Mud Pots and Buffalos Yellowstone 4 Day 5

May 23, 2019 Thursday Day 5

When we woke up we experienced our first sunny day in Yellowstone. I thought that it might even be relatively warm and after eating breakfast again in the cabin from the cooler I ventured outside without multiple layers. I needed to go back in and put on my vest.

After packing up and checking out we back tracked and drove a few miles to Midway Basin. Midway Geyser Basin contains a small collection of mammoth-sized springs. Midway is part of the Lower Geyser Basin, but because of its isolated location between the main features of Lower and Upper geyser basins it became known as Midway. Rudyard Kipling, who visited Yellowstone in 1889, immortalized this basin by referring to it as "Hell's Half Acre." It warrants that name. Despite its small size Midway possesses two of the largest hot springs in the world. 

Grand Prismatic Spring, nearly 370 feet in diameter, sits upon a large mound surrounded by small step-like terraces. Grand Prismatic is the largest hot spring in Yellowstone, and is considered to be the third largest in the world- New Zealand has the two largest springs. Grand Prismatic sits upon a wide spreading mound where water flows evenly on all sides forming a series of small, step-like terraces. The artist Thomas Moran who traveled out here in 1871 made water-color sketches depicting the rainbow like colors and the wide distribution of his paintings helped to make Yellowstone a National Park. The colors begin with a deep blue center followed by pale green. Green, slippery algae forms beyond the shallow edge. Outside the scalloped rim a band of yellow fades into orange. Red then marks the outer border. Steam shrouded portions of the spring, but aerial pictures when it is clear are spectacular. It releases 560 gallons of hot water into the Firehole River per minute. the combination of the river and hot springs waters creates a designated swimming area where the water temperature is about 80 degrees. No one was swimming.

The other feature, Excelsior Geyser, erupted nearly 300 feet high before the 1900s. It is now a dormant geyser and is considered a hot spring, discharging more than 4050 gallons of boiling water per minute. Other colorful springs include Turquoise and Indigo springs, known for their pale and dark blue colors. Across the Firehole River from Excelsior and Grand Prismatic springs are a series of small isolated, pristine springs and mud pots. The Rabbit Creek drainage possesses some colorful and unusual features and most are unnamed.

We then drove south and turned east over Craig Pass crossing the continental divide twice.

We pulled into the West Thumb Geyser Basin on the west side of Yellowstone Lake. It was very cold. This small basin has a collection of all four geothermal features, geysers, mud pots, hot springs and fumaroles. It has an excellent boardwalk system that takes you right along the lake which was largely frozen, but which had circles of ice free water where hot springs or geysers were bubbling up. The wind blowing off the lake was bitterly cold. Yellowstone lake is the largest freshwater lake in North America above 7000 ft. As recounted in the Lake Yellowstone hotel which was built in 1891 and recently restored, early visitors to the park in the summer would catch cutthroat trout in the lake and then swing them on their line over the hot spring for cooking. The hotel's deck overlooked the lake, but it was too cold to sit out there.

Yellowstone Lake near the center of the Yellowstone Caldera which was created by a gigantic eruption 640,000 years ago. The Caldera covers most of the Park and the magma under it creates geological bulges, or domes which push up the surface of the earth. The Sour Creek Dome on the far side of the lake is rising at a rate of 1.5 inches per year causing the Lake to tip southward.

As we walked the boardwalk we saw: the Abyss Pool which was very deep and many colored; the Black Pool which is no longer black due to the death of the black colored thermophile; the Big Cone and Fishing cone which both sprouted and bubbled in the lake and the Thumb Paint Pots with their miniature reddish mud volcanoes.

Yellowstone Lake with Sour Creek Dome in the background

Intending to continue heading east to exit the Park, instead I missed a turn at Fishing Bridge and was headed north  through Hadyon Valley and to Mud Volcano. In the former we saw many wildlife, and also experienced much delay as cars just stopped on the road to observe. In the latter we saw a large buffalo herd and walked on a loop among many thermal features. Dragon Mouth Spring has steam belching from a cave. Very noisy. The Mud Volcano has a seething, bubbling mass of mud emerging from a back wall. Black Dragon's Caldron has multiple geysers and is fed by Sour Lake, which looks as if you can have a pleasant swim there but whose water would burn ones skin like battery acid.   Mud Geyser has lots of mud pots and sizzling features which have killed the vegetation around it while Mud Caldron has cooled off to the degree that the bubbling is caused by escaping gasses

Finishing with the Mud Volcano I mistakenly continued north until I saw signs for the Upper and Lower Falls of the Grand Canyon and realized where I was. I then turned around, made the correct turn to Fishing Bridge and took the very scenic drive to the Park's east entrance. The extra driving finished off the electrical power in the car. Back to gasoline.

As we exited the Park the land became far less mountainous and we began to see ranches, both real and dude, and farms.

We finally arrived in Cody. This town was the brainchild of Buffalo Bill Cody and we stayed in The Irma hotel he built in 1902 and named for his youngest daughter. Cody is small, less than 10,000 population, but during the summer season, we missed it, there are nightly rodeos and gunfights as it attempts to recreate the wild west.

Cherrywood Bar at the Irma Hotel

Downtown Cody

We checked into the hotel, changed rooms due to unmade beds and walked around town. Everything looks western from the boots to the fringe. We ate dinner at the hotel and had too much prime rib. I was able to charge up the car outside the hotel at the outlets used in the winter for engine heaters