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.