Yellowstone National Park Part 3

The few days I spent in Yellowstone National Park was spent cramming in a ton of things I'd rather experience more slowly. But for the short amount of time we had in the park, we sure took advantage of.

The remainder of our second day in the park was spent walking through the various viewpoints of the famous Lower Falls and lesser heard of Upper Falls, Norris Basin and making wrong turns, leading us to even cooler things.

Canyon Village was up next after our lovely hike to Wraith Falls. I finally started seeing signs of the massive amounts of snow Yellowstone gets every year and on the side of the roads were piles and piles of it. Some mounds were taller than me! Many of the signs had been cleared of the snow, just so you could know what you were looking at.



The various viewpoints in this particular area show views of Lower falls. The Yellowstone River plunges 308 feet over these falls. A littel bit downstream, the rocks have weakened and geysers can be seen spouting into the river. The falling water onto these weakened rocks continue to shape these canyons and deepen the gorge. It's been two years since I've seen this but I can remember standing at the viewpoint and watching the falls. All of the sudden the waterfall gets five times louder and the water volume going over increases significantly and it sounds like I'm standing right under it. I don't know what caused it, but for the moment that it happened, I was transfixed.



The canyon is anywhere from 800 to 1200 feet deep and 1500 to 4000 feet wide. It's about 24 miles long and the upper 2.5 miles are the most colorful because of the hot spring activity in the area. The activity alters the lava rock, which allows the colors from various iron compounds to show up.



Upper falls are not quite as magnificent as Lower falls, standing at only 109 feet, but it's still a waterfall and I was going to see it!



After visiting the waterfalls, our plan was to head to Norris Basin, but instead we took the wrong turn. Usually making a wrong turn is frustrating and a time waster, but lucky for us, it wasn't.





I don't even know where we were after looking on the maps but we probably drove for about 30 minutes before realizing we were not where we were supposed to be. It didn't matter, with views like this, who would care?

We came across sulfur caldron and mud volcano. I was too big on Sulfur Caldron because it stunk, as I'm sure you can understand why.



Sulfur Caldron sits on the edge of one of the most active parts of the volcano in Yellowstone National Park. Sulfur gasses rise up here filling the pool with sulfuric acid. There are actually living, thriving microorganisms that live in these pools called thermoacidophiles. These microorganisms love these acidic environments and enjoy the heat.

Mud Volcano was really nothing interesting to see. It looked and smelled a lot like sulfur caldron.



The cool part about this area was Dragon's Mouth Spring. It was named in 1912 by an unknown park visitor because of the way the water splashes out of the cave. The sound it makes also makes me think of a dragon when it spits fire. The noise comes from the steam and water smashing into the walls on the inside of the caves. Sometimes the water could surge out far enough to hit the boardwalk.



We finally got going in the right direction towards toward Norris Basin.



Norris Basin held tons of different springs and geysers throughout the area.







The temperatures of the different pools allow for different types of bacteria and and algae to grow. Depending on the type that is grown is dependent upon the color the shows up in the water.

My second day in Yellowstone National Park was eventful and full of beautiful scenery. We almost saw a bear but it eluded us, as we were just a few minutes to late, feet upon feet of snow, gorgeous plunging waterfalls and beautifully colored springs and geysers.