Sights of Yellowstone National Park

We spent our second day in Yellowstone taking in all the major sightseeing attractions.

Within the first 15 minutes of being inside the Yellowstone Park boundaries, we became familiar with "animal-jams." That is, traffic jams caused by animals. Our first was an eagle-jam. THE LARGEST golden eagle I have EVER seen was sitting in a tree by the side of the road, and dozens of cars were pulled over with tourists snapping photos left and right. I'm pretty sure this eagle could eat small children. We weren't quick enough with our cameras on this occasion, but we didn't need to worry. Ten minutes later we were in a bison-jam.

A bison wanders down the side of the road.

We headed toward the Old Faithful area, and made our first stop at the Lower Geyser Basin at the Fountain Paint Pot. Here we had our first taste of hydrothermal features. We saw steam vents, hot pools, fumaroles, and small geysers spewing water into the air. The air smelled strongly of rotten eggs from the hydrogen sulphide.

Trees coated in minerals precipitated from hot water.

Bacteria and other thermophiles (heat loving organisms) create brightly contrasting colours of orange, yellow, brown and rust-red around the rims of the hot pools. A bright white precipitated silica coats the ground.

Hot pool in the Lower Geyser Basin.

Geyser eruption in the Lower Geyser Basin.

Next, we arrived in the Old Faithful area to find that the next predicted eruption was over an hour away, at 1:36pm. Old Faithful erupts, on average, every 91 minutes. We had lunch while we waited, and found that in the mean time, hundreds of people were crowded around the Old Faithful boardwalk. In some areas, the crowd was four to five people deep.

Old Faithful erupts.

Our next stop was the Fishing Bridge. Back in the day, hundreds of people would fish off the bridge at the same time-- lines would become crossed, hooks tangled and get stuck on passing cars! Eventually the park put a stop to fishing off the bridge when they realized it was affecting the local trout population.

The Fishing Bridge.

Nowadays, there isn't too much to see from the Fishing Bridge. Or... So we thought. As we were heading back to our car, we were surprised to find a herd of bison running across the bridge towards us.

Here we also witnessed our first act of tourism stupidity. Three ladies, transfixed by the herd of bison, stood in the road ooing and awing, while a Park Ranger yelled at them to get out of the way and back to their cars.

A herd of bison running towards us.

Our next stop at the mud volcano was less exhilarating, but interesting. The mud volcano, used to be a quiet cauldron until a minor earthquake in 1979 increased heat and water activity. As a result, mud started spilling from the crater onto the boardwalks. The activity eventually decreased, and the mud volcano resumed a more peaceful existence.

Mud volcano bubbles away.

Between the Canyon Village and Tower-Roosevelt area, along the banks of the Yellowstone River, we passed an open field full of bison basking in the afternoon sun.

Bison in an open meadow.

There are many waterfalls throughout Yellowstone, but the Tower Falls are one of the most well known.  Tower Falls plunge approximately 132 ft (40m) with the Yellowstone River.

Tower Falls

At this point in our day, we were waylaid by construction. While waiting for our turn to convoy down a one-lane road, we photographed strange layers of columnar basalt in the surrounding cliffs.

Columnar basalt near Tower-Roosevelt.

The most anticipated stop of the day for me was Mammoth Hot Springs. On the side of a hill, a huge complex of travertine terraces have formed over thousands of years as hot water has cooled and precipitated calcium carbonate. The shear magnitude of the terraces are overwhelming, and the variety of colours are pleasing to the eye.

Travertine terraces at Mammoth Hot Springs.

Mammoth Hot Springs.

The final sight we took in at Yellowstone was the Midway Geyser Basin. The Grand Prismatic Spring is the largest hot spring in the United States, spanning 300 ft (90m) in diameter. The spring has a beautiful array of colours from microbial mats and thermophiles. The water is an intense blue-green, fringed in oranges, reds and browns. A huge expanse of mini terraces extend outwards from the spring.

Mini terraces at the Grand Prismatic Spring.

Grand Prismatic Spring

In retrospect, we should have left ourselves more than one day to take in all the major sights of Yellowstone. We spent over ten hours in the parking driving from one sight to the next-- and there were a few more that we would have liked to have seen. Yellowstone offered dozens of beautiful sights, and we were not disappointed in anything we saw.

After a long day, we made our way back to the hotel and packed our backpacks for the 3-day, 35km hike that would follow. My next post will document our hike past Shoshone Lake and through the Shoshone Geyser Basin.