Vince's Trans-continental Trip

21 May 2005 - Saturday (Continued)


There were even more geysers and springs in the immediate area, just down the road a bit. We stopped at all of the ones we could.

Here is a little geyser really going to town at the Upper Geyser Basin:
Upper Geyser Basin

Here is my favorite hot spring of all, Sapphire Pool. Such an amazing color:
Sapphire

One of the more famous sights at Yellowstone is the Grand Prismatic Spring. It's a huge pool, and it is rainbow colored. You'll often see this on postcards and puzzles and such. The colors are due (if I understand things right) to different types of bacteria being able to stand different amounts of heat.

Typically the view of this is a nice aerial one. Unfortunately from the ground you get a foreshortened steam-shrouded view. Oddly, though, the steam took on the color of the water below, which made for a pretty sight:
Grand Prismatic Spring

Now we've progressed to the Lower Geyser basin. Here are some paintpots, boiling bowls of mud.
Paintpots

We then drove back a narrow side-road to see Firehole Falls. In the summer you can swim near the falls.
Fire Hole Falls

By now we are halfway around the lower loop. Kristina's initial plan was to do both the upper and lower loops, but half of the upper loop was still closed due to snow. So instead we just headed up the left leg of the upper loop.

We stopped at Gibbons Falls:
Gibbons Falls

Then proceeded north. We passed Obsidian Cliff, which has giant deposits of Obsidian [which you are banned from collecting]. We continued on until we got to Mammoth Hot Springs.

At this point we were tantalizingly close to Montana. [As it was said, "I would like to have seen Montana"]. So we drove a few extra miles out of our way, and:

179 Miles - Arrived Montana
Yes, this is cheating....

179.1 Miles - Returned to Wyoming

The Montana-Wyoming border is right near the 45th parallel...
Vince 45th Parallel

And after our little detour we made the poor car climb back up the cliff to return to Yellowstone proper.

In Mammoth Hot Springs is historic Fort Yellowstone, an Army base that protected the area before it became a park. Also there are some really neat mineral formations.

Here is the giant remains of an old geyser:
Old Geyser

We got out and walked along the Lower Terrace, where mineral-laden water overflows from pools and creates some impressive formations:
Mammoth Hot Springs

When the water stops flowing, this is what you are left with:
Dry Terrace

We then drove to the top of the terrace, and you can get close to many more formations, both current and dried up:
More Terraces

It was a lot of fun exploring this area, but believe it or not there is still more to see!

Day 4 Continued on the next page!


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