What can we say about Yellowstone? We have been captivated and amazed by the Nature’s Beauty of this vast national park. In here, Nature is bubbling, quivering, roaring, gushing, smoking, dangerous and breathtakingly beautiful. Without a doubt, Yellowstone has lived up to its reputation.
Saturday 17 September to Tuesday 20 September 2022
We reach Yellowstone National Park after having discovered Glacier National Park. With an area of nearly 9000 km2, Yellowstone Park is one of the largest national park in the United States and the very first national park in the world, established in 1872. It's therefore 150 years old this year! Yellowstone, it's a supervolcano. It's the second supervolcano we saw, after Toba Lake, Indonesia in 2018.
About 630,000 years ago, the center of what is now Yellowstone Park collapsed. An immense caldera 72 kilometers wide was born. We can today witness the geothermal activity of this supervolcano throughout all the park: geysers, hydrothermal hot springs, fumaroles, mudpots, and pools of boiling water. We just have to walk along the boardwalks to see, smell and hear all this impressive volcanic activity: a walk in Yellowstone is made of constant surprise and wonder. Discover all these natural treasures in pictures!
The Terraces
The terraces can be found North of the park at Mammoth Hot Springs. They are limestone systems. Water flows from one pool to another, forming these beautiful terraces. The orange color is due to micro-organisms that proliferate in the hot water.
The Mudpots
We love the mudpots! These are acidic hot springs containing little water. The acidity of the volcanic gases and of the microorganisms break down the surrounding rocks, which then turns into clay and mud. The boiling of the mudpots is not only due to the heat, but also to the carbon bubbles that escape from them.
The Geysers
The geysers are the main attraction of the park. There are nearly 400 of them! To see them gush, it's all a matter of luck and good timing. Most of them are unpredictable, so it takes lot of luck to see them gush. On the other hand, some are predictable! The margin of error can go from 20 minutes to 4 hours but, the predictions of the park rangers are quite good! Thus, we were able to witness some beautiful eruptions.
The Old Faithful is the most emblematic and the most touristic geyser, and for good reason: it erupts every 90 minutes, so it's very easy to see. In our opinion, it's not the most impressive! Maybe because the beauty of it is somewhat broken by the hundreds of tourists impatiently waiting for each eruption...
The most impressive of the geysers we had the chance to see erupt was the Grand Geyser. It was supposed to gush at noon, with a range of more or less 90 minutes. We finally waited 45 minutes before seeing it explode. What a show! It goes up to 61 m high, with an eruption that lasts up to 12 minutes. A real firework !
As they are predictable and we were helped by the park rangers' forecasts, we were also lucky enough to see Daisy Geyser, Grotto Geyser and Castle Geyser erupt, all on the same day and in very different styles!
Yellowstone is home to the tallest unpredictable geyser in the world: the Steamboat Geyser. It can rise up to 120 meters high, in an interval of 3 days to... 50 years! Let's say we had little chance to see it gushing so high! We were nevertheless lucky enough to see a few minor eruptions.
Out of the nearly 400 geysers in the park, we saw many, many of them, which offered us some nice minor eruptions, a few spurts of water here and there, nothing at all or some not so minor eruptions, like the unexpected eruption of the impressive and powerful Beehive.
The Fumaroles
Fumaroles are everywhere in Yellowstone! No matter where we were in the park, we could see their smoke rising into the sky, over the treetops or across the vast plains. These are the hottest spots in the park. Some are silent, while others hiss as the steam gushes out.
The Wildlife
Yes, Yellowstone is also loooot of tourists! Oops, sorry, this is about wildlife! The park is home to many wild animals: bisons, deers and elks, wolves, black and grizzly bears, pronghorns. We didn't have the chance to see them all. However, we saw a lot of bisons: they are everywhere in the park! We also saw many elks and two beautiful deers.
The Hot Springs
There are nearly 10 000 hydrothermal hot springs within the park! No need to say that we saw a lot of them during these 4 days! Some of them are frothing mocha-like boiling water while others are clear and calm pools of tremendous depth. Surface water seeps underground, is heated by a deep source of magma and rises to the surface as superheated water. Hot springs have no constrictions, so water rises, cools and sinks freely. The colors are always beautiful! The more blue, the hotter the water (beyond the boiling point). On the contrary, the more yellow or orange the color is, the less hot the water is. The yellow and orange color is in fact due to thermophile bacteria that proliferate in the warm waters around the hot springs.
Our favorite pool is definitely Morning Glory Pool, a deep and clear hot springs. Some times ago, it was entirely blue. Unfortunately, visitors used to throw objects into the water, obstructing the flow of warm water from underground. The surface of the pool gradually warmed up and bacteria proliferated, giving it its new yellow color.
The iconic hot spring of the park is Grand Prismatic Spring. We can see it from above after a short hike uphill. Its water is over 70°C. It's the third largest hot spring in the world: every minute, nearly 2,000 liters of boiling water rise from underground. The colors are simply magnificent!
Yellowstone Canyon
Yellowstone has a Grand Canyon, too! Its yellowish limestone gives the park its name. There is also volcanic activity here: at the bottom, near the river, fumaroles spew from the canyon walls.
Landscapes
While Yellowstone stands out from other national parks thanks to its volcanic activity, its beautiful landscapes are not to be outdone. From vast plains to forests, waterfalls and valleys, Yellowstone is so vast that it offers a wide variety of landscapes. Wherever we look, it's beautiful.
We're now heading for Wyoming's other iconic National Park: the Grand Teton National Park!
5 commentaires
Que de merveilleux souvenirs, ce parc est incroyable. Si vous avez l’occasion passez à Crater Lake qui est tout petit mais inoubliable. Bonne continuation et merci pour vos récits et photos
Mamie
28 septembre à 17h.41
Que dire après un tel reportage ???? Rien si ce n’est époustouflant de beauté …… c’est beau, beau incroyablement beau. J’aurai jamais pu imaginer une telle splendeur dans les couleurs et le jaillissement des geysers.
Continuez de nous envoyer de si belles choses.
Bisous et bonne route.
Encore un reportage magnifique !!! Des paysages grandioses !!
Merci !!! ❤️
Sublime 🤩