Yellowstone National Park - Madison Campground, W. Yellowstone 8/20 - 8/26

From: casarollnotes.blogspot.com 

Tim and Linda Bunyan

This week we are staying at Madison Campground.  Phil and Tracey have met with some friends for a couple days and will join us here at Madison.

It is time for Tim and me to go for an inside tour of the Old Faithful Inn located within view of Old Faithful Geyser.

The towering lobby highlights a hand-crafted clock made of copper, wood, and wrought iron.  mounted to the 

floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace mantle.

The Inn was built in 1903-04 in one year!  Built with local logs and stone..... the largest log structure in the world.

Over 300 rooms

Tim on the upper floor.  The walkway filled with lounging chairs is built all around the entire 2nd floor.

Tim is stamping our National Parks book!

We meet up again to take another road trip within the Park....this time we are using Gypsy Guide.  Sherry and Michael G highly recommended it.  Sure glad we have tuned in!  There is so much to see and the Gypsy Guide really helped us focus on the highlights.

 Phil and Tracey's friend comes for a visit.

  Dynamic photo of Phil and Tracey along Firehole River that runs along the thermal area.  The Midway Geyser Basin is small but packs a big punch! 

 It is a short distance north from the Old Faithful area.

The Grand Prismatic Spring: The largest hot spring in the United States, third-largest in the World!  
This view, with Phil and Tracey, is from a trail that leads to this grand view.  The Spring is larger than a football field and 120 feet deep. 
The colors match most of those seen in the rainbow dispersion of white light by an optical prism, red, orange, yellow, green, and blue.  The colors are the result of microbial mate around the edges of the mineral-rich water.  The color depends on the ratio of chlorophyll to carotenoids and on the temperature of the runoff.  The hue is due to heat-loving bacterial microbes that live on the cooler outskirts of the spring.
This photo is the view from the Overlook Trail.  This trail gradually climbs 105 feet over .6 miles from the Fairy Falls Trailhead looking down on Grand Prismatic Spring and the Midway Geyser Basin.

Sitting in Yellowstone’s Midway Geyser Basin -- just north of Old Faithful -- Grand Prismatic is the largest, most colorful spring in the park. “With a circumference of 300 yards,” naturalist John Muir wrote, “it is more like a lake than a spring. 

This not-a-lake hot spring -- the third-largest in the world -- runs at an average of 160ºF.

But why is it so colorful? Microbial mats of heat-loving archaea (single-celled, bacteria-like organisms) cling to the edges, with different species congregating at different temperatures and forming the spring’s outer rainbow hues. It’s too hot for these tiny guys toward the center, leading to the rich, sterile blue tones found there. In warmer seasons, the water is fringed with bright oranges and greens; come winter, its hues dull a bit, taking on browner tones.  The lay of the land affects the colors, too. 

“Grand Prismatic is unique because of the way light is being scattered,”  “Many other springs have, for example, trees or cliffs surrounding them, so the sun rays are scattered differently.” As long as humans don’t mess with it, Grand Prismatic’s colors should be here to stay.

 

 Turquoise Pool is a hot spring with a temperature between 140 and 160 degrees.  It was named by members of the, first federally funded, Hayden Expedition of 1878.  The Geological survey documented features in the region soon to become Yellowstone National Park.

The deep blue color of the water in the center results from the intrinsic blue color of the water at Turquoise Pool and Opal Pool

From Norris Basin, we go to the Steamboat Geyser.  This is the world's tallest currently-active geyser.  

We missed the eruption by only a few days.

 

Beautiful walking trail at Steamboat

We have heard stories of damage to parked vehicles and even the necessity to run to the museum for cover when Steamboat Geyser 'lets off steam'!

The 45th Parallel sign in Yellowstone National Park may be the most visited and photographed of all 45th Parallel markers.  

Phil and Tim note it a milestone along Highway 89, the scenic route connecting western National Parks.  Must see all about the actual point.  

Close, may not mark the border between Montana and Wyoming, see Surveyors.

Mammoth Hot Springs and the North

The Albright Visitor Center

Jim, Tim, Tracey, and Phil.

Time to pause from all the geothermal activity and Phil and Tracey enjoy the 

green grass environment!

Time for Ice Cream!

Museum at the Albright Visitor Center where Phil, Tracey, and Linda 

get face to face with Elk!

We must go exit Yellowstone National Park only to return !!!

The Roosevelt Arch is a rusticated triumphal arch at the north entrance to Yellowstone National Park in Gardiner, Montana.  

The cornerstone was laid down by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1902.

The top of the arch is inscribed with a quote from the Organic Act of 1872, the legislation which created Yellowstone, which reads:

 "For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People".

A very special place of entrance and treasure.

 
 We pay honor to those that recognize the treasures of America.

Phil and Tracey, in their new Ford Truck making an exit only to make an entrance!

 Jim says, whatever, "I make an entrance wherever I go"!   

 The shops along the main street in the northern Yellowstone entrance in Gardiner. 

Return to base camp at Madison.  Time to make an exit tomorrow as Phil and Tracey continue their travel home to Sacramento heading westward 2019!

 

Phil and Tracey met up with us at Madison Campground.

Back at camp enjoying the delight of Phil and Tracey and a bbq corn dog!

 Most colorful hydrothermal areas--Norris Geyser Basin.  Many hot springs, geysers, and steam vents.   This is Porcelain Basin with one mile of boardwalks that loop through the park's hottest exposed basin.