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Published: August 15th 2009
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Yellowstone
Cool rock formation. We got an early start today since we had a tour staring at around 9:15AM. As you can tell from the title, it was the Circle of Fire Tour with our guide Eric. This tour covered the 96 miles of the bottom loop of the main “figure eight” road system in Yellowstone. When I post the map, the tour route will be highlighted in pink. We left the FVRP and headed around the circle in a clockwise direction. Our first stop was at Lake Village to pick up additional tour group members. We also had some time to check out the Lake Hotel, Yellowstone Lake, and the woods. We happened to see a couple of mule deer in this area and some people violated the most violated rule in YNP: they got too close to the animals. You must stay at least 100 yards from wolves and bears and at least 25 yards from everything else. Personally, I think you should have to stay at least 100 yards from bison (Anything that weighs over 1,000 pounds, can run 30 miles an hour, and has a tendency to be ornery deserves as much space as possible!).
We then proceeded to head
Yellowstone
A happy Sam by a hot spring. to the West Thumb area of Yellowstone Lake. There were numerous hot springs and a few geysers located here. Based on the color of the water, you could estimate the temperature of the water. The clearer the water, the hotter the spring since bacteria cannot survive in extremely hot water (By the way, water boils at around 199 degrees Fahrenheit in YNP.).
Our next stop was Old Faithful, who was not so faithful when we showed up. She was about 30 minutes late! Which meant our lunch was about 30 minutes late and we were getting hungry; especially Sam! It was neat to see it, however late it was, and the hotel was very unique. After seeing the most famous geysers, we headed to the Lower Geyser Basin. Here, we saw many more hot springs, bacterial mats (bacteria love growing in the warm, sulfur rich waters.), and Fountain Paint Pots. To explain what paint pots are, we need explain how spring and geysers work. A hot spring needs lots of water, heat, good plumbing, and a large opening. A geyser needs lots of water, heat, plumbing with a point of constriction, and a small opening. A paint pot needs
Yellowstone
Carrie and Sam by the bobby sox trees. some water, good plumbing, and almost any sized opening. Too much water and a mud pot will turn into a spring and too little water and it dries up. The water in a mud pot is highly acidic and dissolves the rock around it to turn it into mud. Here we also saw Clepsydra Geyser (a beautiful, yellow colored geyser) and Jet Geyser, a smaller geyser. I guess you could say he was a little guy-ser!
We then stopped at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. We took some really good pictures of the Upper Falls and some of the rock faces in the area were just beautiful. Too bad the same can’t be said for our faces! From here we headed back to FBRP passing by Sulphur Caldron. Located next to Sulphur Caldron was the Dragon’s Mouth Geyser. This was the favorite geyser of most of our tour guides, however, we never got to see it! We did see a few bison including some babies and a bison right by one of the hot springs. We got back to FBRP around 8PM and just ate and relaxed until it was time for bed.
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