Animals Other than Buffles

I saw plenty of animals aside from buffles, but not nearly as many.

This is, Wikipedia tells me, a Lady Elk.

There's a little white canine-ish guy in the mid-ground.  I think he was a coyote.  He was pretty far away, but one wandered much closer by while I was at some boiling mud bogs.  I was just too slow when it came to operating the photographing machine at that moment...

And heading out of Yellowstone, this time through the North Gate, back into Montana.

Mammoth Hot Springs

This was the first picture I took at the Mammoth Hot Springs.  Even now, I am amazed that I was the only person laughing (like a ten-year old) and taking a picture.  Mammoth Restroom. Ha!

Apparently the hot springs change on an unpredictable basis, and springs which were active for some time will suddenly stop flowing, and new ones will begin.  The rusty yellow/orange is a functioning spring: the grey is nonfunctioning.

Very ashy looking.

This boardwalk (of course, another boardwalk) was fabulous and took you way up from the valley.  The view kept getting better and better.

At one point, probably after the first time it started sort-of-raining, when I reached what was pretty much the highest points of the boardwalk, the photos started to turn fabulously and epically sinister.

C'est moi!

Artist's Paint Pots

These boiling pools of mud are nestled against a hillside.  But I'm going to concentrate on detail snaps as opposed to overalls.  Just to vary it up.

Fountain Paint Pots

The 'Fountain Paint Pots' sound friendly, but they're actually boiling mud pits.

This is the approach to the 'paint pots' - through the Dead Marshes, outside Mordor - again walking on a boardwalk.  Gollum says, don't follow the lights.

Just a gentle reminder.  Some of the other warning signs elaborate further on gruesome ways that you'll be injured if you step off of the boardwalk.

And there they are, all of a sudden.  Pine trees, then bam!  Boiling pots of mud.

There is also a nearby geyser, to which the boardwalk will take you.  The yellow around it are sulfur deposits.

The Grand Prismatic Spring

Bet you had no idea how many photos I had from only a few days.  And this is after culling the herd.

The first stop of my second day in Yellowstone was the Grand Prismatic Spring.  This sucker is the rainbow pool often photographed via helicopter, the better which to capture its rainbow hues. 

As a spring, it bubbles out superheated water which then moseys its way across extensive bacterial flats into a small stream nearby (see below).  

A few smaller springs, not nearly as prismatic as the Grand Prismatic one.

And here it is!  Steaming like mad!

Boardwalk apocalypse.

Unfortunately all of the steam meant that the colors were barely visible... however, I feel that the sinister nature of all my resulting photographs more than makes up for that.  And I'd far rather have visited on a chilly morning with a few others than with massive packs of people on a warm and colorful day.

This grizzly bear warning was posted next to the little parking area beyond the springs.  Like I need a warning to leave grizzly bears alone - dudes eat people!