Yellowstone Here We Come

Yellowstone here we come. I have said forever, since I was a preteen, that I wanted to go to the Grand Canyon, Alaska, and Yellowstone, always in that order. And that is the order in which I have been able to see them. It wasn’t fully planned that way, but it is how our trip worked out. Funny how things work out just they way they are suppose to. I cannot explain to you how excited I am to see Yellowstone but I am busting at the seems excited.  We will be here about a week and over the next several days I hope there will be some good photos for you to see.

When you go into Yellowstone you cross under this huge arch that welcomes you. What a great start.  

Mammoth Hot Springs was our first stop after we got the camp set up. When I first heard of Mammoth Hot Spring I thought of pools of hot mineral water to soak in. Nope, these are not like that at all. This is an area where boiling water comes up from under ground, constantly laying new material, adding to the terraced formations. Some of the new sediment looked like dripping candle wax and others looked like layers and layers of lace.  The colors ranged from gold to crisp white to varying shades of gray. This is Liberty Cap, a dormant hot spring cone.      And yes the sky really is this blue. Low humidity leaves the sky haze free.  

Fascinating to me how we were in an area of these hot springs and, in almost a blink of an eye, be in a place where there are these gigantic  boulders the size of houses      and then come up on forested areas, then open fields where Elk were roaming   and Buffalo were taking a rest.  All of these changes were in just a few miles. Oh Yellowstone is so beautiful and we are only at the beginning!

Roaring Mountain looked like a concrete mountain but is the microscopic organisms hard at work breaking down the volcanic rock, turning it into clay, accelerating erosion. These are organisms, thermophiles, thrive in these caustic conditions, consuming hydrogen sulfide gas converting it into sulfuric acid. The fumaroles, or steam vents, are the hottest hydrothermal features in the park.     

We pulled over to take a look at the South Twin Lake and what is it the pull out? A Buffalo. I took a picture with the car door in it to show how close he was. We said a quick hello and we were out of there.

Nymph Lake was so inviting but it was surrounded by thermal channels so it’s only pretty to look at. Some of the pools of water we came up on were actually boiling and the smell of sulfuric acid was so strong I could only stay long enough to click off 2 shots.

We took the 1.5 mile trail around the Norris Geyser Basin which is on the edge of the Yellowstone Volcano, one of the largest volcanoes on earth. This was such a strange place. It made you feel like you were on another planet with terrain that I have never seen before. There were areas that were stark and white as snow, areas that had some trees , and other areas had plenty of shade. The ground looked like ash from a campfire to me. I had no idea there were so many geysers.    I always heard of Old Faithful but have you heard of Pork Chop, Pearl, Monarch , and Green Dragon geysers and springs? These are just a few of the many that are here.  At times the steam that came up from the fumaroles would blow in your direction and would take your breath away. Not only from the smell but from the heat. And there were so many colors – greens, blues, reds.  After we finished the trail, we decided to head back to the RV for dinner and a campfire. A buffalo decided to create a traffic back up,  so it took a bit longer than we thought to get back to the RV. He would not leave the road. Slowly people started to go around him, but he wanted to be a road hog. See our side view mirror – that’s how close we were passing him.  

Yellowstone is very big and we did not even finish the first loop today.  So much to see and we are fortunate enough, and blessed, to have the time to see it.