Wyoming - Yellowstone Part 2

Our third day in Yellowstone continued to impress with panoramic scenery, more wildlife and huge geysers - smelly ones, colourful ones and the classic Old Faithful. There are MORE geysers in Yellowstone than anywhere else on earth which explains the never ending sight of steam and bubbles in the park. You never forget you are exploring an active volcano.

The National Parks Service website says....Sprinkled amid the hot springs are the rarest fountains of all, the geysers. What makes them rare and distinguishes them from hot springs is that somewhere, usually near the surface in the plumbing system of a geyser, there are one or more constrictions. Geysers are hot springs with constrictions in their plumbing (sounds painful), usually near the surface (ouch), that prevent water from circulating freely to the surface where heat would escape. The deepest circulating water can exceed the surface boiling point (199°F/93°C). Surrounding pressure also increases with depth, much as it does with depth in the ocean. Increased pressure exerted by the enormous weight of the overlying water prevents the water from boiling. As the water rises, steam forms. Bubbling upward, the steam expands as it nears the top of the water column. At a critical point, the confined bubbles actually lift the water above, causing the geyser to splash or overflow. This decreases pressure on the system, and violent boiling results. Tremendous amounts of steam force water out of the vent, and an eruption begins. Water is expelled faster than it can enter the geyser's plumbing system, and the heat and pressure gradually decrease. The eruption stops when the water reservoir is depleted or when the system cools.

The most famous geyser is Old Faithful which spurts every 90 minutes or so. Everyone sits around the edges on the long seats waiting for the old geyser to fire up, steam and spurt water upwards. It was overcast, cold and slightly drizzling so the colour show wasn’t that great. It would be amazing with a blue sky behind it. The photo doesn't do it justice but it's quite a show for about 20 seconds when it starts. And then, it's another 90 minutes until it does it again. This area is widespread with Geysers and while they can start to all the same, our GPS guide (Alan-Alan-Alan), tells us that each one is unique. And he's right. The size, the colour, the shape, they each have something to make you glad you stopped to see it. The surprising thing is that bison and some other animals hang around this area in winter as it's warm. They must know which ones are dangerous with sulphur and those that aren't. Or they aren't affected - I need to research this a bit more. But there's hoof-prints and bison crap amongst the geysers.

We explored the Grand Canyon in Yellowstone which was awesome. I can only imagine what the Grand Canyon in Utah looks like as this canyon was huge and cut a very high and steep groove in the mountains. The Yellowstone River was flowing strong and fast and the waterfalls were loud and powerful. There are so many places to stop and view the river, the canyon, the waterfalls and the landscape. Wow, it was just beautiful.

 

And we saw some more wildlife. We saw elk although their antlers were very small. Apparently they shed them each year and grow them back. These guys were fairly cool about people stopping to look and snap photos. The striking feature is their white bum.

Our Yellowstone adventure comes to a close but we now head into the Grand Tetons which are about 2 hours south of Yellowstone. This is another fantastic national park and we are keen to explore this albeit for only one day as we will eventually cross over into Idaho.