We were planning for this yellowstone trip for so long. Since we were staying at Oregon for an year, and never were able to make it to Yellowstone it was a real regret all this while. But this time everything got lined up so good, and we were off to Yellowstone within a week.
Yellowstone park sits on top of the super volcano which fuels the whole Yellowstone. Millions of years ago when there were super volcanic eruptions, the land of yellowstone got 'caved in'. Which means it doesnt have any support under the powdered fragile soil which you see at the park. Just directly below it lies the Molten magma at the earth's mantle and some hot-boiling water source. This is why you are NEVER supposed to leave the marked trails in yellowstone. It might look like a normal land, where you can walk, but we will never know what is just once centimeter below it.
We flew to Bozeman airport on 07/28/2016 and spent the night near to the airport. Next day early morning by 6'AM we hit the road and started driving to Yellowstone national park. Our plan was to cover the north loop on day1 and the south loop in day2. We reached at the north entrance by 8:30 in the morning.
From the entrance we directly went to Mammoth hotspring terraces. Mammoth terraces are almost 2.8 mile hike which can be accessed from the upper terrace drive or lower terraced drive. We parked our car at liberty cap and started exploring. Liberty cap is a 37 ft high cone shaped dormant hot spring.
We continued on the trail to Palatte Springs. When you get here you would be amazed by mother nature's architectural skills, and the intensity of the thermal activities. This beautiful terraces are formed by calcium carbonate, which is deposited from the hot springs.
The top of the palette Spring.
The trail passed through so many other thermal features like Minarva Spring,Jupitor Terrace. When you work your way up, you will reach the overlook, which rewards you with the views of all the thermal activities in the mammoth area.
After we were done with the overlook point, we hiked back to liberty cap and got into our car. We stopped at the starting of the upper terrace drive to explore Canary Spring. It is a never to be missed feature, hot spring flowing as a small waterfall.
After this, we took the upper terrace drive where you drive around other thermal features of the park. The drive was beautiful with some great views of the mountains too.
After upper terrace drive we drove to Norris geyser area. We passed through Swan lake area, which was a elegant with beautiful mountains surrounding it. We had our lunch at this spot.
We took as many pictures as we could throughout our trip, and I am so glad we did it.Life time of memories.
After enjoying the lake we continued our drive to Norris geyser basin. This is a high thermal activity area, you get to see eruptions and boiling pools. The complete loop is another 2 miles which includes back basin and porcelain basin. In my opinion both these areas are really do not be missed areas. We started with the back basin trail. The first thermal feature you see would be emarald pool. This was the first pool i saw in the park, and i was taken away. The turquoise blue color and bubbling water was a memorable sight. If its windy when you visit, you get blown by the hot steam from the pool too, which I am not sure if I enjoyed so much :D, I was thinking it might be bad for me because of the sulpher content in it.
From there we hiked to watch steamboat geyser. It is the world's tallest geyser. When it erupts it erupts upto 300ft!, but it does so very rare. I witnessed minor eruptions there, this was the first geyser eruption i witnessed.
Another geyser at back basin:Vexin geyser
After exploring the backbasin we started off to porcelain basin. The name is aptly given to this area, you look at porcelain like run off from geysers. Beautiful colors and all around you and you walk just through it (through the trail). What would be under this area is a pretty scary thought though!
After porcelain geyser we headed off to Artistic paint pots. It was a 1.1 mile loop with an elevation change. You climb up the hill and and descend. May be we were already tired, or it was the heat, but anyways this is the one area of the park which i thought didnt worth the hike. View from the top of the hill. You pass through milky blue pools, hotsprings, mud volcanos..etc
After exploring this area we drove to Grand Canyon of Yellowstone national park. This is altogether a different experience than the rest of the day. You explore the rock formations and the waterfall. The first stop we made was to hike to the brink of lower falls. It was a 3/4 mile loop with a steep elevation change of 600ft. The trail is mostly switch backs to support the elevation change and at times you will get tempted to go through the short cuts. But you miss a step, you might end up just on top of the waterfall which plunges into a 300ft deep rock cavities. Once you get to the falls, it feels awesome. You can feel the mist on your face, you listen to the roaring of the waterfall, you get to watch beautiful rainbow on the canyons, and the peaceful yellowstone river that follows.
You would be standing right on top of the massive waterfall. You can look down and enjoy the transformation of the gigantic waterfall into thick mist. For me since I am scared of heights I just glanced at it for twice or thrice, and sat back and enjoyed the place.
The climb up was real tough. We had to stop once and sit for catching breaths. But the view from the falls worth it all. After this hike, we were really tired and we didnt want to do anymore hikes for the day. We had snacks and drove to Overlook point to view the lower falls from a different angle.
From there we drove to Artist point, which also overlooks the lower falls at another angle. If you go in the morning by around 9:40AM, you get to see rainbows. When we reached there, we saw the falls in a beautiful light settings (if you look closely you would see just the bottom of the falls is illuminated) and we enjoyed the view for quite some time. This was the last stop in our agenda for the day.
We watched the rock formations and it proved why the park is named after its yellow stones!
After exploring the artist point we drove through Haiden valley where we watched a bear, elk, bald eagle and many bisons. We were so lucky we could stay inside the park, so that we could stay back longer at the valleys watching the wild life. That is another important thing while visiting yellowstone. You should definitely try to stay inside the park, it gives you time and keeps you off the long drive to enter and exit the park.
This marked the end of our day 1. It was a real long day for us, we started by by 6AM and ended the day by 9:30PM. We watched sunset over Yellowstone lake and checked into our cottage.
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