Day 13 - Continued


We then drove on, stopping at the Grand Prismatic spring. This is the one that looks like a rainbow from above, though it's a bit harder to make out from the ground:
Grand Prismatic Spring

It was enjoyable standing in front of the spring; as the wind blew you got alternating blasts of hot and cold air (Unlike the last time we were here, it was the cold air that felt nice).

We next went to the Norris Geyser Basin, a location Kristina and I had not gotten to see last time. Here is Steamboat Geyser, the largest in the world. Unfortunately its period ranges from days to decades. Its last eruption happened to be right around when Kristina and I were last here, but we didn't see it!
Steamboat Geyser

The area nearby is known as the Porcelain Basin:
Porcelain Basin

While here it started to rain, luckily not too heavily.

We continued on to the north. So far we had not seen any Bison. Last time we were here they were everywhere, and Kristina's family was dissapointed that none were to be found. We did eventually finally see one:
Bison

We drove North, past Obsidian Cliff. We decided not to go see the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone this time. We finally got to Mammoth Hot Springs (My favorite area of the park):
Mammoth Hot Springs

The spring has been very active recently. Here you can see a neat channel zipping by, and you can see the thin layer of deposited minerals floating in sheets in the little pools:
Mammoth Hot Springs

The spring has been so active that it overtook part of the trail; you can see where the old trail was in the background. For an idea of how fast this has happened, a little over a year before Kristina and I took that trail with no problem.
Mammoth Hot Springs

Unfortunately it was getting late, and sadly we had to leave. We drove out the north entrance of the park, not taking the "short cut" of US 212 whose 11,000 foot high pass looks like a plate of spaghetti on the map. We crossed the 45th parallel and entereed Montana.

--- Entering Montana ---

Near Gardiner Montana is a big rock formation called the Devil's Slide (are we noticing a naming theme?). It looks more like a big slice of bacon to me:
Devil's Slide

We stopped for the evening in Livingston Montana, at a motel that looked like it had been preserved unchanged from the 1960s. Here is our room:
Motel Room

--- Ending in Livingston, Montana ---


Continue on to Day 14