On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
PaulB
This is the third of 3 sets of images of some of the features of Yellowstone National Park. This set includes the Yellowstone Canyon that gives the park its name, plus various pools and geysers.
This shot of the canyon wall really shows the yellow color of the stone.
The canyon disappearing into the distance. As I mentioned in the prior set, the haze in the air came from smoke from multiple wildfires in the area, although, thankfully, none of those fires were in the park itself.
A shot of the lower falls of the Yellowstone River. You cannot really see it in this picture but immediately to the right and just above the falls, there is a platform and viewing area. You can look right down the falls if you’re willing to climb down the path and then back up again.
Even when there is not a full-blown geyser, many of the park’s pools are constantly bubbling and moving.
The Chromatic Pool can really only be seen well from a distance and from a height. From the boardwalk path, it’s not nearly as impressive. From the observation point I climbed to, it’s a stunning site.
Old Faithful is not the only geyser that can be clocked, although most of the others that are (relatively) reliable have error bars measured in hours rather than minutes. Even if you don’t have the time or the patience to sit and wait, there are so many of these features throughout the park that serendipity alone will almost certainly allow you to be present during several of these eruptions. I regret to say that I no longer recall the names of the geysers in these last 3 pictures.
A second geyser, illuminated by the sun.
Not every geyser shoots dozens of feet into the air. Sometimes the eruption is no more than a few feet high.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
Gorgeous photos, this is one of the many places on my list of laces I need to go see but maybe next year…
snoey
More great pics, thanks. None of mine are that good.
One minor nitpick though, the gorgeous pool is Grand Prismatic Spring, not Chromatic.
bluefoot
These photos are great. I need to dig out my Yellowstone photos (film!). One of the hot springs at Yellowstone is where Thermus aquaticus was first isolated – which gave us Taq polymerase, the enzyme which makes PCR possible.
pb3550
Visual poetry . Thanks
eclare
Love the rainbow in the waterfall photo!
J R in WV
Frabjously wonderful photos of a mysterious and strange place. Thanks!
opiejeanne
Beautiful photos. Thanks for sharing with us. Now I need to go back to your two previous posts because I wonder what else you captured.
We were there the same year, in July; just missed each other.
SkyBluePink
Wondrous photos!
opiejeanne
I’m glad I went back and looked at your other photos and I’m glad I did. You got into some places that we missed. We drove up through the Wind River Canyon with a stop in Grand Teton NP, and stayed for several days in a place just east of the park, so we spent a lot of time driving just to get into the park.
Our National Park system is a true treasure.
stinger
Amazing photos. The grandest man-made fountains can’t hold a candle to these, especially the antepenultimate geyser.
I’m embarrassed to say that I never knew or even thought about how the park/canyon got their names. Thanks for explaining and showing that in yesterday’s and today’s images.
Wag
Again, great photos. I especially like the Prismatic Spring photo. It is an otherworldly place
PaulB
@snoey:
Doh! You’re right, of course. I have no idea where I came up with the name I used above.
PaulB
@opiejeanne:
I had that difficulty, as well, staying in a rental cabin west of the park. In previous visits, I had planned ahead sufficiently that I was able to stay in the Old Faithful Inn, which places you right at the center.
Even with that, the park is so large that visiting everything still requires a substantial amount of driving.
WaterGirl
@PaulB: Corrected up top.
Uncle Omar
Yellowstone, aka Colter’s Hell, is a wonderful place. If the planet gets lucky the whole caldera will blow in the next few years and cause a mass extinction. Maybe the next “intelligent” life form to evolve in a few hundred million years won’t be such a disaster as the current one.
Richard
Awesome. I’d like to go there again. The first time, i didn’t understand why the waterfall was such a big deal. It looked hungry and dangerous. I was much more in tune with the surrounding country. Yellowstone is beautiful.