In a Canyon

Sept. 22: Out in the grounds of Old Faithful Inn this morning at dawn, I looked down the valley and saw a massive plume of steam coming from one of the geysers about half a mile away. It looked like Castle Geyser was erupting! I debated whether it was worth walking that far, as by then it would probably have stopped.

I did, and still caught the tail end of the eruption.  A few dedicated geyser watchers, known here as Geyser Gazers, were on hand to record the details for science, and I heard another large one had erupted about a half hour earlier before I was out.

But we were planning to drive north today to see new things, and that's what we did, stopping first at Midway Geyser basin, known for the large Excelsior Geyser, which blew up and formed this deep crater in the late nineteenth century.

Nearby was this beautiful Turquoise Pool. Whoever named a lot of these features had gem stones on the brain.

Today I learned how lucky I had been yesterday for the steady brisk wind, because it blew much of the "steam" (actually water vapor) off the volcanic features so I could get good pictures of them. This is what many of them looked like today, including the highly photogenic Grand Prismatic Spring here, which we could barely see at all.

Further north on the Firehole Lake Road this small geyser was spouting almost continuously, though not very high.

This spring is called Arrowhead Spring I think, sure looks like one.

White Dome Geyser has one of the largest piles of extruded material, and like most, erupts only occasionally and unpredictably. Here's how it looked when we were close.

As we walked away it started to erupt, at least a little, even forming a small rainbow near the bottom of the vapor and hot water coming forth.

A bit further north, these mineral streams at Ojo Caliente Spring caught my eye.

Every vacation we make at least one planning blunder, and today it was not bringing lunch with us. I thought we'd find somewhere in this area to get food, but there was nothing but a lousy vending machine, and when I tried to get some pretzels from it, the bag got stuck. We should have ordered and brought what Yogi Bear would call a "pick-a-nick baskit." This forced a change of plans which actually turned out fine. We drove further than we planned to Canyon Village for lunch, then visited The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, which I had planned for later in the trip. It worked out better because now we can skip this area later, leaving more time for others.

Right in the center of the park is this amazing canyon carved by the Yellowstone River through yellow stone cliffs that give the park its name.

This is looking east, the opposite part of the canyon.

These shots are all from Artist Point, I think the most famous view, and one we loved.

We took each others' pictures here. Ellen looks great, I seem worried, but in fact was having a fine time.

Clouds were rolling in, showers had been predicted, but we wanted to see the Lower Falls closer, so walked down the path and many steel steps of Uncle Tom's Trail to this viewpoint.

It's twice the height of Niagara, and impressive, as most large waterfalls are. This is looking down into the misty riverbed.

I also liked this detail at the top of the falls, where you can see through the clear water some.

Going back up the steps was not so easy, but we did better than on our first hike, perhaps because we're used to the 8000 foot elevation now. It showered on us a little, but it felt good.

We stopped at a few other viewpoints near the road. Inspiration Point is spoken of highly, but I didn't feel very inspired by it, perhaps because the clouds were now heavy, darkening the colors. I did like this one view.

A longish drive back to Old Faithful Inn, but a great day. We're staying in the Old Faithful area again tomorrow. More then.