Upper, Midpoint, Lower, and Monument Geyser Basins, Yellowstone National Park, WY, USA
After leaving the Old Faithful Basin, we drove north to visit another couple of geyser basins. I did not have high hopes for seeing anything interesting there after all the incredible sights of the Old Faithful Basin, but I was up for surprise once again. Gheez, when will I ever learn?..
Grand Prismatic Spring
Our friends who visited the Yellowstone National Park before us, lamented about the absence of greenness in the park and commented a lot about how sad it was that the mineral-heavy water from the geysers destroyed everything around them. Our experience in the basin was quite different: yes, the geyser water does destroy the plants around it, but as soon as you leave the immediate area of the geysers, you find yourself in a beautiful forest! Here's the photo from our walk to the Misty Falls:
And the Misty Falls themselves in the glory of its green surroundings:
But really for me this part of the Yellowstone National Park is about geyser basins: steaming
Upper Geyser basin
and colorful:
Wall Pool
It's in the Upper Geyser Basin that I got absolutely enchanted with the elements of the colorful ponds around me. So pardon me while I indulge for a little while:
Midway Geyser Basin was one of the grandest surprises for me. I actually had a note next to it: "nothing special" and intended to skip it, but I was so glad that Photographer pulled into its parking lot at the last moment. To me this one was one of the most beautiful basins and should not be skipped under any circumstances! It's there that we saw Grand Prismatic Spring on the first photo of this post and it's there that we saw Excelsior Geyser. I was most impressed by its incredible vastness: I can't imagine what it's like here when the geyser is actually erupting!
The sun was hitting the water-filled terraces at the most fortunate angle:
Our next stop, Lower Geyser Basin, offered quite different views. So, there exist geysers: water + steam
and fumaroles - steam vents:
And our final stop, Monument Geyser Basin, offered us a walk along the different terraces, each of which contained a different wonder:
including mudpots - boiling cauldrons of mud :)
Our couple of stops and short hikes have shown us the magnitude of the disaster: each stop had unique character and, unfortunately, there was not enough time to explore all of them... But we really did try :-)
Grand Prismatic Spring
Our friends who visited the Yellowstone National Park before us, lamented about the absence of greenness in the park and commented a lot about how sad it was that the mineral-heavy water from the geysers destroyed everything around them. Our experience in the basin was quite different: yes, the geyser water does destroy the plants around it, but as soon as you leave the immediate area of the geysers, you find yourself in a beautiful forest! Here's the photo from our walk to the Misty Falls:
And the Misty Falls themselves in the glory of its green surroundings:
But really for me this part of the Yellowstone National Park is about geyser basins: steaming
Upper Geyser basin
and colorful:
Wall Pool
It's in the Upper Geyser Basin that I got absolutely enchanted with the elements of the colorful ponds around me. So pardon me while I indulge for a little while:
Midway Geyser Basin was one of the grandest surprises for me. I actually had a note next to it: "nothing special" and intended to skip it, but I was so glad that Photographer pulled into its parking lot at the last moment. To me this one was one of the most beautiful basins and should not be skipped under any circumstances! It's there that we saw Grand Prismatic Spring on the first photo of this post and it's there that we saw Excelsior Geyser. I was most impressed by its incredible vastness: I can't imagine what it's like here when the geyser is actually erupting!
The sun was hitting the water-filled terraces at the most fortunate angle:
Our next stop, Lower Geyser Basin, offered quite different views. So, there exist geysers: water + steam
and fumaroles - steam vents:
And our final stop, Monument Geyser Basin, offered us a walk along the different terraces, each of which contained a different wonder:
including mudpots - boiling cauldrons of mud :)
Our couple of stops and short hikes have shown us the magnitude of the disaster: each stop had unique character and, unfortunately, there was not enough time to explore all of them... But we really did try :-)