing this aerial view of the spring I found on the web which really shows the color of the water well.

While in the park these past 2 days, we’ve seen several elk and bison.  As we left today, we had one last close encounter.

Yellowstone National Park 2010 – Day 1

Yellowstone National Park – more than 2 million acres of erupting geysers, steaming cracks, bubbling mud, roaring waterfalls and fantastic, other-worldly views – spend a day here, and it’s obvious that our Creator had a sense of humor.  Yellowstone, is a joyous, happy, noisome park; the phrase “bubbling over with joy” would certainly apply, as the various thermal locations hiss, spew, bubble and spray.

When we began our day, we were surprised to find the truck windshield covered with frost, but it didn’t take long for the sun to start warming up the day, and by the time we reached Old Faithful, the temperature was comfortable.  As we neared the first thermal features of the park, the steamy fog was thick.

 

When we were here last year, one small section of the park was closed for road construction, but we knew it was an area we wanted to return to see.

On that visit, we arrived at Old Faithful mid to late morning.  After watching it’s display, we decided against taking the mile plus boardwalk along Geyser Hill, just behind Old Faithful.  That walk was first on today’s list.

Old Faithful gained its name by being just that, faithful.  Thousands of gallons of steaming water thunder into the sky on such a regular schedule that the park personnel can predict the next eruption within a 20 minute window.  We arrived within that window, so decided watching would be our first action of the day.  Having seen its dramatic show last year, we were a little surprised at the display this morning.  Due to the cold temperature of the surrounding air, and the hot temperature of the spraying water, all we could see was billowing steam… lots of it, but the water was completely shrouded.  Still, an impressive 3 minute display:

  

Geyser Hill is dotted with several small geysers congregated in a small area.  You  never know when the one in front of you will decide to erupt.  Capturing photos at just the right instant can be a challenge.      

After circling the hill, we took a few minutes to tour the newly opened Old Faithful Visitor Education Center, an impressive 27 million dollar facility.  As we looked at the many interactive exhibits, a ranger announced that Old Faithful was due to erupt again shortly, so we decided to watch again.  This time, we were not disappointed.  The eruption lasted 3 minutes, and surely reached it’s average eruption height of 130 feet.  

From Old Faithful, we drove to Biscuit Basin, containing another circular boardwalk and the trailhead for both Mystic Falls and Fairy Falls.     

Mystic Falls was our destination.  The round trip is 3 miles, which doesn’t sound like a difficult hike until you consider that you are starting at 7,000 feet elevation and climbing a switchback trail to an overlook more than 700 feet higher.  We found that we had to stop frequently to let our heart rate and breathing slow, but the hike was very rewarding.

   

From the trail, we could see Old Faithful, several miles away, erupting again.

 

The steep trail finally brought us to the overlook, where the view over the caldera was outstanding.

The Yellowstone caldera (caldera comes from Latin for "cooking pot") measures roughly 34 x 45 miles.  From the overlook you can see the western wall of the caldera.

The trail continues for almost another mile before reaching the falls.

Mystic Falls probably got its name from the thermal activity in the area.  The 70 foot falls is the only one in Yellowstone that has thermal activity.  Although you cannot see it in the photo, steam was rising from several vents alongside the falls.

Our return hike took us along the Little Firehole River.

Back at Biscuit Basin, we admired more of the features along the boardwalk.    

Last year, we to0k the short Firehole Lake Drive and were rewarded with seeing one of the geysers beside the road erupt.  We decided to drive through again to see if there was any activity today.  We were not disappointed.  As we neared White Dome geyser, it began to shoot up water.

With a cone height of 20 feet, and an orifice of only 4”, it puts on quite a display, and rewarded us with what I thought was one of the best photos of the day.

Finally, deciding our sore muscles needed rest, we headed home, currently 22 miles southwest of West Yellowstone.  Ironically, we never even got to the stretch of the park we set out to see this morning!  Guess we’ll just have to come back tomorrow!