Geysers and Grand Canyon of Yellowstone National Park

I'd never heard of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone until we got there.  I knew there was a huge and amazing waterfall in the park, but didn't know an amazing bonus canyon came with it. The photo below shows the Lower Falls, which created the deeper part of the canyon. It's called the Lower Falls, because there is another waterfall only a mile or so upstream on the same river, called Upper Falls.

We spent a few days hiking both sides of the canyon, and visiting both falls.  At the Upper Falls, they have a platform right next to the falls.  There is a short, steep downhill hike, called Brink of Lower Falls, to the viewing platform.  If you look at the upper right corner, you'll see a person looking out over the falls from the brink.  This helps give a sense of scale to the scene.  

Standing on the platform, it's a thrill to see the water rushing over the brink while feeling the rumbling sound in your chest.  These next three photos are some of my favorites of the trip. I love how the individual drops of water catch the sun's rays in the closer part of the photo, the green tint to the water, and how it looks like an explosion of water in slow motion.  I love the shapes formed by the water as it plummets hundreds of feet, and the way the sun illuminates the water from the inside.  I these would look amazing printed six feet high, mounted side by side on a huge wall in a luxury hotel.  

This is an early morning view looking downstream from Inspiration Point.     

Here's another view of the Lower Falls from a trail along the south side of the canyon. The viewing platform for the Brink of Lower Falls is there. There is a softer type of rock underneath right where the falls starts, that's what created the falls.  It started out flat, but the water wore away this softer rock much faster than the harder rock further upstream.    

A view of more of the canyon. We spent every evening watching the sunset from somewhere along the north rim or the south rim.  It's only a few minute drive to all the viewpoints along the canyon from Canyon Village.  

This is the view while standing on the brink of the Upper Falls. Upper Falls are about a mile upriver from Lower Falls. 

We also spent time chasing geyser eruptions in Upper Geyser Basin. We were fortunate to be in the right place at the right time to see two geysers that don't erupt quite as often or as reliably as Old Faithful.  Here's Beehive Geyser erupting.  Some people stood right in the shadow of the spray and got soaking wet just for fun.  The brilliant rainbow was a great surprise. 

Same eruption of Beehive Geyser, without the people and walkway.  

Here's Old Faithful erupting.  They post a schedule in the visitor center, accurate to plus or minus about five minutes.  There was a crowd of a few hundred waiting to see it.  It lasts about a minute or so.  

Some of the pools around the geysers and springs have thick mats of bacteria in amazingly vivid colors.  

A great example of the colorful mats of thermophilic bacteria.  This is the area surrounding Grand Geyser. Yes, the color is really like that in person.   

Grand Geyser is the largest predictable geyser in the park, though the prediction time window is over two hours. You need to be patient or lucky to get to see it.  We were a little of both.  We decided to do the wonderful five mile hike around the area while waiting.  On that five mile hike, we got to see the fantastic Morning Glory Spring. You can really see deep down into this one. The colors are thick mats of thermophilic bacteria.  "Thermophilic" is just a generic term for "heat loving" bacteria that thrive in this extremely hot water all summer, and even during the incredibly cold Wyoming winters.  

After the hike, we went back to the visitor center for lunch.  The rangers stopped everyone on the trail due to an angry bison.  We had to wait a while for him to calm down, then give him a wide berth. Finally Grand Geyser erupted. The eruption lasted a few minutes, and had a false start with a few smaller jets of water, and then a couple of false endings too, where it stopped, then shot way up again.  That was a lot of fun.    

Click here to see the first part of our trip, with lots of incredibly vivid springs, and great waterfalls.  

Click here to see the few days before that when we hiked around Grand Teton National Park. 

Yellowstone National Park Springs and Waterfalls

Yellowstone is so large, it has parts in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.  During our visit over this summer, we stayed at the Canyon Village area.  We had to drive for over an hour just to get to the start of some of our hikes.  Before visiting in person, I had the impression there were a few amazing springs and a few amazing geysers in the park, and that was it.  I didn't realize that there are so many of both, spread out all over the park, that after a while, you start to lose track and they start to get mixed up in your mind.  You might think to yourself, "Was that incredible blue spring the Silex Spring or the Sapphire Spring?"  This one is definitely the Sapphire Spring, but don't worry, Silex Spring comes later.  

The water is perfectly clear, so you can see deep down into the water and the mesmerizing color.  Steam constantly wafts off of the water's surface, obscuring the view, and briefly warming the cold morning air as it drifts over you.  I had to take one photo after another, trying to time the shot to match a second when it cleared just enough to get a good view of the water.  This color is called cyan, and the color comes from bacteria called cyanobacteria.  According to the park guides, different types of bacteria live in different temperatures of water.  

We arrived around 7:30 in the morning, and we were practically the only ones there, except for a bison here and there.  The bison never once even looked at us.  They just kept on grazing as if we weren't even there.  

Another spring, this time with orange, yellow, and green bacterial mats giving it color. To keep people safe from breaking through the hard, but thin, rock crust in these fields of springs, visitors are asked to remain on raised wooden walkways.  There've been a few visitors who died, or were badly scalded, when they decided to hop off the walkway for a selfie, and broke through the thin layer of rock, sinking into the boiling pool underneath.  

The springs above were along our short hike to see Mystic Falls, shown below.  

After that quick hike, we headed to Fairy Falls.  

Another view of Fairy Falls, showing how it has gouged a grotto out of the cliff over thousands, if not millions, of years.   

The hike to Fairy Falls passes by one of the most incredible sights in the park, Grand Prismatic Springs.  It's easy to understand why this was one of the most crowded places in the park. 

As mentioned above, the colors come from different types of bacteria, each of which prefers slightly different water temperatures and conditions.  

Notice the black lines along the ground.  These are tiny stone walls, from a quarter of an inch to an inch high, formed randomly over centuries, by minerals in the water sticking together as the water that wells up out of the spring flows down the surrounding gentle slope.  They've created a whole series of shallow terraces. The water slowly fills and overflows each terrace one by one on its way down the slope.  

This was a small spring beside Firehole Road.  It's so clear and bright, it looks like there are lights inside it. 

Across the main road from Firehole is Fountain Paint Pots, where we saw Spasm Geyser, named for the spasmodic way it constantly spits up steam and water. 

Also at Fountain Paint Pots, we saw Silex Spring, one of the most beautiful in the park.  Large and deep, with stark white along the outer edge, and more of that amazingly clear water that allows us a peak into the underworld.  It makes me want to dive in and explore the waterways underneath. 

One more amazing spring, this one sits just beside Yellowstone Lake.  It's hard to believe just how many different types of natural beauty Yellowstone has in one place.  

Click here to see photos from the few days before this, when we were in Grand Teton National park. 

Next up, we'll take a tour of the geysers and Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, including looking at the famous Lower Falls from close up and far away.    

Finally, we'll take a look at the wildlife, including deer, bison, black bears in trees, and grizzlies, AKA brown bears.  

Grand Teton National Park

I was really surprised at how quickly we saw wildlife when we arrived at Grand Teton National Park this last September.  We ran into this deer eating the leaves of bushes by the side of the road on our very first drive in the park.  He kept an eye on me as I tried to get a few photos that weren't blocked by tree branches or leaves, but he never backed away from me.  

Of course, you can tell he's a "he" by his antlers.  Notice how they look red.  That's because they're covered in drying blood, but there was no gruesome murder.  Rather, as you can see in the photo below, the "felt" that covers the antlers when they first grow is peeling off.  The felt is the gross stuff hanging down between his ear and his eye.  It's like a skin that has peeled back off of the new grown antlers and is hanging by a thread, soon to fall off. 

It was only when I saw so many of these deer on this trip that I finally looked up the difference between antlers and horns.  Horns are more solid bone that grows a little each year, whereas antlers are made of a honeycomb of bone.  Antlers are shed each year, only to grow back the next year. 

Caught him mid-chew in this photo.  Pretty funny.  You can see the bright blood on the antlers, and the peeling "felt", in this one too. 

Cascade Canyon, which extends behind the area of Hidden Falls away from Jenny Lake along the bottom of a valley, was our first hike.  Even though it's a valley, it's around 7500' and there's over a thousand feet of elevation gain on the hike.  This photo was taken early in the morning, like around 7AM.  We had to get to the parking lots early for our hikes, as the park was pretty busy.  

The very early part of our hike up Cascade Canyon passed these falls, called Hidden Falls.  There weren't too many people there at that time of day.  By the time we were on our way back from the top of Cascade Canyon, this place was a mob scene, with crowds of people gathered all around, including some who had climbed up the lower part of the falls seen here.  

Part way up the valley, a woman coming down the trail from the head of the valley told us there was a bull moose near the trail up ahead.  We'd already seen one, but he'd been walking away from us, so we only saw his butt as he went into the bushes.  We were a little worried and excited to see what we would encounter ahead.  

As we hiked further up the trail, we saw two people stopped and staring at something we couldn't see.  It turned out to be this guy.  All of us knew we were way closer than we were supposed to be, but he had decided to camp out only fifteen feet from the hiking trail.  We finally decided to walk past him quietly, while pausing for a couple of photos along the way.  We were relieved he didn't seem too interested in us.  We couldn't have outrun him if he decided he was annoyed with us.  

 

On the way back down from the head of the valley. we came upon this young doe crossing the trail. 

Here is a typical view looking up Cascade Canyon - soaring rocky mountains on all sides, with a beautiful stream along the valley floor, fed by occasional long, thin waterfalls snaking down the canyon sides.  

And then we ran into a group of people murmuring about a bear just ahead on the trail. We couldn't see him at first, then we saw him leaving.  The only photos I could get were of his butt as he ambled away.

This is a panoramic view of Jenny Lake, with all of the main peaks in the background.  

 

The next day, we got up around 6:15 to do the hike to Amphitheater Lake.  The hike is quite demanding, at around 10 miles round trip, with a steady climb the entire time, ending up with a 3000' altitude gain.  There were other hikers around for the first hour or so of this hike, but most others turned onto a side trail to a lower lake, leaving us with more peace and quiet.  

In between two switchbacks of the trail, we saw this guy eating some of his favorite leaves.  We passed below him just before a switchback, and then passed just above him shortly after the switchback.  The felt is clearly visible on his antlers.  

The great thing about the Amphitheater Lake hike is that you get an extra lake thrown in with the deal, named Surprise Lake.  Shortly before arriving at Amphitheater Lake, you come to this lake, which is fed by a small outlet stream of the lake just above. We had this lake to ourselves most of the twenty or so minutes we spent there.  Two other couples came by, but didn't stay long.  We walked all the way to the low point you see in the photo - on the far side of the lake, and looked over the edge there, where this lake drains into a steep valley with cliffs on one side.  

Finally, after constant climbing for over two hours, we reached our destination.  This photo was taken by Jennifer.  I know because I'm visible in the lower right side, fiddling with my camera while sitting on a boulder.  This was an amazing view and we had it all to ourselves for a short time before a few others came through.  It was never even a little crowded though.  We sat on that boulder you see me on while we ate our lunch, watching the wind create ripples in the lake, and seeing mountain peaks all around.  That was a high point, physically and metaphorically.  I'll never forget it.  

Below is a closeup of the mountain in the top center of the panorama above.  That looks pretty tough to climb.  

Later that day, we took a drive and found this view of the Grand Tetons from the north looking south.  This was a surreal landscape, as there is normally a lake here, but it had receded by miles due to the severe multi-year drought the region has been suffering from.  The haze in the air comes from all the wildfires in Oregon, California, and other states.  Several people told us we were lucky, as the smoke has been so thick that there was no view of the mountains at all for days on end just before we arrived.  

The last day in the park, we drove over to Schwabacher Landing, which is a good place to see the mountains reflected in a small part of Snake River.  This is pretty far off the beaten track, so there weren't too many people there.  At first, there was really nothing to see but three real-life beaver dams blocking up the fifty foot-wide river.  We took a walk along the river to check out these beaver dams, and then turned around to go back to the car.  Just as I turned around, I saw a huge bull moose come walking out of the woods only fifteen feet in front of me.  

I was shocked, and I think he may have been surprised as well.  He looked at me, but then continued down to the water, which was right there, as we'd been walking along the water's edge. In the photo above, you can see one of the beaver dams in the background.  Those beavers are strong!  Look at the size of the logs they dragged onto the dam.  

Jennifer and I backed up and watched as he drank from the stream.  We couldn't get back to our car without passing right behind him, so we stayed and watched.  He stopped drinking and looked up at us every once in a while.  It was clear he knew we were there.  I was really nervous, since we had nowhere to run, as the water was only a foot deep and there was nothing but flat land with tall grasses behind us.  

As if one weren't enough of a shock, about two minutes later, another bull moose emerged from the same spot in the woods and joined the first in drinking from the river.  This was an amazing situation, as this was one of the few times we were the only people around while in the presence of huge wild animals.  It was thrilling.  

After they were both done drinking, the slightly smaller one faced off in front of the first one, then they lowered their horns and started pushing against each other for several minutes. They didn't make any noises, and the movements were always slow and careful, not fast or aggressive.  I still don't understand what they were thinking while doing all of this.   

Here's a short video of their contest.

Next on this trip, we got to see the springs and waterfalls of Yellowstone National Park.

Other times, we had some adventures with geysers and the Yellowstone Grand Canyon.