We spent our first night in a KOA outside of West Yellowstone. Cathy and Jason had dinner outside as the weathers was pretty good for a change. Great WiFi btw!
We had five of these lakes inside the camp for fishing (this IS Montana!) and a very swift running creek running alongside the camp. Of course, “we” had to throw every loose rock into the creek.
This was “Terrace Spring”, the first volcanic feature we encountered upon entering the park. The crystal clear water was bubbling vigorously behind Jason and there was a very nice wooden walkway leading around the area.
Above the lower pond, Cathy is at the edge of another bubbling pool.
And yet another bubbling pool, this one was very colorful. The water exiting the pool was hot to the touch (I guess?).
Continuing on, we encountered a 45 minute traffic jam. Ahead you can see a tour bus surrounded by a herd of Bison. Even though we were told in writing NOT to park on the highway and NOT to exit our vehicles to approach wildlife, there were hoards of people leaving their cars and walking ahead to see the bison.
The rangers arrived (finally) and herded the bison down the road to clear the area and get traffic moving again. The bison, ALL of them, came running past our truck, sometimes almost brushing up against the vehicle. Pretty good show. We saw big ones and little ones.
Running heads to tails!
Here they are going around our truck. Cathy shot these from the relative safety of our vehicle. You can see the potential casualties following the herd. I guess the people following them are just ignorant. We did see a couple of brush-backs up the road a bit. Once all of these knuckheads returned to their cars we got moving again.
We followed the Gibbon River to the top of the grade. This is Gibbon Falls. We walked the 1/4 mile back to this viewing area, most others just slowed down and drove by.
This is Beryl Springs. It was not listed in our information. The steam vent behind the spring sounded like a jet engine.
This is the “Artist’s Paintpots” feature. It was about a two-mile walk into and around this feature. Jason enjoyed it so much, he wanted us to do the walk yet again!
We saw bubbling mudpits at the top of the trail and a steaming red geyser named “Blood Geyser” near the bottom. The red coloring is due to the high concentration of iron oxide in the water. It has been erupting since it was discovered in 1882. The eruptions can reach as high as six feet.
Our next stop was at Norris Geyser Basin near the turnoff to Canyon Village.
This basin is located outside of the 640K year Yellowstone Caldera, but inside the 2.1M year caldera. It is the location of Steamboat Geyser, the tallest active geyser in the world. Unfortunately, Steamboat is very irregular. This entire basin is relatively unpredictable, each year new hot springs and geysers appear and others become dormant, triggered by geologic events. We walked the Porcelain Basin section of this feature, which is the hottest exposed area in the park.
The colors show here are evidence of thermophiles (heat loving microorganisms). Just about every color imaginable are visible in this set of features.
Jason wanted to use my camera so I let him take a picture. He really liked the steam vent in the bottom left of this shot, and he enjoyed using the equipmentas well.
Just proof that I am along on this trip!
There was about a 14 mile stretch of road construction on the way to Mammoth Hot Springs and we were held up for about 30 minutes for clearance. We were entertained by the coyote hunting across the field. He jumped on something deep in a hole but came up empty.
We also had pan handlers approach us while we stopped. I still don’t know where this one obtained the granola bar.
We crossed another summit and looked back to see this waterfall.
After walking back to take a picture, I notice the roadway ahead. This is the Golden Gate Canyon and was the most difficult and expensive challenge the engineers faced when building the first roadways in the park. The first span was built in 1885, and subsequently rebuilt in 1900, 1933 and 1977.
Making it (after a 5 hour drive) to Mammoth Hot Springs, we saw this elk sunning herself on the lawn. She had a “friend” asking for a ride and she must have responded “sure, hop on!”
We first walked some of the Lower Terrace section of Mammoth Hot Springs. This cone is the remains of a long gone geyser. The terraces in the background were outstanding, some were snow-white and looked like they were hand-carved. Some of the embedded trees here are more than 500 years old.
I walked up the canyon to the Beaver Pond area, but stopped to watch this elk. You had to be careful not to startle these animals as they could become quite defensive. I came a little to close to one hiding in the weeds, can you spot her?
Back into town we had the opportunity to watch two families of elk feeding and cavorting near the park residences.
We drove through the Upper Terrace section of the Hot Springs on the way back, stopping to watch some elk up on the hillside and taking in some bubbling water at this feature known as the “Elephant Hump”. Jason is standing in front of a little pool of boiling water flowing from an undergournd spring. We were the only people there.
The “Hump”. Notice the hairline crack running down the middle!
Jason holding a sign up, being a strongman.
Looking back at the decent in Mammoth Hot Springs at sunset. We did not make it back to camp until 10:15 in the evening as we were again held up for road construction and, due to evening wildlife activity, had to reduce the speed somewhat.
Travelling with the Schinglers 
Beautiful place. Maybe I can go there one day.
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