4 national parks in a week, 2nd stop Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming - Day 1 - Part 1

well it just took me a month to arrange and choose the best from my big photo album. I do go crazy with my camera when it come to beautiful scenery.Yellowstone one of the most popular and the 1st national park in the USA, It is absolutely amazing with it's one of a kind scenery of over 10,000 hot springs, geysers, mudpots and stemvents. There are just too many that i had to split 2 entries for the day 1. Day 1 we covered the south west park of Yellowstone, which is where all the great stuff are

From Grand Teton Village we drove up north thru the Grand Teton National Park.... take about 1 hour plus to the south entrance of Yellowstone

long queue just to take a photo of the sign....some even took a long nice 5 minutes just to take pictures...i kid you not

rate to enter Yellowstone

from the south entrance we drove up north toward West Thumb (Information station)

amazing view along the way

it's quite a drive from the south entrance to West Thumb, about 22 miles

Lewis River

Lewis Falls

West Thumb Information Station is a small building

from there we headed to Old Faithful ( another 17 miles) towards Madison (information station)

after a 20 minutes drive from West Thumb we reach Old Faithful our 1st stop. Though this place is huge but parking was a hassle

upon entering the visitor education center, there is a big glass window with a grand view of Old Faithful geyser. It was really cool

education center

there is a prediction time for the Old Faithful geyser, which erupts approx. every 94 Minutes

another geyser nearby erupts, most probably the Grand Geyser

while waiting for Old Faithful to erupts there was a ranger, telling the history of the place.

He said there was an incident that a man lost control of his dog who ran to the geyser and the owner jump in in order to save his dog and they both didn't made it....horrifying story and that is why dogs are not allowed on the boardwalk

*Yellowstone can be a beautiful heaven until someone got hurt and die and everything turns to a horrible nightmare, holiday is supposed to leave happy memories, Always make sure you follow the instructions when you visit nation parks....They are there to protect visitors and not to annoyed anyone. Pay attention and respect the national parks

accidents in Yellowstone ------> http://www.yellowstonepark.com/2007/01/cautionary-tale/

even chip stay on the boardwalk

Old faithful erupts

height 32-56 meters, temperature 95 Celsius with 3700 - 8400 gallons 

beautiful but you do not want to be near this geyser

it last about 5 minutes or less

time for lunch, we headed to the Old faithful Inn and bought a sandwich and  filled up our water bottle before continued to explore the area

beautiful interior of the inn

still in the Old faithful area

we walked starting from Old faithful and made it to Morning Glory Pool. There are walking path connecting to Upper Geyser Basin and Biscuit Basin

Chinese spring

the color is base on the temperature of the water and different temperature has different kind of microorganism and makes up different color in the spring

ranging from blue being the extremely hot and at times may exceed the boiling point (93Celsius)to brown , orange, yellow color (27Celsius) the cooler water, which is at the shallowest part of the pool

so this Blue Star Pool is extremely hot

beware this is Bison and Elk frequent site

Castle Geyser

eruption time

Shield Spring

Tortoise Shell Spring

heat loving microorganism near the spring

Crested Pool, although it is consider as a spring, sometimes it erupts like a geyser

very beautiful pool but has a horrific past

in 1970, a 9 year old boy accidentally tripped and fell, He swam several stokes and sank before his parents eyes, he was scalded to death in the 93 Celsius water

back then there was no guardrail

crossing the Firehole river

clean and clear water

South Scalloped Spring

Sawmill Geyser

Volcanic Spring

Spasmodic Geyser

Belgian Pool

most of the spring doesn't have a guardrail

Grand Geyser, the world tallest predictable geyser,

a full eruption can last 10 minutes and reach heights of 180ft or more

it erupts every 7- 15 hours, we only manage to see from afar

Economic Geyser 

Beauty Pool

close up

i really like the name..hehe

crossing Firehole river again

Oblong Geyser

Giant Geyser

it is said that when Giant Geyser is active, it's one of the biggest, eruptions soaring heights of 250-350 ft

Bijon Geyser, Catfish Geyser, Mastiff Geyser

viewing area

beautiful late summer day

walking towards Grotto Geyser

it was erupting when we were there, lasted quite long, it was still boiling when we finish visiting Morning Glory

Spa Geyser

some unknown Spring

Fan, Mortar, Spiteful Geyser

i mean who come up with all the names???

one of my favorite Morning Glory Pool, when the sun shinning down the pool is absolutely gorgeous with it's vivid colors

pool when the sun was blocked by the clouds

few decades ago the pool used to be blue color, Tourist have for decades been throwing coin in the Morning Glory Pool for luck,  thereby reducing its temperature and causing chemical reaction.

These have slowly worked it's way to the water;s edges, creating the yellow ring around the pure blue center that has turned green as a result

From Morning Glory, we walked back to the visitor center it was about 2km 

we were in the Upper Geyser Basin for about 3 hours

from there we headed to Biscuit Basin with our rental car.

My legs were quite sore at this point

~ to be continue ~