These are some shots from the beautiful Hayden Valley through which the Yellowstone River winds her way towards Yellowstone Lake. I promised to pick it up from here 2 weeks ago on our first trip into the park so here we go!

These 3 white pelicans were looking for some dinner. I read somewhere they actually 'hunt' in groups so as to round up the fish and get a better chance of catching one.

Their wingspan is about 8'! Wow!

Somehow I didn't think I would see pelicans in Yellowstone?

A little down the road we came across a few more 'bubbling cauldrons'. It's like Halloween here all the time!

I got a kick out of this 'Dracon's Mouth'. It really looked and sounded there was a dragon, or something like it, coming out of that cave (on the right)!

Yellowstone National Park contains at least 45 named waterfalls and cascades, and hundreds more unnamed.

 

This is one of them:

There's a lot of water from the melting snow and ice fields coming down the rivers right now which makes for nice big falls.

Here's another one:

The 'Central Plateau'

OK, I'm up to speed now, more or less, with the current time and the next pictures are from our second trip in the park during which we 'did' part of the upper loop.

We weren't able to do the full loop since the Dunraven Pass (8859') was still being plowed.

We are very fortunate to be able to pick nice days to do these trips! Since James works by himself he is allowed to swap any day for another which allowed us to go on an absolutely gorgeous Wednesday instead of having to go in the rather nasty weekend!

Our first stop were the 'Artists Paintpots',  a group of over 50 springs, geysers, vents and especially colorful mud pots. 

They are varying in shades of blue, grey and brown, and have a range of different textures. An easy 0.6 mile loop trail winds  through partly wooded land, mostly level apart from a short climb and descent across the hillside from which you can overlook the basin.

I love to watch the bubbling mud-pots.

  

This little fella, a Uinta Chipmunk, was obviously used to people, he walked along the path with us for quite a while.

Next stop: Norris Geyser Basin.
This is one of the hottest and most dynamic of Yellowstone's hydrothermal areas.
It is divided in two sections: The Black basin and the Porcelain basin.
The black basin is a longer hike and more forested and houses the largest geyser in Yellowstone, the Steamboat geyser. Unfortunately it is also the most unpredictable and rare to erupt. The last big one was in 2003.
We decided to leave this section for a next time and look at the Porcelain Basin which has a shorter boardwalk around it's area.

This basin is characterized by a lack of vegetation. No plants can live in the hot, acidic, water that comes from the numerous thermal features in the basin.
It's a rather desolate view which is unlike any of the other geyser basins in the park.





Unlike most of other geyser basins in the park the waters from Norris are acidic rather than alkaline. The difference in pH allows for a different class of bacterial thermophiles to live at Norris, creating different color patterns in and around the Norris Basin waters.

Thermophiles (heat-loving microorganisms) create tapestries of color where hot water flows among the terraces. Colorless and yellow thermophiles grow in the hottest water; orange, brown, and green thermophiles thrive in cooler waters. Colors also change with the seasons.

 

Whirligig geyser, a fun, if small geyser. The fun part is the chugging sounds the back vent makes during the eruptions.

From Norris we took the western road of the loop north towards Mammoth Hot Springs.

 

   

We passed through a much rockier area of the park. It's amazing how many different landscapes you'll see in just a couple of hours.

 

While we stopped for lunch, I took Sadie for a walk and snapped some pictures of the wildflowers. Spring is here!

 

Yellow Prairy Violet

 

Sugarbowl or 'leatherflower' but actually Clematis hirsutissima

 

At the top of the loop we arrived at Mammoth Springs which was like nothing we've seen so far. A completely different landscape once again!

Upper terraces

Mammoth Hot Springs is a large complex of hot springs on a hill of travertine.  It was created over thousands of years as hot water from the spring cooled and deposited calcium carbonate
The hot water that feeds Mammoth comes from Norris Geyser Basin after traveling underground via a fault line that runs through limestone. This limestone is the source of the calcium carbonate.

Minerva Terrace

Isn't that something! It reminded me of Pamukele in Turkey where I was in 1987. You can actually swim in the lower basins (less hot) there!

Main Terrace

Lower terraces

From here we took the northern route out of the park on our way to Gardiner and passed the 45th parallel of latitude.

Looking towards the towering, snow capped peaks of the Gallatin Range, we noticed some movement among the rocks of the foothills.

Pronghorns!

Sometimes mistakenly called antelopes these graceful animals can run 30 miles per hour for 15 minutes with spurts up to 70 miles/hr which makes them the fastest land animal in the world. (The African cheetah is only a sprinter who flags out after a few hundred yards).

Gardiner is situated right at the North Entrance to Yellowstone , the only entrance that is open all year round. The town is nestled in  Paradise Valley, with the Yellowstone River running right through town. It's a sort of wannabee quaint little western town but for a lot of the usual antique and tourist shops.

All in all it didn't impress us much but they have really good huckleberry ice-cream!

 

The Roosevelt Arch is the most famous structure in Gardiner. This Yellowstone Entrance Gateway or Arch was dedicated by President Theodore Roosevelt on 24 April 1903.

Well, we thought that was rather enough for one day!

The blue sky was making way for the (almost) daily gathering of thunderclouds in the late afternoon (typical for this mountainous area) so it was time to call it quits and head for home!