Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

Visited July 3 - 12, 2021

By Marty

 

Yellowstone became the first national park in the nation and the world in 1872. With over 2.2 million acres of real estate Yellowstone is the second largest national park in the lower 48 states (after Death Valley NP at 3.4 million acres).  But did you know that there are six national parks in Alaska that are larger than Yellowstone?

18 years later, in 1890, Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks became our second and third national parks.

 More on Yosemite from the internet:

Yosemite became a park before Yellowstone in 1864, but as a state park. Disappointed with the results 26 years later in 1890 Congress made Yosemite one of three additional national parks, along with Sequoia and General Grant, now part of Kings Canyon. Mount Rainier followed in 1899.

As an older state park, Yosemite did have a strong influence on the founding of Yellowstone in 1872 because Congress actually used language in the state park act as a model. It’s entirely possible that Congress may have preferred to make Yellowstone a state park in the same fashion as Yosemite, had it not been for an accident of geography that put it within three territorial boundaries. Arguments between Wyoming and Montana territories that year resulted in a decision to federalize Yellowstone.

Let me apologize in advance for including 47 photos in this post, a new record for our blog.  Yellowstone National Park, as you may already know, is a very large and picturesque place. We took 618 photos in Yellowstone, shattering the previous record set in Charleston, SC where we (I?) took over 400 photos. Mind you, I'm not trying to set photo taking records. It's a challenge distilling all those photos down to the ones that make it into the blog. For this post I had to delete 13 photos for every one that you see here!

 

From Idaho Falls it's only 107 miles to West Yellowstone, Montana which sits just outside of the west entrance to Yellowstone NP. We stayed at Yellowstone Grizzly RV Park for ten nights (that's a LOT of nights for us) taking day trips into the park.

 

We were treated to the West Yellowstone 4th of July parade where the local dignitaries were on hand.

 

 Another West Yellowstone big shot

 

 And of course law enforcement was on hand to keep the troublemakers in check...

 

The fireworks were launched only a few blocks from the RV park.  We climbed onto the roof to get a great view.

 

 

For our first foray into the park we left the coach at 6:00 a.m.  It's about an hour from the park entry to the heart of the park. Our first objective this day was to take a short hike to an overlook to see the Grand Prismatic hot spring. While stunning, this view of the Grand Prismatic was not what we expected. See below for that view. The early morning temps during our stay were in the low 40's. The cool night air meets the hot water of the spring to create a vapor plume until the day warms up (this is not a geyser, it is just flat water).

THIS is what we were expecting to see! On our way back to the RV park that afternoon we went back to the overlook.  Grand Prismatic is the world's largest hot spring. Remarkable isn't it?

On another day we stopped at Grand Prismatic again to see it from ground level. If you scroll up to the colorful photo above this one you will see people on a boardwalk that runs along the far portion of the spring. This is that boardwalk from ground level.

There were signs warning visitors to hold on to their hats and other loose articles as the winds will whip them away from you. Notice the hat artfully deposited on the lower left of this photo. It was not windy when we visited.

Final view of Grand Prismatic at ground level

Visible in the background is the Grand Prismatic hot spring water flowing into the Firehole River. If you had hoped to swim or wade in this river while wearing your tighty whities.... fuhgeddaboutit!

Old Faithful!

Old Faithful is not the largest or tallest geyser in the park, but it's the star of the show because it is so reliable, erupting at intervals of approximately 90 minutes. 

Old Faithful erupts:

A short hike takes you to a vantage point to watch Old Faithful erupt from above.

Yellowstone NP is home to 10,000 hydrothermal features which account for one half of the hydrothermal features in the world! Betcha didn't know that!

Hydrothermal features include geysers, hot springs, mudpots, fumaroles, and travertine terraces. I'll point out each type of hydrothermal feature in the photos below. 

Why all the hydrothermal features in Yellowstone NP?  To explain this and more I've copied text from the world wide web and NPS park literature in a few places. The borrowed text is in blue and italicized in each case.

"One of the world’s largest active volcanoes lies beneath Yellowstone. The first major eruption of the Yellowstone volcano occurred 2.1 million years ago and covered more than 5,790 square miles with ash. That's among the largest volcanic eruptions known, and marks Yellowstone as a supervolcano (a term used to describe any volcano with an eruption of more than 240 cubic miles of magma)."

Yellowstone Volcano's reservoir of partially molten rock (magma) is about 5 miles below the surface. Rain and snow percolate through hot, fractured rocks heated by the underlying magma reservoir. The heated water makes it's way back to the surface by way of the hydrothermal features.

Old Faithful is located in the Upper Geyser Basin. This portion of the park contains the majority of the geysers in the world!  A series of trails and boardwalks take you past many of the hydrothermal features in the Upper Geyser Basin. We walked about ten miles this day to see most of them.

The geyser above is part of the Lion Geyser Group.  Consisting of four geysers it is so named because the eruption is often preceded by sudden gushes of steam and a deep roaring sound. We came upon it after the eruption started and did not hear the roaring sound. 

 This is how geysers work:

All geysers require two fundamental features: (1) a subsurface reservoir where hot waters can accumulate and reach boiling temperatures, and (2) a constriction in the geyser conduit that provides throttling and focusing of erupting fluids. For a geyser to erupt, the subsurface reservoir boils, builds pressure, then ejects small amounts of water. When enough water is ejected the pressure drops, causing the remaining water to become a steam-water mixture that is forcibly ejected through the constricted conduit. Geysers may erupt through narrow cones, large silica structures, or hot spring pools (called fountain geysers).

Heart Spring has remarkably clear water, as do most that we saw

Hot Springs are a natural outflow of hot water at the Earth's surface. They typically collect in shallow depressions to form thermal pools. In Yellowstone, hot springs can form from 1) silica-bearing alkaline chloride waters, 2) travertine-forming calcium carbonate waters, or 3) steam condensation originating from fumaroles.

Folks observing another eruption of Old Faithful from the north side of the geyser.

Grand Geyser erupted just a few minutes after we arrived.

Grand Geyser is the tallest predictable geyser in the world. A classic fountain geyser, Grand erupts with powerful bursts rather than a steady column like Old Faithful. An average eruption lasts 9-12 minutes and consists of 1-4 bursts.

 Grand Geyser erupts:

 

Beauty Pool

Grotto geyser was gushing! Grotto's eruption lasts from 1.5 to 24 hours!

Morning Glory Pool

Morning Glory Pool was named in the 1880's for it's remarkable likeness to its namesake flower. This blue pool soon became victim to vandalism; over the years people have thrown tons of coins, trash, rocks, and logs into the pool. Much of this debris became embedded in the sides and vent of the spring, reducing the water circulation and thus the water temperature. Natural changes may be cooling the water too. Cooler temperatures allow orange and yellow colored bacteria to thrive.

The Old Faithful Inn

I call this "Three Strangers Admiring a Waterfall".

(I suspect they were not strangers to each other, but they were to me!)

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River and lower falls

The Yellowstone River is the last major undammed river in the lower 48 states. It flows 671 miles from it's source in Yellowstone NP to the Missouri River.

After viewing the canyon and falls from afar we visited the falls overlook

Video of the Lower Falls:

Steamboat Geyser in Norris Geyser Basin.  

Steamboat is the worlds tallest geyser. Eruptions can rocket a column of scalding water 300' into the air - two to three times the average height of Old Faithful. Odds are against witnessing the eruption since they occur anywhere from 4 days to 50 years apart.  We were lucky to see the "steam phase" of the eruption which had started a day earlier. The steam phase may or may not presage an actual eruption. We didn't have 50 years to spare so we couldn't hang around to find out.

Steamboat Geyser steam phase:

West Yellowstone. You may have noticed that I like old motel signs.

This is right across the street from the motels shown above. The first two miles of Yellowstone NP is in Montana (and, just to the south, in Idaho.)  It's odd that the park boundaries were not aligned with the state boundaries. 96% of the park is in Wyoming.

Another early morning. On four occasions we drove into the park at the crack of dawn to beat the crowds to parking lots, hydrothermal features, and trails.

 The third hydrothermal feature is the Fumarole

Fumaroles, or steam vents, are holes or cracks in volcanic areas that emit steam containing carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide. The gaseous mixtures form when magma in the subsurface releases gases that rise through and react with overlying hot water. In many cases, fumarolic steam condenses to form thermal pools at the surface. Hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) creates the distinctive rotten-egg odor of sulfur gases. Bacteria thrive in fumarolic environments, and usually oxidize the fluids to be strongly acidic sulfuric acid (H₂SO₄, pH of 0.5 to 4).

The fourth hydrothermal feature is the Mud pot

Mud pots are formed where steam and acidic fluids eat away at surrounding rocks. The remaining muddy mixture is made up of minerals including clays, pyrite (fools gold) and sulfates. Mud pots have a huge variety of colors (white, tan, pink, brown, grey, and black), and their fluidity depends on water supply and the minerals that make up the mud particles.

This area is called Artists Paintpots. The signs warned us to be aware of hot flying mud. Duly noted!

 

Percolating mud:

 

At the north end of the park is Mammoth Hot Springs where the park headquarters are located. From Mammoth the US Army managed the park for over 30 years until the establishment of the National Park Service in 1916.

This bull elk and his harem are a portion of the "Mammoth" elk herd that hang out wherever they please. Interesting how the bull elk sleeps with his head stretched across his body to support his antler rack.  Makes my neck ache just to look at him!

Mammoth Hot Springs' claim to geological fame is it's travertine terraces

Travertine terraces are formed from limestone. Thermal water rises through the limestone, carrying high amounts of the dissolved limestone (calcium carbonate). At the surface, carbon dioxide is released and calcium carbonate is deposited, forming travertine, the chalky white mineral forming the rock of travertine terraces. The formations resemble a cave turned inside out. Colorful stripes are formed by thermophiles, or heat-loving organisms.

The photo above is at the top of, and the water source for, the travertine terraces in the photo immediately below.

Janell and Mary cooling their jets in the Garner River near Mammoth Hot Springs. The Garner joins the Yellowstone just a few miles north of here.

We made a fourth and final early morning foray into the park hoping to see some wildlife in the Hayden Valley.  We saw this elk herd along the Madison River.

And a good sized bison herd in Hayden Valley

Don't stand, don't stand so, don't stand so close to me...

The herd was crossing the road when we came upon it so we spent 10-15 minutes observing. We happened to be at a traffic pull out so we weren't guilty of blocking traffic.

Why did the bison cross the road?

This dude walked straight over to our car while giving me the eye. I rolled up my window as he approached, in case he had a mind to give me a big slobbery lick on the face.

This would be the Fishing Bridge where you are not allowed to fish. False advertising?