Everywhere you look in Yellowstone there is something unique and beautiful. This is the Firehole River. It's a great place to fish early in the season when the air is still cold. It warms up before the other rivers. I wonder why?
Ally and Pop explored the Black Sand Geyser Field. Look at all those colors...
...think about all those bacteria!
This is Sapphire Pool at Biscuit Geyser Basin - a favorite!
It's fun to watch these pools bubble and churn and blow off steam - that is when the sulphur smell isn't too bad. Phew! - those mud pots!
Emerald Spring at the Norris Geyser Basin is so beautiful and, yes, a bit smelly.
A lot of people think Old Faithful is the world's tallest geyser but it's not. It's Steamboat Geyser in the Norris Geyser Basin. The problem with Steamboat is you can't predict when it's going to blow. Old Faithful is somewhat predictable which is how it gets its name. There's a formula to predict Old Faithful's next eruption based on the time and duration of the last eruption. Ally learned that as part of the Young Scientist program. Not so with Steamboat...
...it huffs and puffs and acts like it wants to blow. You would think that since the last time it blew was May 2005 it would be ready to go again. We're waiting.
No such luck! They say that little steam vent in front of the geyser goes off like a giant tea kettle when the geyser is ready to erupt. Looks to us like it's ready to go.
Just imagine... Ally may be as tall as Pop next time that geyser blows.
Porcelain Basin, in the Norris Geyser Basin, looks so inviting...
...but we'd better photograph and not stick our toes in that nice warm water.
The Junior Ranger program took us to Roaring Mountain...
...where Ally learned that not so many years ago you could hear the steam pouring out of that mountain four miles away. We could barely hear it now. Is that a sign that things are cooling down in Yellowstone? Not likely. One of the many earthquakes that occur each year in the area probably just created other vents for the steam. Now it's time to go north and east in the park to see what's there.
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