Yellowstone West

The western part of Yellowstone, which consists of the Old Faithful area and the Upper, Middle and Lower Geyser Basins, is the most spectacular part of the Park even though it is less diverse than the east.  There were lots of geyser action and magnificently coloured springs, although after a while, they all seemed to blend in with each other.

We spent two and a half days on this side of the Park and managed to see everything we wanted to see.  I will just present here some of the highlights instead of providing a journalistic record of everything we saw.  You can quickly see which are the highlights - the Grand Prismatic Spring which we visited twice from different perspectives; the Excelsior Pool in the Midway Geyser Basin; the Grand Geyser, the Riverside Geyser, and the Morning Glory Pool on the Old Faithful Trail; the Sapphire Pool in the Biscuit Basin and the Emerald Pool in the Black Sand Basin.  Everything else, even Old Faithful, seemed to pale in comparison to these spectacles!  

PRACTICAL TIPS:
1. The Grand Prismatic Spring and the Morning Glory Pool should be seen at midday - they require the sun right above them to bring out all the colours - this actually applies to all the coloured springs. 
2. The park has developed a new trail to take people to the Grand Prismatic Spring lookout.  This is a side trail from the Fairy Falls trail. Again overlook should be visited at midday.  Too early in the day, the steam mist from the spring would obscure the view.  Too late in the day, and the colours pale.
3. The times for eruption of the various geysers are posted at the Visitor Centre and Lodges. One could spend hours waiting for a geyser to erupt or take one's chances and if it happens to be erupting near the time you're in the area, then consider yourself lucky.  
4. Old Faithful is best photographed in the morning. Sunset does not work here.

Grand Prismatic  Spring at ground level - the runofffs are spectacular.

Excelsior Geyser

Run off from the Excelsior Geyser

We did the short hike up to the overlook to see the Grand Prismatic Spring - definitely worth the climb although the spring is just as spectacular from the ground.

The Old Faithful Trail was packed with geysers and springs, starting with Old Faithful itself right behind the lodges and the Visitor Centre. 
 

Old Faithful in the morning

Chromatic Pool

Liberty Pool - you can almost see right to the bottom!

Castle Geyser

Grotto Geyser

Thermophile runoffs into the Firehole River

At the end of the Old Faithful trail, the Morning Glory Pool was a stunning finale

We

We only had to wait 15 minutes for the Riverside Geyser to erupt and it was quite spectacular. What luck!

The Grand Geyser is more spectacular than Old Faithful.  Earlier in the day, we had walked by and seeing that the predicted eruption time was just half an hour away, we decided to wait.  But after an hour, nothing happened (apparently eruption times can be off plus or minus 2 hours), we decided to move on. We were quite astonished that after two hours on the trail, we saw the geyser getting ready to erupt on our way back. So while we walked the entire trail, some people actually sat there faithfully waiting for more than 2 hours!  We considered ourselves extremely lucky to witness this magnificent eruption.

Thermophile runoffs from Anemone Pool - we almost missed this as it was at the end of a big loop and we were tired and ready for lunch!

 

Twin Pools

We visited the Biscuit Basin and Black Sand Basin at the end of the day. The colours would have been more brilliant in midday, but then one could only see so many things at midday!

Sapphire Pool, true to its name

Cliff Geyser on the edge of Iron Spring Creek

Opalescent Pool

Emerald Pool - I'm sure it would be emerald coloured in midday!

Great Fountain Geyser, another one of those that people wait hours for.  When it's not erupting, it's not much of a sight, but then the sky and the clouds pitched in...

Gibbon Falls

Firehole Falls

 The Old Faithful Inn was a marvel in itself with its all wood pillars and interior. 

The ceiling and the staircase

This wraps up our trip to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. It was one of the more photogenic trips we've been on.  Hope you've enjoyed coming along with us.

Yellowstone North

Mammoth Hot Springs was our destination in north Yellowstone, and we arrived in time to catch the late afternoon sun on some of the springs on the Upper Terrace.  The setting sun heightened the orange colour on Canary spring and also brought out some beautiful reflections on the springs.

Canary Spring

Mammotth was only an hour's drive from Canyon but we took our time exploring the sights along the way.  One of the must visit places on the way was the LeMar Valley mainly because of the wildlife. We were not hopeful to see much because by the time we arrived it was close to midday.  But as luck would have it, five minutes into the valley, we saw cars parked beside the road with a photographer and a tripod.  There was a pronghorn by the roadside - that was a lifer for me.  It actually strolled slowly to our side of the road before heading off into the valley.

Pronghorn

The expansive LeMar Valley

As we headed further into the valley, we saw a bison on a hill beside the road and decided to stop. After I got out of the car to move closer to the bison, the woman in the car ahead of me rolled down her window and said: "Excuse me, there is a bison behind you." I turned around and saw the bison behind some long grass. I scrambled back into the car as it headed towards me! Whew! It then headed across the road and did a dust bath before sitting down for photos.

It was literally 3 feet from me when I was outside the car!

Dust bath

Tower Falls on the road between Canyon and Tower-Roosevelt

Calcite Springs - a spring can be seen on the side of the mountain

Basalt columns that looked like a fence above the canyon walls

Undine Falls - between Tower-Roosevelt and Mammoth

Mount Everts - they call it an inverted mountain

The Roosevelt Arch - the north entrance to Yellowstone commeorating Roosevelt who was instrumental in making Yellowstone the first National Park in the United States

This looked like a fortress just south of the north entrance

The graceful staircase in the renovated Mammoth Springs Hotel

We hiked up the Lower Terrace of the Mammoth Springs and was surprised to find it's much smaller than we expected.  Other than Palette Spring which could almost be seen from the road, the Minerva Terrace and Jupiter Terrace, are the only ones of note.  Minerva Spring is mostly dried up but the lower part with the water in the terraces can still be quite spectacular, forming some amazing abstract lines.

What's left of the lower terraces of Minerva

 

Jupiter Mound

 

Jupiter Terrace

The Upper Terrace is reachable by car and one could drive from one spring to another.  The most impressive item here is the Orange Spring Mound (below).

White Elephant Back Terrace

Angel Terrace

This side of Canary Spring is better seen in the morning - but it's very far up

Liberty Cap - once an active hot spring

Palette Spring

We went out for a drive during the golden hour and caught some of the surrounding areas in the golden glow.  You would think it was an entirely different landscape if you had seen the same thing in the morning.

Mount Everts - almost unrecognizable

We headed south to Yellowstone West after two nights at Mammoth Springs.  We saw the Golden Gate on the way out of Mammoth, it looked completely different in the morning sun from the day before - it was indeed golden!

Bisons roam the area between Mammoth Springs and Madison.  Here's one standing right in front of our car.  We were able to drive around it because the bus in the other lane must have stopped for its passengers to take pictures, causing a long line of cars to form behind it. In this case, it was clearly not the bison holding up traffic rather the bison-watchers holding up traffic.

Roaring Mountain - so called because of the many steam vents on its slopes and it did make a lot of noise!

PRACTICAL TIPS:
1. We could probably have just spent one night in Mammoth Springs instead of two if we timed it right - visit the Upper Terrace in the late afternoon, the Lower Terrace in the morning and head south in the afternoon.
1. Visit the Upper Terrace at least two hours before sunset.  Any later and the sun would be too low to hit Canary Springs.

Next Post:  Yellowstone West (the highlight!)