In front of stuff

Here are a collection of group portraits from across the park

Nickersons, Damien, Amanda and Zach at Artist's Point (Waterfall)

Morgan, Damien, Amanda, Zach, and the Nickersons at the top of the waterfall (just before the downpour)

Group portrait from the Badger Creek hike trail

...on which only some of us were prepared to climb through the wildflowers

Amanda at Grand Prismatic Spring

Amanda, Morgan, and Martha at Grand Prismatic Spring

Morgan, Martha, and Amanda on the Fairy Falls hike (above Grand Prismatic)

A puzzled Morgan

Damien, Amanda, Morgan, and Martha in front of Castle Geyser

Everyone in their usual holiday activity during the Lost Lake hike (where is the lake? Lost, of course!)

So long, Yellowstone

Saying farewell at the Northern Gate:

Ignore my shadow

Mammoth Hot Springs

Early morning at Mammoth Hot Springs

On our last morning in Yellowstone Morgan, Martha, Amanda and myself went to look at Mammoth Hot Springs. We had put off doing Mammoth because it was the closest part of the park to Gardiner, where we were staying, but we never had the energy to at the end of the day.

Water collecting in the limestone pools

Geothermally warmed water steaming off in the morning

Grand Prismatic Spring

One of the most famous locations in Yellowstone (probably second to Old Faithful) is the Grand Prismatic Spring. The bast pictures of it are taken from above such as this one (not by me).  Note the scale of the people on the diagram.

There is a boardwalk that goes almost to the edge of the lake / spring, but it is so enormous that you cannot really take the whole thing in. For the New Zealand audience, the Grand Prismatic Spring (GPS) is similar to the Champagne Springs in Rotorua. Amanda in front of the GPS (on the boardwalk)

The bacteria on the outside of the GPS (my guess is that these are slight valleys, and have water for the bacteria when the pool contains more water / paths for runoff (from the boardwalk)

The different colors are from different bacteria, which have different temperatures in which they thrive. The red bacteria survive in the coolest temperatures, with yellow, then green, then blue thriving at successively higher temperatures. I found it curious that the colors map to the energies of photons in the electromagnetic spectrum fairly well -- that is, red is the least energetic to blue which is the most energetic. As far as I know, unlike stars, there is no reason for this to be the case -- it is just a coincidence (after all, we do not tell anything about the temperature of plants from their colors).

The pool is heated from the center, and as it touches the (cooler) land on the outside the temperature changes.  The colors from the bacteria serve as an indirect way to measure the temperature. As bacteria live in a reasonably board range of temperatures the "thermometer" is not particularly precise! Still, this is a good model for my PDE students: the GPS color profile is approximately a steady state solution of the heat equation.

There is a hill to the south of the GPS which allows an elevated view. On our second trip to the GPS we decided to venture up it. The trail is called the Fairy Falls Trail, but we were completely unable to find the eponymous falls. If you plan to do this trail yourself, be warned that the trail is actually quite difficult to find. The hill has many (unlabeled) routes leading up it, and we selected one more or less at random to get the view we were after.

From the fairy falls trail looking over to the GPS: note the reflection off the mist

The GPS as seen from above (on the fairy falls trail). See people for scale.

Wildlife in Yellowstone (Bison and more!)

Elk at Mammoth

While in Yellowstone we saw a lot of wildlife. Almost all the wildlife we saw were elk, followed by bison. We saw other animals as well, but they were a lot more rare.

Poking my tongue out

This bison ended crossing the road to check us out. We clambered into the Prius as this he made his way over.

Angry bison

On our last day out, we saw a group of Bighorn Sheep by North Gate. We found out that they are there almost everyday around sunset.

We also have some (not-so-good) pictures of bear with her cubs, and foxes. The bears are quite difficult to spot, as they show up in the Northern half of the park rather than being concentrated in specific areas.

Bead with cub ("bear"-ly visible). 

Bear popping up to say hello (Mother from previous picture). Amazing focus on the trees in the background =(

The fox didn't say anything.

Random landscapes from Yellowstone

Hayden Valley 

Other side of Hayden Valley

Overlooking the area by Tower Falls 

Our Toyota commercial shoot

Artist's point

We were quite tired by the time we came onto Artist's point, and the clouds were threatening to unleash the fury of the rain and wind upon us. We had been promised that somewhere along the road leading to Artist's point, there was a dead bison on the side of the road, and it was with the hope of finding some a wolf or bear preying on the carcass that we set off to Artist's point rather than calling it a day and heading home.

As to not keep you in suspense: we did not find the bison that day. Or any other day for that matter. We really were not sure what to expect at Artist's point, as we had not done our research ahead of time and the name is not particularly enlightening. We expected a view of something, but of what we had no idea.

We were impressed when we came across the waterfalls. The eagle-eyed amongst you may note the people as small dots on the upper right hand side of the falls:

Artist point: outlook #1

Artist Point: outlook #2

We had a quick group portrait taken at Artist's point. Sadly we cannot see much of the canyon; this was a very crowded place and we were lucky to get the picture that we did.

Group portrait @ Artist's Point (also appears in blog entry "In Front of Stuff")

The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed people in the distance at the top right of the waterfall. As a group we decided that we would try and make it there. The park map made it relatively easy: the name "Edge of Upper Falls" (there are actually two falls in the picture, although the upper one is so large that it hides the second one) made it clear where we should go.

Upper Falls edge: as the rain and hail come down (also appears in blog entry "In Front of Stuff")

You can tell we are in our rain gear now: a couple of minutes after we took this picture the rain (and hail) belted down on us, soaking us through. We were actually somewhat relieved, as we were able to head back home after a very full day in the park without anyone feeling as if they were spoiling it for everyone else.