Yellowstone National Park

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Strange as it may be, this was our first trip to Yellowstone. It's only a day's drive from where we grew up in southern Saskatchewan, and we'd tried to get here in several prior trips ... but, for various reasons, such as bad weather, or sudden changes of plans ... we'd never made it here before.

It was a very nice surprise too. We were prepared for heavy traffic, and that was certainly the case. But, we were very pleasantly surprised with the lack of commercialism, at least as compared to Banff National Park in Canada, and the Black Hills in South Dakota. At Mammoth Hot Springs, we were expecting a Banff Hot Springs style "commercial" hot springs swimming pool with people packed sardine style. There's no swimming pool at Mammoth Hot Springs! Just hot springs in their beautiful natural setting. The National Parks Service must have some strong political backing to fend off so much commercial interests.

When we asked about swimming possibilities, we were told we could swim in the river where the hot water from the springs flowed down. There were a few people swimming in the river, but we gave it a pass.

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Comments

[Janet Chapple]

Nice photo of a hot spring
However, I am 95% sure that what you are showing is a part of Grand Prismatic Spring in the Midway Geyser Basin near Old Faithful Village and not a part of Mammoth Hot Springs. I have seen that coloring at Midway but not at Mammoth. But it sounds like you had a great trip! Janet Chapple, author of the guidebook, "Yellowstone Treasures: The Traveler's Companion to the National Park"