On Sunday May 31 our destination was Mammoth Springs, at the northern edge of the Park. It is the only part of the park with lodgings that are open year round, although in winter it is cold and snowy. The distance we had to travel was 50 miles, which takes more than 2 hours given the roads if you don't stop anywhere. We, of course, made lots of stops.
Before we left OF village, I did my morning walk. I had the good fortune to walk past Castle Geyser as it was erupting (it only erupts about every 15 hours give or take several). Unlike most other geysers we saw, it has a cone shape, and when it erupts the silica in the water condenses as hydrous silicon dioxide and adds to the cone.
The geyser erupted for about 25 minutes. I walked on after taking the first photos and came back for the last part of the eruption.
On our journey, our first stop was Excelsior Geyser, which does not erupt at this point in time, and looks just like a hot spring. Excelsior is still a geyser and not a pool because while it blew out the crater that caused its pressure chamber, it was a geyser less than a century ago. When the geyser did erupt, eruptions sometimes went 300 feet in the air.
Now it puts out 4K gallons of water daily into the Firehole River (which runs from OF Village to Madison Junction and forms one of the sources for Madison river that runs west into Montana).
Our next stop was another hot spot area along Firehole Lake Drive with this geyser, White Dome geyser. There are many other pools and geysers along this drive, as well as Firehole Lake, but I stopped taking geyser photos!
Continuing on our way, the landscape is quite flat.
It changes as the road nears Madison Junction and on a side road (Firehole Canyon Drive), the canyon formed along the river is quite visible.
Further up the drive is Firehole Falls:
This photo shows the beginning of river cutting into the canyon, before the drop at Firehole Falls.
Along the road from Madison Jct to Norris, the road follows the Gibbons River. It also has a falls, which, while not the highest in the park, is quite wide and shows the river cutting a canyon into the terrain.
The view of the walkway above the falls:
As we drove north of Norris, the landscape flattened out, and in the meadows, there were plenty of bison, this one only feet from our car as we drove past.
A long section of the road was tough going, as the park service is widening the road with a big construction project. Since it was Sunday, we didn't have to stop for construction work, but much of the road was down to bare dirt and slow, tricky driving. My reward was that we were going slow enough for me to see lot of these lovely glacier lilies.
We went for a walk along the road to Indian Creek Campground, and the road follows the creek:
As we got closer to Mammoth, the landscape changed again. This spot is called Golden Gate.
And here is Silver Gate where the boulders are evidence of glaciers long ago.
Just outside of Mammoth Springs are the Terraces, caused by the hot springs for which Mammouth is named. The terraces are formed by hot water springs that bring hot water from deep in the earth through the limestone layer in this area. The water mixes with the limestone, and when the hot water reaches the surface and cools, it precipitates out as calcium carbonate to form the many terraces. Here are Jupiter Terrace, Mound Terrace and Minerva Terrace.
These next photos show village of Mammoth Springs from a distance, as well as closer up to our hotel, where we will stay for the next three nights, and the view out to the "village green".
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