Sunday, January 31, 2010
Summer Pictures, part 8: Yellowstone, day 2
I'm making good progress on these summer pictures! :-)
We rented a cabin in the Grand Canyon area, but didn't actually visit the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone until day 3. On day 2, we drove around the northern loop, stopping at many places along the way.
The first stop was the Mammoth area, in the far northwest corner of the park. It was impressive, but not quite as cool as we expected because there wasn't much water. Pesky drought. You can recognize all the Mammoth pictures because of the chalky white rock formations.
A waterfall! Don't remember which one it was.
There are periodic scenic drives marked, which leave the main road and then rejoin it many miles down the road. We did a few, with varying degrees of success. This particular scenic drive went slowly.
Still on that scenic drive.
OK, back on the main road. This was the "Roaring Mountain" area.
Emily at Roaring Mountain. She's always photogenic.
Two happy campers!
Another waterfall! Did I mention that I like waterfalls? They were probably my favorite part of Yellowstone.
This was the Petrified Tree. Don't recall how old it is.
If you want to know where the Petrified Tree is, here's a map we found in one of the Visitors Centers.
I can't recall exactly where these basalt columns were. You see them across one the valley at one of the major stops along the road. Pauline thought they were really cool.
I think this is the same valley with the basalt columns, but I could be wrong.
And I'm not sure if this is the same valley as that. Serves me right for waiting so long to post these pictures. Nice picture, anyway.
We rented a cabin in the Grand Canyon area, but didn't actually visit the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone until day 3. On day 2, we drove around the northern loop, stopping at many places along the way.
The first stop was the Mammoth area, in the far northwest corner of the park. It was impressive, but not quite as cool as we expected because there wasn't much water. Pesky drought. You can recognize all the Mammoth pictures because of the chalky white rock formations.
A waterfall! Don't remember which one it was.
There are periodic scenic drives marked, which leave the main road and then rejoin it many miles down the road. We did a few, with varying degrees of success. This particular scenic drive went slowly.
Still on that scenic drive.
OK, back on the main road. This was the "Roaring Mountain" area.
Emily at Roaring Mountain. She's always photogenic.
Two happy campers!
Another waterfall! Did I mention that I like waterfalls? They were probably my favorite part of Yellowstone.
This was the Petrified Tree. Don't recall how old it is.
If you want to know where the Petrified Tree is, here's a map we found in one of the Visitors Centers.
I can't recall exactly where these basalt columns were. You see them across one the valley at one of the major stops along the road. Pauline thought they were really cool.
I think this is the same valley with the basalt columns, but I could be wrong.
And I'm not sure if this is the same valley as that. Serves me right for waiting so long to post these pictures. Nice picture, anyway.
Summer pictures, part 7: Yellowstone, day 1
(This was actually still the same day as the Mesa Falls/Big Spring pictures.)
Yellowstone of course is home to tons of hot springs, pools, and geysers. What I hadn't realized before going there is that it is also home to tons of waterfalls. Over 40 waterfalls in the park! And I love waterfalls! :-) Anyway, here's the first pool we came to:
Here's the first geyser we came to.
...and here's the first waterfall! :-) Sadly, I forget its name.
This is the river going away from that waterfall.
We decided to see Old Faithful on the first day.
That was the most crowded part of our trip. I guess everyone feels like they can miss out on some of the other stuff, but they can't go to Yellowstone without going to Old Faithful.
Just uphill from Old Faithful, there's several paths you can take, walking around geysers. Some of the geysers are apparently more impressive than O.F., but they go off at rare intervals. This one, however, goes off every 20 minutes or so. It's only a couple of feet high, though. Kinda cute. I think it was called the Anemone Geyser. Before:
After:
We decided this geyser must have been named after Leslie's church Young Women's class.
Even Pauline had a geyser named after her! ;-)
Looking down on O.F. from above:
A random pool:
Another pool:
Emily likes to take pictures, too.
This one was called the Doublet Pool:
This next picture was at a different spot, away from the O.F. area. I think it was called the "Dragon's Mouth". If I recall correctly, Leslie and I took a short hike from here, and passed a pool that was so acidic that is was crystal clear because nothing could grow in it. We didn't fall in, thankfully.
Yellowstone of course is home to tons of hot springs, pools, and geysers. What I hadn't realized before going there is that it is also home to tons of waterfalls. Over 40 waterfalls in the park! And I love waterfalls! :-) Anyway, here's the first pool we came to:
Here's the first geyser we came to.
...and here's the first waterfall! :-) Sadly, I forget its name.
This is the river going away from that waterfall.
We decided to see Old Faithful on the first day.
That was the most crowded part of our trip. I guess everyone feels like they can miss out on some of the other stuff, but they can't go to Yellowstone without going to Old Faithful.
Just uphill from Old Faithful, there's several paths you can take, walking around geysers. Some of the geysers are apparently more impressive than O.F., but they go off at rare intervals. This one, however, goes off every 20 minutes or so. It's only a couple of feet high, though. Kinda cute. I think it was called the Anemone Geyser. Before:
After:
We decided this geyser must have been named after Leslie's church Young Women's class.
Even Pauline had a geyser named after her! ;-)
Looking down on O.F. from above:
A random pool:
Another pool:
Emily likes to take pictures, too.
This one was called the Doublet Pool:
This next picture was at a different spot, away from the O.F. area. I think it was called the "Dragon's Mouth". If I recall correctly, Leslie and I took a short hike from here, and passed a pool that was so acidic that is was crystal clear because nothing could grow in it. We didn't fall in, thankfully.
Summer pictures, part 6: On the way to Yellowstone - Mesa Falls and Big Spring
We spent the night near Idaho Falls and visited Pauline's Uncle Jeff. We also saw Vince Haley (formerly Elder Haley) in Rexburg, then were on our way. One of my research students (Mitch Jones) recommended that we stop by Mesa Falls between Rexburg and Yellowstone. It was cool! There is a really nice boardwalk path that takes you right to the brink of the falls. You can see the water just disappearing over the edge:
There was a sweet rainbow going on! Made us even happier. :-)
Then, we walked on the boardwalk around the edge of the waterfall, so we could see the fall itself:
Very pretty!
Here's the view looking downstream from the falls. I think there's another water fall lower down, but we didn't take the time to walk there.
Next, Pauline's uncle recommended we stop by "Big Spring". It's a fairly quiet, secluded place where a stream emerges from the ground. An interesting guy (Johnny Sack) had built a cabin here and lived on the property as a hunter/trapper back in the early 20th century. That's his house on the left, which is open to the public. The small house on the right ran a water wheel, which if I recall correctly powered his house.
Here is a cute little critter who popped up out of the ground and looked at us:
We originally walked the wrong way to get to the house, and came across this sign, saying "You're doing it wrong." So I took Leslie and Emily's picture.
...and Pauline took my picture as I took theirs.
We saw a rare blue heron!
Isn't that a nice pose he struck?
Here's a close up on the water wheel house, from the opposite angle.
There was a sweet rainbow going on! Made us even happier. :-)
Then, we walked on the boardwalk around the edge of the waterfall, so we could see the fall itself:
Very pretty!
Here's the view looking downstream from the falls. I think there's another water fall lower down, but we didn't take the time to walk there.
Next, Pauline's uncle recommended we stop by "Big Spring". It's a fairly quiet, secluded place where a stream emerges from the ground. An interesting guy (Johnny Sack) had built a cabin here and lived on the property as a hunter/trapper back in the early 20th century. That's his house on the left, which is open to the public. The small house on the right ran a water wheel, which if I recall correctly powered his house.
Here is a cute little critter who popped up out of the ground and looked at us:
We originally walked the wrong way to get to the house, and came across this sign, saying "You're doing it wrong." So I took Leslie and Emily's picture.
...and Pauline took my picture as I took theirs.
We saw a rare blue heron!
Isn't that a nice pose he struck?
Here's a close up on the water wheel house, from the opposite angle.
