Since yesterday was Yellowstone National Park day 1 then today must be day 2 and so it is!
We drove from base camp (West Yellowstone) to Geyser basin ( about 30 miles) some of which was along the Firehole river seen here. It's some of Yellowstone's finesr scenery in my opinion. The morning was clear after over night rain and the air was crisp as it can be at 6600 feet even in July.
Old Faithful was indeed faithful and the 9:05am show went off right on time. The picture doesn't do the erruption justice as it was, as it always is, truly spectacular. Erruptions last 2 to 5 minutes, expell up to 8000 gallons of hot water and reach up to 185 feet in the air. Pretty impressive stuff!
From Old Faithful we headed down a 2.8 mile round trip trail to the Morning Glory pool. Look closely and you will see that this is indeed a pool filled with hot water. The colors are created by different bacteria that live in different tempreatures of water. I don't know how deep the pool is but a guess would be at least 15 feet.
There are some 10,000 hydro-thermal features in the park. This pool is called chromatic pool and is indeed a kaliadscope of color. You can see the clear water in this pool with the trees reflecting on the surface. In Geyser Basin there are thermal events everywhere you turn.
We stopped at Fairy falls trailhead on the way home and while we didn't make it to the falls we did take a 2 mile hike. It brought our hiking mileage for the day to between 6 and 7 miles. Here water from the hot pools flows into the Firehole river.
2 comments:
James is loving the info on the blog. He'd like you to tell him why Yellowstone Park is called Yellowstone park. See you soon!!
Yellowstone's name is historically credited to the Native Americans who lived in and around the park area. The name is basically derived from the Yellowstone River. The Yellowstone River has high yellow rock cliffs along its banks in the northern area of the present day park.
See ya soon,
Hal
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