beauty pool geek-out (not to be confused with beauty school drop-out)

the old faithful area is just such a unique topography.  this land is currently (remember, it is all moving gradually towards southern Montana) on top of a 'hot spot' of geothermal activity.  a place where the crust is inexplicably thin & the molten parts of our inner earth are able to get pretty darn close to the surface.  this totally heats up the ground water and, eventually, that water (or the steam from it) makes it through the rocky 'plumbing' (as the rangers liked to refer to it) &, voila', a geyser!  or a steam vent!  or a mudpot!  or a beautiful, otherwordly pool of blue-green gorgeousness.  but if this place ever completely blows....well, don't live your life worrying about that.

 

on a few of the geysers, there are signs to predict when it might next erupt.

mostly, except for Old Faithful, you just took your chances

& didn't spend your time waiting around.

as you can see, you could wait for hours.

the view from our window was similar to this one below, although we couldn't see the river.  we could see steam vents, which, if not Mars, surely at least lends itself to feeling as if you are Kirk & Spock, suddenly transported down onto a foreign planet's surface for reconnaissance or an alien contact mission.

Firehole River

more geyser predictions.  the trees are white from silica.

geyser run-off

i really just couldn't get enough of these.  they were each so beautiful & unique.

even flowers grow in this silica-rich & steamy hot ecosystem!

 

 i imagine these pools would be much better viewed from a bird's view,

but we did our best.

 the end destination of this stroll was Morning Glory Pool.

it did not disappoint!

at this point, we headed back towards dinner at the general store.  we had heard that a mother grizzly and her cub had been seen in the area within the last couple of days, so we were slightly distracted by this news.  keeping the youngest teenager with us proved to be a challenge, as he was in great need of expending some energy.  as such, he was soon nowhere to be found.  which, with the bear & all, made us a little nervous.  probably unnecessarily so, but we didn't have the perspective of Glacier Park yet to put true bear-scare in its place.  all turned out well, but it sent us parents into a bit of a tizzy & scouting separate routes back to the lodge trying to locate him.  his older brother finally spied him from a distance, still at a jog, almost at our dinner destination.  after we saw that he was safe, i resumed my photography at a more leisurely pace.

this was, perhaps, the strangest rock formation i saw.  it looks like the underbelly of a starfish.  or an anemone.

we were surprised to see an elk so close to lots of human activity!

 

so the story on this one is that there was an actual laundry service here at one point.  currently, that is illegal.

 

i had heard this was a misnomer, but perhaps not.

i believe this is a female western bluebird.

it was another gray, drizzly (though not too bad) day when we drove up to Mammoth Hot Springs.  i really, really, really wanted to see the Grand Prismatic Spring.  we had considered doing a hike up to Fairy Falls, which apparently provides a trail spur to a great overlook of this spring, but just ran out of oompf & time (probably more the former than the latter, if i'm honest).  so, we stopped that morning to catch a glimpse.

of fog

 there were all these tourists, from all over the world, taking pictures of fog.

only the briefest of peeks of the spring, then more steamy, stinky fog

would roll towards your camera and envelop you.

i decided to find it amusing rather than disappointing.

this was not Grand Prismatic - but was nearby.

near the Firehole River on the bridge leading to the Midway Geyser Basin & Grand Prismatic Spring.

photo by Mike.  almost looks like ocean spray!

hope you die-hard geyser fans enjoyed this!

after a flower post (you know me...),

the next little while is all about the animals.