Mary Angelini Photography: DAY 1 – Entering the Park & Norris Geyser Basin

For all my stellar planning, we arrived at the hotel a lot earlier than I anticipated so we got our week-long pass to the park and ventured in. Our destination was the Norris Geyser Basin which is situated in the northwest corner of the park, but not quite as far as Mammoth, which is really in the corner. On the way, however, we did make a pit stop at Terrace Geyser.

It is a geothermal geology hotspot with a large number of active geysers and pools. The landscape, for those of you who haven’t been there, is really somewhat apocalyptic. There are large swaths of trees, but interspersed among these trees are larger tracts of bare ground littered with the dead and bleached carcasses of trees fallen by toxic water and heat. It isn’t completely lifeless, however. There are lots of insects and small ground cover plants of all kinds as well as smaller animals such as rabbits and squirrels who make their homes here.

When we were there it was overcast with what looked like rain clouds. While it never started raining, it obscured the sun enough and provided a really nice back drop for pictures which helped to make the steam from the fumaroles stand out more. Like most of these kinds of areas in the park, there was a very long and well maintained boardwalk system that traversed the landscape taking you from geyser to pool to fumarole and back. All tolled, the walk was about 2 miles I would guess.

The largest and most active one appeared to be the Steamboat Geyser, although it was not in all its glory while we were there. Apparently it ha been about 50 years since it really went off, but it still gave us a really nice show! Here are some pictures, in no particular order, from our walk…(note these were edited pre-new computer and they look [to me] kind of weird and over processed)

This is Steamboat Geyser

This is a snowshoe hare we saw at Norris.

A five-striped chimpunk (they were everywhere).

Thes was another geyser that we passed and stopped to visit on the way back from Norris, the name escapes me.

Norris Geyser Basin

Steamboat Geyser

Pearl Geyser (I think)

Norris Geyser Basin

This might be Emerald Geyser

Norris Geyser Basin

Some very lovely purpley grass.

This dead and denuded tree is representative of a large portion of the lanscape around these geyser areas, although the vast majority have fallen and have been bleached by toxins and the sun.

The color of the bacteria and possibly algae create some spectacular colors.

This elk cow was casually laying in the grass conveniently near a turn out which was mobbed with people (including us). She didn't seem to be bothered at all, even though her calf was a little ways behind her.