Midway Geyser Basin

And now back to the blog after too long away (after I was posting so regular for a while a two week absence seems like forever!) A long, long time ago, in a state far, far away...  On June 10, after going through the Firehole Lake Drive we headed south inside Yellowstone as we continued to explore.  Next on the day's agenda was the Midway Geyser Basin.  This area includes some dramatic features and is appropriately enough located midway between the Lower and Upper Geyser Basins.  The image below is a picture I snapped of the official park map with my iPhone just now.  I really like these brochures, and they are great to collect from each park that you visit.  I store all of mine away in a file cabinet so that whenever we revisit an area I can pull out brochures and literature from our last visit to be better prepared.

From the parking lot we walked over a bridge (over the Firehole River I believe) and headed towards the thermal features up the hill.  Right next to the water though we could see plenty of hot water pouring down into the cold river.

The bridge seemed to almost disappear into clouds of steam/fog.  It was pretty neat, except for the fact that we couldn't see some things clearly later on.

I was surprised by the variety of life existing right near the features, like this beautiful thistle.

And then we walked past Excelsior Geyser, or rather the crater where the geyser used to exist.

In the 1880s Excelsior Geyser erupted in bursts 50 to 300 feet high.  The thermal violence formed the jagged crater and apparently ruptured the geyser's underground system, causing eruptions to cease after 1890. 

On September 14, 1985, Excelsior roared back to life with forty-seven hours of major eruptions.  It is impossible to predict when this dormant but powerful geyser's next eruption will occur.
--from NPS signage

The Turquoise Pool was next, and like many other features in the park it did have beautiful blue waters.  I think that while I did enjoy geysers, the amazing colors were one of the most beautiful things about Yellowstone.

After Turquoise came Opal, which really didn't look too much different, except that it was smaller.

The most amazing thing along the trail was supposed to be Grand Prismatic Spring.  The pictures I've seen are indeed beautiful, but the time we visited was very misty and the boardwalk is so low to the ground that you cannot get a good perspective shot.

At least Amy kept somewhat warm when she was surrounded by the steam.

When we came back around to the other side of Excelsior we could really see what a pit there was in the ground.

I couldn't get that many clear shots since the steam kept blowing around.

After walking back to the bridge I turned around and took some video of the water pouring into the river.


All of the above pictures (and more) are in this album: