Day 8 - Staycation Saga - Part 1 - Norris Geyser Basin

Day 8 – Monday June 1, 2009 – Mammoth Hot Springs and Tower Falls.

Today was so much fun. As we drove into Yellowstone on our way to Mammoth Hot Springs, we came across bison a couple of times.

It was really cool to drive right past them and to see them only a few feet from you.

They are big animals.

The country side out here is really beautiful so we will try and keep these posts to highlights and we will work at getting a slide show or something set up so that we can have all of our good pictures available for your viewing pleasure.

Before getting to Mammoth Hot Springs we stopped by Norris Geyser Basin and walked around our first geysers and learned how the different temperatures of water allows certain colors of algae and other organisms to live which provide the beautiful colors to much of Yellowstone’s wonders. Most of the geysers and hot springs are between 100 and 200 degrees Fahrenheit on the surface. Shari also discovered that she does not like the smell of geysers, as they smell like sulfur (smells like rotten eggs).

This is what we saw as we entered the gyser basin.

This is the side of the gyser in the bottom of the above picture as we came down into the basin.

We came down the trail around the left side of this gyser in order to enter the basin. This gyeis the gyser in the above two pictures.

The following are a couple shots of Algie and the different colors grow at different temperatures. See the educational notes below for more information about algie as a living thermometer.

This one is rust colored algie.

This one is a very pretty green and yellow algie.

Between Noris Gyser Basin and Mammoth Hot springs we stopped by this waterfall and read a really cool story about how difficult and dangerous it was to build a bridge through this canyon. This bridge was very important to early travlers and merchants as it cut days off of travel to some destinations. See educational notes at end of day 8 posts for more history.