Other Geysers

After Old Faithful did its thing, I took my buffalo jerky and headed off across the Yellowstone boardwalks to see more geysers.  It was ridiculously cold, so few people were out with me.  Along with the cold came sporadic driving snow.

Mineral build-up around a geyser in the foreground, old Teddy Roosevelt-era hotels in the background.

Walking around the thermal features at Yellowstone is awesome, because you're constantly on wooden boardwalks.  This is for your own protection, as the water is extremely hot and the earth only looks like solid ground.

Like I'd want to mark them.  Bacterial flats?  Ugh.  But they're pretty.

The steam did smell sulfury, but not that sulfury.  Not nearly as bad as riding in a car with Dad and one of the cannons, at the end of the day on 4 July.

What did the first pioneers here think?  I kept wondering if they were missionaries or other god-fearing folks, because if so, they probably though they'd wandered into some terrifying hell-vestibule.

These signs are everywhere.  Sure, it looks like normal dirt/plants, but you'll probably end up, like, sinking into boiling mud up to your thigh, which will then have to be amputated, Civil War-style.

This is actively geysering.  Not all of them shoot out water like Old Faithful.

The hottest parts of the thermal pools are the blue areas (if I'm remembering right) and are blue because they are populated by cyanobacteria.  As you move from the center towards the edge of the pool, the colors change as the water cools and the types of bacteria present change.  Sure, the water cools, but its still wicked hot.