More strange beauty from our trip to Yellowstone.
When my family and I drove out of the Old Faithful parking lot, we knew where our next destination in Yellowstone would be that morning—just up the road a bit at a place called Grand Prismatic Spring. I had never heard the name before, but I had seen images of it. It looked like something otherworldly, something in a wasteland or on a distant planet. Strange and colorful and hot.
As we neared the turn-off, we saw a long line of cars parked on both sides of the road. We found a spot, pulled over, grabbed our hats and phones, and headed back toward the entrance. Several other families and couples parked around us. Then one couple came out of the woods to the side. “You’ve got to see this,” the woman said, pointing. “There’s a hot spring pool just behind those trees. It’s red.”
“Red?” I wondered. My husband, Mart, my daughter, and I decided to go check it out. We’d left the bear spray in the car, so I clapped and talked loudly while we walked toward the spring. In about 45 seconds, we came across what looked like the biggest bowl of steaming hot tomato soup I’ve ever seen.
The spring also reminded me of red Georgia clay, but this vat was in Yellowstone and it was steaming. If that couple hadn’t told us about it, we wouldn’t have seen it. No one else was there, and there was no sign marking it.
After the morning we had already had, I was beginning to understand that hydrothermal features like this are everywhere in Yellowstone.
We continued our walk toward the turn-off to Grand Prismatic Spring. The pool at the top of this post is off to the side on the way up to the overlook. After looking at some signs and maps, we realized that the overlook was a hike up the hill through the woods. The signs, like every other sign we had seen so far, contained warnings about bears and urged hikers to carry bear spray. Since ours was in the car about 10 minutes away, we made the difficult decision not to hike the overlook but instead to go to the boardwalk area and see the spring from ground level.
A short drive later, we stopped at the observation area at Midway Geyser Basin. After parking on the street again, we made our way down to a river called Firehole. With a name like that, we figured we were in the right place.
In the distance in the photo above, you can see that the rocks are yellowed and steam is rising up from them. Hot water from the hydrothermal features above it run down the rock into the river.
We walked up the hill on the boardwalk, along with a handful of other people, and this is what we saw first.
The Excelsior Geyser Crater. At 200 x 300 ft, this sends more than 4000 gallons of water per minute down the hill into Firehole River. You can easily see the crater around it. Although the geyser itself is dormant now, it’s still quite the steamer. Check out the aerial view here.
We continued walking and again saw signs here, just as at Old Faithful, that said we should stay on the boardwalk at all times. I had no desire to leave it anyway and with good reason: the hydrothermal water can cause severe burns, and the ground is hot, too.
In addition, microscopic organisms called thermophiles live around these features in clusters. Their clusters make masses of colors on the ground. According to the National Park Service website, colorless and yellow thermophiles grow in the hottest water, whereas orange, brown, and green grow in cooler waters.
Why am I give you these details? Because as we approached the biggest feature in this basin, the Grand Prismatic Spring, we could see evidence of those organisms in, well, living color.
It was so fascinating—science come to life in a new way in front of my eyes. We and about two dozen other people took photo after photo of the same viewpoints because it was all so stunning and strange.
And as amazing as the Spring is up close like this, overhead it is spectacular. Check it out here.
While we continued on the boardwalk, we struck up a conversation with a young woman with Down syndrome and her parents. Turns out, the young woman and our daughter share the same name. We talked for several minutes as we walked along, and her father told us about a feature we couldn’t miss. Called the Fountain Paint Pots, that one was on the top of our list for the next day.
Next, we saw Opal Pool. This was one of my favorite sights, because the water is clear and turquoise, and the pool looks bottomless. Opal Pool is considered a fountain-type geyser and the largest active geyser in Yellowstone. Its eruption—one huge burst—is sudden and unpredictable. I’m very glad it was calm and predictable when we were standing in front of it.
Saying goodbye to our new friends, we headed back toward our car, each of us thinking about all that we had just seen. With the bright sunshine, hot August temperature, and billows of steam everywhere I looked, I really, really wanted a big drink of ice-cold water.
More wonders from Yellowstone in my next blog post. If you missed the earlier posts, you can see them here and here.
At Glimsen, I share glimpses of the beauty around us in nature, the arts, and the unexpected. Click the green button below to get my posts delivered to your inbox once a week, and you'll also get a little printable gift of beauty just for signing up.
