Phot-o' the Day: Grotto Geyser; Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming USA

Yellowstone in artsy black and white.

Grotto Geyser was particularly steamy at the time. This is in the Upper Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park, near the most famous geyser in the history of geyser-dom, Old Faithful.

Visited September 2019. Y'know, if everything is still in lockdown this fall, and international travel is out of the question, and Hawaii (which I only want to visit so I will have been to all 50 of the states of the USA) is still doing the eternal-quarantine thing, so I'm only left with Mainland USA travel options, a return trip to Yellowstone probably would be my choice. It took me 59 years to finally get here and I have no excuse for what took me so long. It is unlike anyplace on planet earth.

Until the super-volcano underneath it all blows.

Last Day at Yellowstone: Biscuit Basin and Lower Geyser Basin

Sapphire Pool is the star attraction at Biscuit Basin

On my third and final day within Yellowstone, I am picking up the sights that were missed on the southwestern segment of the Figure 8 driving loop within the park.  Next stop:  Biscuit Basin.

To get there, you have to cross the Firehole River, the river that meanders alongside Old Faithful.

First attraction:  the Black Opal Spring:

Then the Black Diamond Pool:

And this little rivulet coming from the Black Diamond Pool deserves its own theme music.

The walking loop at Biscuit Basin is only a half of a mile.  Here is the Sapphire Pool.  Digital photography from my small camera does not do justice to the deep sapphire blue of the pool's water:

There was a stain in the corner:

This was a sad sight:

Shell Spring.  Apparently corporate sponsorship has come to the national park system.  And named for an oil company no less!

Moving along:

And this too apparently has a corporate sponsor:

Mustard Spring.  Sponsored by America's third favorite condiment (after ketchup and mayonnaise).

I am kidding about the corporate sponsorship thing.  Next stop:  Midway Geyser Basin brought to you by General Motors.  Just kidding.  Unfortunately, Midway Geyser Basin might as well have been sponsored by a car company as there was a traffic jam to get in.  First time in Yellowstone I saw overwhelming crowds.  I skipped it.  I will save the most photographed sight in Yellowstone, the giant Grand Prismatic Spring, for the next trip.  On to the Lower Geyser Basin:

This is the Celestine Pool, so named because of the sky blue color.  Someone had to dig deep to come up with words for "blue" to name all the pools of water in the geyser basin.

This is Silex Spring.  Corporate sponsorship by half of Proctor Silex Company.  It would make sense for the maker of toasters to sponsor hot springs, but in actuality "silex" is a synonym for silica.

Next up, what was supposed to be the star attraction of Lower Geyser Basin:

Fountain Paint Pots.

Lower Geyser Basin is quite impressive.  Fountain Paint Pots?  Not so much.

Fumarole:

Next up:  Spasm Geyser:

And it was having a spasm!

I got there just in time for the unscheduled show:

Not all of the geysers go off like clockwork.  In fact, only one does, which is why it is world famous.

And once more past the Celestine Pool.

One last planned stop before checking out of Yellowstone:  Artist's Paint Pots.

Yellowstone Stinks: Upper Geyser Basin Walk

The walk to Grotto Geyser. It was especially stinky

After the Old Faithful show, it was time to stroll around the Upper Geyser Basin.  This is the landscape that really lets you know that you are sitting on top of an active super-volcano with molten lava churning below your feet.

The first pool looked innocuous enough, the Blue Star Spring.  Very blue, indeed.

This bubbling caldron, however, looked less inviting.  Unless you brought some hot dogs, or maybe spaghetti.  Then the water was perfect for cooking,

You can see the aptly-named Firehole River in these pictures.  This feature was more of a pustule on the face of earth:

Looking out over the Upper Geyser Basin:

This is the Beehive Geyser, with its nice, clean beehive shape:

It erupts at very irregular and unpredictable intervals, so it's not a star attraction.  Apparently, however, when it does erupt, it is spectacular.

This is the sadly-named Depression Geyser:

So many other geysers get really cool name.  How sad to be the one that gets named for a psychological malady.

This is the Heart Spring.

So named because it is in the shape of a heart.  If you use your imagination.  And you really have to use some imagination to figure out why this is the Lion Group of Geysers:

Here is an awesome one.  Spasmodic Geyser.  I don't know if this counts as a full bore eruption, but it was fun to watch:

I'm not sure of the name of this one, but, again, wandering out here you really do get the sense that the landscape is not of this earth:

On to the Grand Geyser:

When you see dead trees in the background in Yellowstone, especially within the caldera, it does not necessarily mean a disease or a fire.  Often, it just means that the magma underneath shifted, usually from some earthquake, and suddenly the ground got a lot warmer where that tree had been comfortably standing before.
 

In other words, those trees are probably cooked.  Grand Geyser does have a few benches for viewing its eruptions, but it's nothing like Old Faithful.  Its eruptions are somewhat regularly, but they're usually within a window of hours, not minutes, like Old Faithful.

And people are content to just watch the show.  No one (except me) viewing it only through the camera.

Water drainage from the eruption:

Colorful pool:

This is Giant Geyser:

Not sure why this one is called "Giant."  Perhaps marketing.  Old Faithful looked more "giant" if you ask me.

Giant Geyser erupted earlier in 2019.  The frequency is way insufficient to sit around waiting for the new spout.

Giant may refer to the height of that cone.  All those mineral deposits from the eruptions leave a trace.

And now we come to the geyser that caused me to observe "Yellowstone stinks":

Grotto Geyser.  You can smell the sulphur all throughout Upper Geyser Basin (and many many other areas of the park).  But the steam emanating from Grotto Geyser was particularly thick with the sulphurous stench:

And the hour and one-half loop walk is done.  Just in time to miss the next scheduled explosion of Old Faithful.

Back to the hotel, which is along the shores of Lake Yellowstone.  Lake Yellowstone is the highest altitude lake in North America.  Higher than Tahoe!  It sits in the caldera.

It's huge.  I'm staying at the historic Lake Yellowstone.

It was a clear night so I got up in the middle of it to go out and see the stars.  Oh.  My.  Gawd.  I have never seen a night sky so thick with stars in my life.  The Milky Way was very visible.  No pictures because no pictures could do it justice.  But the stars in the night sky is definitely one of the pluses of being far away from the lights of the nighttime.

Another Item Crossed Off My "Before They Chop My Feet Off" List

Old Faithful. It's what everybody who is here is here for.

I've arrived at my destination:

Yellowstone National Park.  Another item crossed off my list.  I've never liked the term "bucket list."  It seemed too final.  Do everything on it and it's time to kick the bucket?  No.  Thank.  You.

I'm overweight and I need to get my blood sugar under control, because if I don't, I'll get diabetes, and you know what happens when you get diabetes?  They chop your feet off.  So before they chop my feet off, there's a whole lot of world to see.  Yellowstone is particularly weird part of it.

So I'm getting to see Yellowstone before they chop my feet off.  I entered Yellowstone from the south and the scenery was immediately spectacular.

Pictures do not do the scenery justice.  And scenery such as the above is going to look ho-hum and pedestrian when you've got mud volcanoes and more fumaroles than you can shake a dozen-dozen sticks at.  And geysers.  The place is lousy with geysers.

Take Kepler Cascades.

It's a perfectly nice little cataract set within beautiful forest.

And no one knows about because it doesn't spurt 100 feet in the air at regular intervals.  Speaking of which ...

My first destination for one of the mega-star attractions of Yellowstone is Old Faithful.  They even announce (in multiple locations!) the scheduled time for the next spurt.

I got there about an hour before the next schedule eruption.  So let's check out the visitor center:

The Visitor Center even has a viewing area, so you can view the regularly-scheduled eruptions protected from the elements.

And there was time to check out the Old Faithful Inn:

This is one of the two historic old railroad robber-baron era "luxury" hotels built for guests at Yellowstone.  Does the interior look vaguely familiar?

Disney copied the look in large part for the national park-themed Wilderness Lodge hotel in the DisneyWorld in Orlando.

Time's up.  Old Faithful is ready to blow:

He was a little late.  Old Faithful is scheduled to erupt every 90 minutes.  He was five minutes late.  And when Old Faithful blows, what does the crowd do?

Takes pictures!  No one just watches the eruption.  What fun is that?  Pictures or it didn't happen, as the kids would say.

And Old Faithful just kept spouting for several minutes.

And everybody is still taking pictures:

OK.  Me included.

The show ended after several minutes.  Next show in 90 minutes, give or take 10 minutes as the sign did say.  The crowd dispersed.  As did the water that Old Faithful shot into the air.

It had to go somewhere.  This is the part of the park called "Upper Geyser Basin,"  It is named for the fact that it is a basin that has geysers, and it's above both Lower Geyser Basin and Midway Geyser Basin.

Let's take a walking tour of Upper Geyser Basin.  On the next episode of "Crossing Things Off My Before They Chop My Feet Off" list.