Yellowstone Adventure: Geyser Basins

Wednesday and Thursday are my days off so I try to pack a lot into those two days each week.  I've been wanting to visit some of the geyser basins so I knew I needed to get up early in order to be able to find a parking spot.

The first stop was Midway Geyser Basin which is the home of the Excelsior Geyser and Grand Prismatic Spring.

This is Excelsior Geyser.  I love the colors and the flow down into Firehole River.

Excelsior last erupted in 1880, unless you count a short eruption in 1985 that lasted a few days.  It has been quiet since then.

I was lucky to have a bright blue sky for my shots.  The sun was trying to peek through all that steam.
 

 

Then it was onto Grand Prismatic.  My camera does not do justice the colors in this pool.  The water is a beautiful turquoise.  This is the largest geothermal pool in Yellowstone.

 

Here's a vies of Excelsior from across the boardwalk.

 

My next stop was Biscuit Basin which has its own kind of features.

Then it was onto Black Sand Basin.  There were several geysers here that were kind of enough to erupt while I was visiting.

 Another beautiful pool.

When you look out across the valley floor all you see is steam rising. 

This area is something very special and to think of all the heat and turmoil that is going on beneath the ground.  There has been a lot of seismic activity in the western side of the park this summer which is absolutely normal.  Yellowstone has about 3,000 earthquakes per year.  I've heard that if she ever decides to blow again that it will take out about half of the U.S.