8/6 Yellowstone Falls & Norris Basin

I left my campground this morning and drove to Yellowstone Falls.  I had been told that morning was the best time to see these because the light was better for photographs.  I left too late to really beat the crowds, however.  There are so many visitors this time of year that people have been parking cars in the RV/large vehicle spots set aside by the park service.  This means sometimes I have to circle parking lots a couple of times or double-park while waiting for a spot.  If I had a printer, I might print out notices and stick them on windshields!  (So, maybe it is a good thing I do not have a printer.)

This is Yellowstone River just before the falls.

And these are the Lower Falls:

And the Upper Falls.  This has the largest parking lot and the most tour buses!

This area of Yellowstone has wide vistas and open plains, surrounded by mountains.  I stopped here because I could get a good cell signal.  It is extremely spotty in Yellowstone, and I did not have access in my last campground, so I had some emails to deal with.  Nice place to work, isn't it?

Here, you can see some areas where the trees were burned by fire.

Up close, you can see areas where there is a lot of new growth.

The Norris area is one of the oldest in the park.  It mostly has pools and areas where there were boiling pools and geysers in the past.

This geyser had not erupted since 2005, but on July 31 of this year, it sent a column of steam and water 150' into the air!  Unfortunately, it did it at 7:30 p.m. in the middle of a rain shower, so not too many people got to see it.

This is algae that lives in hot mineral pools.  You and I would cook if we fell in, but this stuff thrives.

This is the east area of the Norris Basin.  I did not walk the entire path because my knees and back were bothering me, but it certainly is beautiful.

This is a steam vent near the boardwalk into the east area.  It was hard to catch the wind right so that it was not obscuring anything, but I got this photo.