Next: September 26 to October 11 - Montana

Jody and I had both been to Yellowstone before, but it was long ago, not together, and we both love it enough to warrant multiple visits, despite its distance from Santa Barbara.

Yellowstone had a large fire in 1988 that burned an estimated 40% of the park.  Some would call this a 'devastating' fire; certainly the evidence of its extent covered large parts of the park.  In a conversation with a professor of fire ecology that we happened to bump into, we came to have a different view.  Despite the loss of the green canopy, fire is useful in forests -- even necessary.

Geyser in the background -- photo by Jody, processing by Jordan.

Here is the de rigueur pic of Old Faithful -- which is not really that faithful.  Its period is currently around 88 minutes, plus of minus 5 or 10.  There are other much more precise geysers among the park's 10,000 geothermal features.

Grand geyser.  This one had a predicted eruption somewhere between 12 and 4.  It actually erupted after 4:30.  Some folks waited for 4 and a half hours.  We waited about 1.  We spent a considerable amount of time just waiting to see if the geyser which we happened to be sitting in front of would 'go off'.  It was pleasant time, just sitting and being, looking at the mountains mixed with steam.

One of the many pools.  The darker blue water is very near boiling at 8000 feet (about 199 degrees).  The red surrounding the pool is an algae-like bacteria that thrives on heat and sulferous minerals in the water -- a class of organism called "Thermophiles".  That is my and Jody's shadow at lower right.

Morning glory pool.

Here is a shot of the lobby of the charming "Old Faithful Inn".  The view is looking up, into the ceiling.  The platform-like areas you can see are stairway landings.

We added another exotic species of wildlife to our list while here: Elk.  It was the fall rut, when the males gathered up and herded a 'harem' of females, defending it against other bull elk and presumably predators like grizzly bears and wolves -- both of which are abundant.  We never did see a grizzly, but did watch 2 gray wolves skulk about in the sagebrush.  Between Custer State Park, Grand Teton National Park, and Yellowstone, our list of wildlife seen was so long that we switch to keeping track of what we were still looking for: Bull moose, and grizzly.

A bull elk -- one of many we watched.

Tower Falls.

The Terraces of Mammoth Hot Springs.

We saw many of these raven-like birds.  They were beautiful, with bright white bodies, and nearly black heads, wings and rumps, with an opalescent green highlighting.  We never did learn what they were called, but enjoyed them greatly.

One bull elk and his harem held court on the front lawn of a private home in Mammoth Hot Springs.  We watched them for over an hour.

A bull elk 'bugling'.  It is a haunting, almost wheezy pipe-like sound, similar to the effect you can get if you rapidly twirl a length of garden hose through the air.

This was the scene on the road when 3 bull elk were competing for one large harem.  The bulls never butted heads or locked horns while we were there, but one did run headlong into a dead tree, knocking it down.

Our campsite in Grant Village.

Jordan, inspecting one of the hotter areas of the park.  Yellowstone is situated inside the calderas of an active volcano.  Magma is only 2 or 3 miles below the surface here, which is where all the heat comes from.

A waterfall on the Firehole river.

We soaked our feet at a small swimming hole on the Firehole -- one of the only places in the park where it was allowed to swim or soak in one of the thermal 'features'.

Another vividly colored pool, with attendant bacteria.  This one was constantly boiling.

More than 4000 gallons of boiling water poured into this gigantic pool.

We dined on evening at the Old Faithful Inn -- Jody and I had saut�ed breaded trout, while Jordan opted for a vegan stir-fry.  Excellent food.  One of the more predictable and large geysers was scheduled to erupt at 7:30 PM, so we speed-walked the 1 mile down to Riverside Geyer, where we waited perhaps 2 minutes prior to the onset of the 20 minute eruption.   The light was nearly gone when I took this shot.

We walked back to our car, with only the light of a half-moon to guide us.  We walked fast, since this was grizzly country and we did not really want to see on quite that up close and personal.

We could have stayed another day or three, but Westward we must go...