Upper Road

June 26, 2015, Friday.
The campground "Madison", Yellowstone National Park.
We woke up early in the morning, we heard a rustle next to our tent...
"Maybe, is it a bear"? - the wife asked...
We opened the tent and... saw peacefully grazing deer.

It quietly nibbled the grass in the morning fog and walked between the tents.

Today, we were going to continue the inspection of the park, moved along the upper loop of the survey road.
But first, we must look at what we did not see yesterday.
Therefore, we moved not on the upper loop, but on the lower loop, on the Grand Loop Road.

The Madison River flows next to the camping...

The Firehole River flows into it.

The river flows through the canyon, among the trees.
A review road - loop "Firehole Canyon Road" passes next to the river.
You can stop at the viewing area and look at the small waterfalls and even swim.

The forest was behind...

The Firehole River flows through the valley...

The steam from the geysers was ahead around the road...

We were approaching to the active thermal area of the park - "Lower Geyser Basin".

There are many geysers, pools with boiling water, mud baths.

The "Lower Geyser Basin" is located near the road.
The guys moved slowly, stopped at viewing areas and looked.

And suddenly, the traffic on the road stopped.
May be an accident?
No! It a herd of bisons crosses the road!

We stopped at the parking lot "Fountain Paint Pot" and went along wooden trails and bridges to the creations of nature.

This circular trail is called - the "Fountain Paint Pot Trail".

And an every geyser, a pool and a hot spring has its name.

A little bit ahead, near the Grand Loop Road, there is a survey road - loop "Firehole Lake Drive".

It very beautiful place next to Grand Loop Road was called "Whiskey Flat".

The landscapes around the road were bright and colorful...

We drove up to the thermal area of the park - the "Midway Geyser Basin".

It hot field is not very large, but very beautiful.
It is here that the Firehole River comes into contact with hot springs.

One of the hot springs is the "Excelsior Geyser".

Now, it's just a crater with hot water flowing into the river.

But it was the most powerful geyser in the world in the 80s of the XX century.
But something has changed and there are no eruptions now.
The 15000 - 17000 liters of hot water flow into the river every minute.

The water temperature is more than 90 degrees Celsius.

By the wooden trails, we went to watch another hot spring in the "Midway Geyser Basin".

It is a miracle of nature - the "Grand Prismatic Spring".

The "Grand Prismatic Spring" is the largest hot spring in Yellowstone and the third largest in the world.
Its diameter is about 90 meters, the depth is 49 meters, and the water temperature is 71 degrees Celsius.

Such bright colors are the result of the vital activity of bacteria.
So, the unmatched blue color of water is due to its purity and a depth of source.

The "Grand Prismatic Spring" is very similar to the blue pupil of the eye with an iris.

The farther away from the blue water, the colors become more faded and the brightness disappears.

Even before the trip, at home, I found an information that it is better to look to the "Grand Prismatic Spring" from the hill.
We went to the car and drove to look for this hill...

Here is the parking and the beginning of the route to the "Fairy Falls".
And nearby there is a hot pit with a water - the "Tire Poll".

We asked the oncoming tourist: "Where is the trail to the hill"?
- "There is no a trail, it is a wild nature."

A climbing up the mountain was difficult, but at the top - a beauty!

It is a pity, that grown spruce trees prevented made good photos...
We could not climb higher up the hill...

Tourists were down, near the hot spring...

And we were there recently...

I can not believe that there are such fabulous places in the world!

A descent from the hill was more difficult than a lifting...

We did not go to the waterfall "Fairy Falls", due to the lack of free time.
It's a trail - 4 km one way...
If you'll have time, you should look at the waterfall.
A waterfall "Fairy Falls" looks like it...

Well, we drove further by the Grand Loop Road, next to the Firehole River.

The parking lot was ahead, all packed with cars.
But we found an available place...

It was a geothermal field - the "Biscuit Basin".

The surface of the ground and the water really looks like a big biscuit cake.

Or maybe, the unknown artist was painting with a brush?

"Culprits" of this unearthly beauty are small microorganisms - bacteria.

In addition to "biscuit", there were also such formations, inside of which everything were boiling and bubbling...

And of course, there are springs with a pure blue hot water.

Visitors walk on wooden paths...

They admire the hot springs.

One such hot pool with crystal clear blue water is called the "Sapphire Pool".

The water in the "Sapphire Pool" is hot, 95 degrees Celsius.

You can also walk to the waterfall "Mystic Falls".
It is almost 2 km.

It is a cascading waterfall, its height is 21 meters.

At a distance of 1.5 km from the parking lot, there is an another amazing colorful geothermal source - the "Morning Glory Pool", 7 meters deep.
This hot spring belongs to the "Upper Geyser Basin", which is not far away.

But first, we decided to see the "Black Sand Basin"...

We dropped the car and went for a walk along the shore of a beautiful stream.

A water runs from hot springs into the stream...

And here are the geysers...

A green forest is around...

And the "Sunset Lake"!

We also were there and now we drove to the "Upper Geyser Basin".

The "Upper Geyser Basin" has the largest concentration of geysers in the world.
More than 250 geysers (almost a quarter of all the geysers on the planet) are on an area of about 2 square miles.
The largest and most famous are the "Old Faithful", the "Castle, the Daisy", the "Grand" and the "Riverside".

The geysers are interesting at the time of the eruption, but it does not happen often.
Therefore, this geothermal basin should be investigated slowly.
But tourists always have little time, they like to watch geysers which erupt regularly and are located nearby.

The most famous and popular geyser in the world - the "Old Faithful" meets these parameters.
The geyser erupts frequently and regularly and it is located next to the tourist village.

The eruption schedule is located in the information center.

Approximately, an one hour was until the next eruption and we decided to eat and to walk around the tourist center.

The eruption of the geyser is similar to the show, when the artist is alone, and there are a lot of viewers...

The our artist woke up...

The geyser was named "Old Faithful" in 1870.
It was the first geyser in the park, which got a name.

It erupts every 40 to 120 minutes.
The eruption runs from 3 to 10 minutes.

The hot water column, with a temperature of more than 90 degrees Celsius, rises to a height of 32 - 56 meters and the steam is even higher.
The geyser erupts from 14 to 32 cubic meters of water a per eruption.

Yes, it is the "Old Faithful Geiser"

Basically, we completed our plan to inspect the lower loop of the Grand Loop Road.
Next, the upper loop of the road.

We got into the car, turned around and drove without stopping in the direction of Norris Canyon Road.
And further to the "Canyon Village".
Then, we moved to the Tower / Roosevelt by the upper loop of the "Grand Loop Road", counterclockwise.

There were a lot of bisons on the road.

There are no geysers on the road from the "Canyon Village" to Tower / Roosevelt, but the nature is very beautiful.

Here is the viewing point - the "Washburn Hot Springs Overlook".
We were leaving the car and climbed the mountain Washburn.

And here is the "Dunraven Pass".

The trail rises to the mountain...

A sandy path passed through the forest, all up and up.

We were at the top of the mountain.
The beauty!

There were a lot of flowers!

The forest was at the down...

The Grand Loop Road, on which we arrived, was downstairs too.
What little cars were at the bottom...
We climbed high...

We took a few photos and went down to the car.

The Grand Loop Road ran through the forest, gradually rising up the hill.

We were driving near the tourist center - the "Tower Fall".
There, where the Tower Creek flows into the Yellowstone River, there is a waterfall...
The height of the waterfall "Tower Fall" is 40 meters.

And here is the north-eastern entrance to the park - the "Tower / Roosevelt".
The forest was behind, and the mountains - in front.
We were driving along the Grand Loop Road, which ran along the top of the "numeral 8".

Ahead, near the road was a viewing point.
The waterfall "Undine Falls" was seen very well from here.
The waterfall was cascading, 18 meters high.

And after another seven kilometers were the tourist center "Mammoth Hot Spring Village", the northern exit from the park, hot springs and famous terraces.

The "Mammoth Hot Springs" is a natural complex of hot springs.
A hot water evaporated in the sources for thousands of years, but a calcium (limestone) remained.
So, the limestone terraces (Travertine Terrace) were formed by a nature.
*Mammoth Hot Springs*

You can see these terraces directly from the wooden bridges.

In addition to terraces, there are such "monuments"...
It is the "Liberty Cap"!

There are two routes - trails for tourists: around the lower terraces (Lower Terraces Area) and around the upper terraces (Upper Terraces Loop Drive).

So, you walk along wooden trails and see the terraces and the surroundings.

At first, we could not remember that these terraces remind us.
But we remembered...
Of course, the limestone terraces in Pamukkale, in Turkey!

But there, the terraces were almost white, with a blue water.

But here the terraces were colorful.

Or maybe, is it from the sun?
The day had ended, it was getting dark and the sun painted the area in bright colors.

And we hurried to the campground.

But first we looked and checked the our plan...
OK...
On the road from the "Mammoth Hot Spring" to the "Norris Geyser Basin" there were almost no geysers and hot springs and we did not stop anywhere.

Not far from Norris Geyser Basin, we saw a "column" of steam next to the road.
What is it?
We stopped at the landing.

It is the "Roaring Mountain", which constantly "smokes".

We did not go to sleep for a long time in the familiar camping the "Madison Campground".
The two days in the Yellowstone National Park flew very quickly.
We liked the park very much and we loved it.
I wonder, are there still such places on the earth where there are so many interesting and varied things in a small territory.
A each US National Park is very interesting, but we saw so many different things only in the "Yellowstone".
Geysers, hot springs, limestone terraces, blue rivers and lakes, waterfalls, mountains and forests.
And all it - Yellowstone National Park!

But it was time for us to leave the realm of nature and to return to a civilization.
Our journey was continued...
We were ready to go to the city next to the salt lake - Salt Lake City!