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Published: September 12th 2006
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Finally after the seemingly endless journey across Wyoming, and South Dakota before that, we reached our first major national park, Yellowstone, whose beauty and grandeur we had been greatly anticipating. We entered the park through the East entrance and as we drove across the park to our campground in West Yellowstone, we soon realized that Yellowstone is a park with two faces. Over the next 4 days as we made our way around the park’s figure eight loop road, we came to experience the many diversities of the mighty Yellowstone and we encountered both the Beauty and the Beast.
The Beauty Yellowstone Park is a place of natural wonder and majestic beauty. Rolling hills and mountains, raging rivers and waterfalls, luscious fields and forests… Yellowstone has it all!
The enormous Yellowstone Lake occupies the Southeastern corner of the park. We considered hiring a boat to take out for a romantic cruise around the lake… until we found out that it was $70 an hour for the privilege and then we decided that there were surely other (cheaper) romantic activities that we could do instead...
Like driving down to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, now that was
The Lower Falls
... of the Yellowstone River. truly breathtaking! There are several viewpoints from which you can look down across the Canyon, we found the best were on the Lower Canyon drive. The Yellowstone River has carved out a rather deep and impressive canyon, probably not much compared to the Grand Canyon but still amazing in its own right. We took the short but steep hike down to the Lower Falls view which was well worth the trip. The viewpoint is right next to the river and level with the top of the falls, you can nearly reach out and touch it. From here you can really sense the speed and power of the water as it rushes over the cliff. Although the falls were nowhere near as wide as Niagara, they were much louder and seemed somehow more impressive since we were so close.
We also drove up to the Northern section of the park to Mammoth Hot Springs. Here the water from the natural hot springs has shaped wedding cake like terraces into the local limestone. One, still active, spring looked liked a glistening caramel cake. The Mammoth Hot Springs Village near the North entrance is home to not only a cute hotel, restaurant
and some other amenities… but also to a huge herd of elk that seemed quite happy grazing on the village lawns.
Throughout our visit, we were constantly in awe of Yellowstone’s beauty; yet, we were also drawn to her other side…
The Beast Although we knew of Yellowstone’s geysers, everyone has heard of Old Faithful right? We were in no way prepared for the steaming, boiling, bubbling and oozing cauldron that is Yellowstone’s geothermal caldera...
First you’ve got your geysers… bubbling hot water shooting up to 100 feet into the air is pretty spectacular! There are lots more other than Old Faithful; it’s just the most reliable and one of the bigger ones. Of course we had to go and see it…but it was a little crowded and the most ‘touristy’ of all the geyers. We were more impressed by the smaller ones at Biscuit Basin which you could get a bit closer to and we were lucky enough to have one private eruption all to ourselves! Another amazing geyser area was Norris Geyser Basin in the western side of the park which had lots of geothermal activity for our viewing pleasure.
Then you’ve got your
Iced caramel cake
...at Mammoth Hot Springs. hot springs…boiling hot water ‘lakes’ which are home to billions of bacteria that form rainbow colours around the rims. Absolutely amazing! The largest and most dramatic is the Grand Prismatic Spring; unfortunately it is very difficult to photograph due the huge clouds of steam that constantly roll off it. Some of the smaller, and presumably slightly cooler, springs had less steam and could be viewed more easily. Still the photos are nothing compared to the real things; the crystal clear waters and vivid colours formed by the bacteria were truly breathtaking. In some places where the water trickled down from the spring it looked as if someone had poured streams of paint onto the ground. You really just want to reach down and touch it, but then you remember that it is probably hot enough to burn the skin right off your finger so you decide to hold that urge.
Next up you’ve got your ‘paintpots’… these are basically springs which have gotten a bit muddy, so instead of crystal clear water you have cloudy opaque water that looks like a lot like beige paint. The water is still incredibly hot and the pressure from below the surface pushes
up interesting swirls and bubbles. Our favourite were the Artists’ Paintpots which we saw on Day 2 of our visit.
And last but not least, and probably our favourite, are the ‘mudpots’… picture giant mud puddles…with thick gray mud that bubbles, blips and blops…making all sorts of noises and exuding some nasty sulphuric smells! These are like nothing you have ever seen, unless you have been to Yellowstone that is. The Mud Volcano area was a real highlight and smelled distinctly of rotten eggs, mmmm; unfortunately this was another difficult one to capture on film. Somehow big piles of bubbling gray mud just does not look as interesting in a photo as it does in real life.
It was really amazing to drive through the park and just see steam rising up from any given direction, usually rising off of the springs or geysers, but sometimes just up from the ground itself. There is some seriously hot stuff raging under Yellowstone and one day it’s all going to go Pete Tong. We were just happy that we were not there for that event.
On a final note, there was actually a third side to Yellowstone… and that
was the
Bloody Cold! You think you if go somewhere in late August, technically still summer time, theb you expect it to be warm… but not Yellowstone! We had highs of around 55F (13C) during the day, that’s right I said ‘highs’! Now that is certainly not good news for the night time lows now is it? Nights got down to around 35F (2C) with each night getting progressively colder; I have never slept with so many layers of clothes on from head to toe! On our morning of departure, we woke up to 33F (0.5C) and a layer of frost on our car and tent. And as we drove through the park on our way out…there was a layer of snow on the ground! In August!
So our tip of day is - go to Yellowstone in July, unless you are staying in a heated cabin!
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Jess
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Oh crap - I missed your birthday!
Hi guys! I love the pics on this one - tempted to frame the Bacteria 'paint' one... v cool. Jennifer - I hope you had the greatest birthday ever! Please come back so we can celebrate it in person? lol - ok probably not. But we will see you hopefully sooner than later and we'll be sure to toast in your honour then xx