Yellowstone National Park, Day 1

It’s not hard to take good pictures of Yellowstone...everything is beautiful. The problem arises when you take so many photos, you can’t decide which ones to share.

First stop is the West Thumb Geyser Basin at the edge of Yellowstone Lake. Here a raised wooden walkway takes you through a steaming lakeshore of thermal pools and small geysers.

Each major pool has its own name, like Bluebell Pool,

Black Pool, which looks blue to me,

and Abyss Pool which I surmise is very deep.

Then there are a series of lesser, unnamed pools...

You walk along the lakeshore

which has this mini hot tub...too hot, I think,

and various driftwood & downed trees.

Next it was on to the famous Old Faithful, mother of all the geysers here. We arrived just in time for it’s scheduled eruption....about once every hour. The crowd was assembled with cameras in hand:

There were many false starts,

And finally the big event.

I wonder if the bison like the warm ground around the geyser.

Right next to Old Faithful is the historic Inn which celebrated its 100th anniversary when I was here in 2004.

Inside looking up

The 4 sided fireplace

The view of Old Faithful from the deck of the Inn

The park ranger was kept busy stopping people from going too close.

Perhaps this is how Yellowstone got its name? There are beautiful colors throughout the park as you will see.

Where thermal waters flow into the cold river.

Various algae and bacteria cause some of the colors.

The water’s flow creates colorful patterns

The Grand Prismatic Spring is my personal favorite

Flowers blooming in this harsh environment

Many more geysers...

Many more bison

The babies are cute

Many waterfalls

Want to watch & listen? Click the video:

A place to swim...

No one pays any attention to the signs when an animal is sighted.

This traffic jam was caused by an elk sighting

Elk crossing the river

Artist Paint Pots...from above

Up close

Artists Paint Pots: click on the video

Campgrounds were full so we drove out the north entrance and boondocked with some others in MT on National Forest land.

Day 2 coming up next....grizzly bears, oh my