Surprise! More Yellowstone!

I told you there were more pictures. Remember the fresh travertine terraces I showed you a week ago? Well, after several hundred thousand years of them building up and whatnot, they turn into this pile of rock behind my dad here. Actually, that rock is probably in the millions of years old, and came from a nearby mountain. Seismic activity shoved it over and into a new little mountain formation, which they call "The Hoo Doos."

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Yellowstone hot water

In the last post I mentioned hot springs water entering the rivers.
Here it is, water from the Midway Geyser Basin flowing into the Firehole River.

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Old Faithful

Old Faithful is the most well-known and frequently visited thermal feature of Yellowstone. The facts that it reliably erupts every 90 minutes or so (though the eruption we attended was about 20 minutes late) and is relatively close to park entrance, have probably helped contribute to its popularity. It's the only geyser most people know by name. Visiting was weirdly like going to see a celebrity, or a famous animal at a zoo, like Free Willy.
( how many people go to watch an eruption? )