Travels with
Lois and
Jason
Yellowstone
National Park:
A Grand Tour
June 27 -- July
6, 2013
- Amazing colors
- Wild flowers
- Hot springs
- Fumaroles
- Mudpots
- Geysers
- Rock formations
- Thermophiles
- Bison, bear, moose, elk
- Birds
- Super volcano
The words above summarize our Yellowstone adventure. We
traveled in a refurbished 1930s Yellow Touring Bus, capacity
nine
passengers, which gave us celebrity status as we cruised
throughout the
Park. We have never had our picture taken so many
times --
it was great fun!!!
Our trip was like visiting four different ecosystems, each
distinct in
character, features, sights and sounds, but all four intimately
tied to
the underlying super-volcano upon which they sit. Our
travels
with a
naturalist combined with our hours spent in the Education
Centers,
solidified much of our understanding of the powerful and awesome
forces
shaping this extremely diverse and incredible place. Our
itinerary
included two nights at each of the four major areas of the Park:
Mammoth, Old Faithful, Canyon and Lake/Valleys. Before we
visit
each
of these places, a couple of big Yellowstone ideas.
Some Yellowstone BIG Ideas
Yellowstone National Park is
situated
on a super-volcano. It is called super because the mouth
of the
volcano or caldera (the part that explodes) is an oval
approximately 30
miles by 45 miles. For comparison, Mount Saint Helens'
caldera is
1.2 miles by 1.8 miles. The Yellowstone volcano last
exploded
about 650,000 years ago, so everything inside the caldera is
relatively
young in terms of earth history. Following the last
eruption, the
caldera filled with lava, which cooled and created an
environment ready
for earthquakes and glaciers to carve and shape. But
under
all that lava is magma, which is the heat source for all those
geysers, fumaroles, hot springs and mudpots.
For Yellowstone National Park to be created required a
significant
change in the minds of the American people and legislators
regarding
the concept of "a wild place." Before the national park
was
created, the wilderness was viewed as a place full of danger:
animals
to be hunted, unknown territory, and mysterious
phenomena.
The Park's creation represented the complete opposite of these
ideas: the wilderness is a place of beauty, of wonders to
be
valued, studied and understood, of animals to be viewed with
pleasure,
appreciated and protected. We agree with writer and historian
Wallace
Stegner who called our national parks "the best idea we ever
had."
Mammoth Hot Springs
|
The travertine terraces
were like
looking at layers of lace: intricate yet simple,
complex yet elegant,
visually exciting.
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|
Here is an over-simplified
explanation of how the terraces are formed:
The terraces are created by boiling water seeping out of the
ground
carrying bits of dissolved calcium carbonate. The water
cools in
contact with the air and ground thus depositing the calcium
carbonate,
creating the terraces. Thermophiles (organisms that thrive
at
relatively high temperatures) give the terraces a range of
colors: white when the temperature is closer to boiling,
blues
and greens a little cooler, and yellows, oranges and browns when
the
temperature is in the lower 100s range. The gray and black
colors
represent dead thermophiles. We saw these same color
patterns throughout
the Park.
Old Faithful and the Geyser Basins
About 60% of the geysers, fumaroles, hot springs and mudpots in
the
world are located in Yellowstone, and we saw a large number of
them. We found the geysers fun to watch as they shot boiling
water into the air creating huge clouds of steam, but the hot
springs
which are full of colorful thermophiles were most
beautiful. Fumaroles (steam vents) with their hissing
and
mudpots that boil like soup with their gurgling bubbling gases
were
fascinating to watch, but the sulfur smelled like rotten eggs.
For the four different geothermal features, water from rain and
snow
seeps deep into the ground and becomes superheated by the
magma.
As the hot water works its way back to the surface, one of four
things
(greatly simplified) happens:
If the water comes out
without
any blockage,
it is a hot
spring.
|
If the water collects in a
pool
and then bursts out all at once,
it is a geyser.
|
|
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Emeral
Spring Hot Spring
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Old
Faithful
Geyser
|
|
|
If the water comes out so
slowly
that it boils
away faster than it can
be replenished,
it is a fumarole
or
steam vent. |
If there is very little water as it comes out,
it is a mudpot. |
|
|
a
fumerole
|
Sulfur
Culdron Mudpot
|
Geyers do not go off on a
set schedule,
although some like Old Faithful do go off regularly
enough that an
eruption interval has been determined. For Old
Faithful, for example, a 20
minute interval is given saying it should go off
between say 7:00 plus or minus 10 minutes, and it
ususally does.
For some geyers, the interval is 3 to 4 hours.
Some geyers are
totally unpredictable. We went to see Fountain
Geyer, which is
near Morning Geyer. Both went off
together. Our guide said
in his decades of coming to Yellowstone, this was the
first time he had
ever seen Morning Geyser errupt. I guess we were
extremely lucky
(and it's a great photo, too!)
|
|
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Fountain
and
Morning Geyers
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The Grand Canyon of
Yellowstone
The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone
is
the most beautiful canyon we have seen in all our travels.
The
Yellowstone River careens its way through beige and light yellow
canyon
sides streaked with reds, browns, and golds. The lookout
points
give
awesome views of the upper and lower falls and canyons from
different
perspectives.
An interesting geological
controversy
surrounds The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone: when was it
formed? Since
the last volcanic eruption of the Yellowstone volcano was
650,000 years
ago, the canyon has to be younger than that. The canyon
has very
steep
V-shaped sides indicating that it was cut by the Yellowstone
River and
not carved by a glacier. Usually water cuts very
slowly. For
example, it took ten-million years to cut the Grand Canyon in
Arizona.
So, how could water cut such a fantastic canyon in Yellowstone
in such
a short period of time? It was fun to hear the different
theories.
Maybe someday scientist will sort it out.
Yellowstone Lake
Yellowstone Lake is the largest fresh water lake above 7000 feet
elevation in North America. When we first arrived and
studied the
map of the Park, we were very confused by the fact that two large
arms
of the lake extended outside the Yellowstone volcanic
caldera.
This puzzle
was solved as we learned that these arms were fresh water fjords,
that
is, two large canyons cut by glaciers which extended into a body
of
water and then flooded. The lake has hot springs feeding
into its
bottom and more hot springs and mudpots along it shore, but it
still
freezes each winter.
|
During the
early
1900s people fished in the lake and then cooked their
trout in this hot
spring, as seen in picture to the right. Lois'
picture of Fishing
Cone Hot Spring shows the cone under water due to the
spring snow melt.
|
|
Fishing
Cone
Hot Spring
in Yellowstone Lake |
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Picture
taken from internet
|
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Lake
hike
trail
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Lake
Hotel
with wildflower front yard!
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Unfortunately we were introduced to a major ecological disaster at
the
lake. Cut-throat trout are natural to the lake and are a
major
food
source for bears and numerous birds. Tragically some years
ago
someone
put the larger lake trout natural to the Great Lakes into
Yellowstone
Lake, as it is better for sport fishing. This larger
invasive fish is killing off all the native cut-throat
trout.
Negative
impacts on the bears and birds have already been observed, and the
Park
Services is spending millions each year to try and eradicate the
lake
trout.
Wild Flowers
We were surprised and delighted by the large variety and colorful
nature of the wild flowers we saw throughout our trip. We
saw
fields and meadows covered in yellows, purples, pinks and
whites.
Along the roadside were individuals and clusters. Here are
a few examples.
Bisons, Bears, Elks and a Moose
Bison (sometimes called buffalo) were everywhere -- along the
roads,
resting near hot springs, roaming in large herds through the
valleys
and across rivers. We took many pictures of the bison.
Bears were more elusive, but we saw three (two
grizzly and one black) off in the distance, unfortunately too far
for a
picture. The one and only moose that we saw was
hidden amongst the trees. Elk had taken over
the lawn at Mammoth Hotel.
Elk
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|
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We also visited the expansive U-shaped (meaning glacially carved)
Lamar
Valley, where we heard of the success of reintroducing wolves to
Yellowstone (eradicated by man in the 1920s), saw massive
herds of bison (now with a count above 4000 after being reduced to
a
couple of hundred in the 1870s by massive slaughter), and saw the
non-native
mountain
goats (introduced by sport hunters at some point, but now seen as
a
benefit as they are helping the wolf population grow).
(Regrettably we
never
saw a wolf.)
Birds
Using a powerful telescope, our guide showed us Osprey nesting
high on
a rock column in the middle of the Yellowstone River in the Grand
Canyon, as well as a Golden Eagle in the distance. We could
see
White Pelicans, Canadian Snow Geese, and Ravens in
abundance.
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But
the
prize view was the Harlequin Ducks, a bird which
specializes in
white water rafting, living in the rapids (class 2 to
4) of the
Yellowstone River.
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Rainbows
Our trip could not have ended with a more spectacular view:
we
had
sunny hot weather all week and the last day was thunderstoms and
hail. But, the DOUBLE rainbow on the last night was an
incredible
treat:
Yes, a DOUBLE rainbow!
Lois and Jason Travel Logs
Frand Family Homepage
Photo
journalist: Lois Frand
Writer:
Jason Frand
Editor:
Lois Frand
You can
reach us via email at Jason
or Lois
July 10, 2013