6/29/18-6/30/18 - Steam and More Steam

After our stay in the Grand Teton NP, we hopped up to Yellowstone NP.  It's a relatively short ride up the John D. Rockefeller Memorial Parkway.  The ride is only 8 miles, but the parkway encompasses 24,000 acres.

This is the ride up the John D. Rockefeller Memorial Parkway.  It's only 8 miles between the 2 parks. Note the dead trees.  They are the result of the massive 1988 fire that burned a lot of Yellowstone.

Going up the lower west side loop up to Madison CG near the west entrance to Yellowstone where we stayed the first 2 nights we crossed the Continental Divide 3 times in less than 15 miles.  The 1st crossing gets us on the east side of the divide, the 2nd crossing (pictured here) gets us back on the west side again, and the 3rd crossing got us back to the east side, where we stayed the rest of our vacation.  By the way we 1st crossed to the west side back in New Mexico.

The water on the window represented rain, little ice balls, and melting snow flakes.

We stayed at Madison CG.  No facilities, but a generator could be used from 8am to 8pm.  It is located on the road that goes out to West Yellowstone, MT.

This was our visitor in Madison CG the morning we were leaving.  That's a big beast.

 This is a picture of an idiot.  The rangers stressed staying at least 25 yards from bison.  They may look docile, but they are wild, and quicker, and much faster than humans.

 This is the same idiot trying to get a "Darwin Award" nomination.  After the big bull laid down, the dummy got closer, and waved some grass in his face as if he were a horse or cow.  Also, note how close he is to the tent campers.

After dropping the trailer, we headed up to the north west to see Mammoth Hot Springs, and Norris Geyser Basin.  Mammoth Hot Springs is a totally different type of geothermal feature than the rest of Yellowstone.  The following are pictures of Mammoth Hot Springs.

Rain over the community of Mammoth Hot Springs.

We stopped at Clearwater Springs.  One of a multitude of lessor geothermal areas in the park.  Following are several pictures of this place.

We next traveled down to Norris Geyser Basin.  This is one of the major features in the park.  The big difference between here and Old Faithful is, Old Faithful is regular and relatively time-able.  It erupts every hour, within 10 minutes before or after the last eruption.

Several pictures follow taken at Norris.

But time out for the birds.  This isn't the largest of beast we would see in Yellowstone, but still pretty, IMO, and eking out a living in NGB.  This is a White Crowned Sparrow.  Now on to our regular scheduled program.

Rainbow over Norris Geyser Basin

Rainbow over Mary

And yours truly.

Acidic geyser

Fumaroles.

Another info sign at Steamboat Geyser indicated eruptions could occur months apart or 50 years apart.

Thus ended our first day in Yellowstone NP.  Our 2nd day was to go see the geyser basins in the lower west side of the park.  Included of course is Old Faithful.  On any given day, I believe 2/3's of the people in Yellowstone are at Old Faithful.  The place becomes a zoo.  Fortunately, we were forewarned by another couple so we got there before 8am.  We had the parking lot to ourselves.

Next will be a few pictures of Old Faithful.  For all the hype, I was a little underwhelmed.  I guess the big thing about Old Faithful is it predictability.

This is Old Faithful.  It is just part of the Upper Geyser Basin.  The following are more geysers in the UGB.

Cliff Geyser with a cold water stream running by it.

Yours truly.  Notice the jacket and jeans.  It was rather cold in Yellowstone when we were there.  Lows in the mid to high 30's and highs in the upper 60's.

Black Opal Spring

How clear the water is, but oh so deadly.

This is the White Cone Geyser. This was on the road heading north on the loop, away from Old Faithful and towards Madison CG.

Less we forget, we are surrounded by high mountains.

In all of this harsh environment, we still find the beauty of flowers.

This concludes our tour of the west side of Yellowstone.  This is the side of Yellowstone most of the visitors go see.  The number of animal watchers on the eastern side of the park are much fewer, but they did have a bad habit of stopping in the muddle of the road to take pictures of bison a half a mile away.

Later.