During my Rockies adventure I had half a day to go around Yellowstone. Yeah … yeah … I can see the smirk on your face. I know you think I’m crazy. How on earth can someone go around Yellowstone in half a day? Well actually you can’t. But if you plan well enough and huff and puff your way through the park you can cover a lot of ground and also have enough time to pause and appreciate the beauty.
I entered the Yellowstone National Park from the East Entrance and the first thing that caught my eye was Sylvan Lake. The crystal clear waters and the early morning mist seemed magical.
My next stop was Old Faithful Geyser. Old Faithful is a cone geyser and the first geyser in the park to receive a name. The steam from the geyser mixed with the clouds created a perfect photo opportunity.
I hiked around the numerous trails around Old Faithful and saw a plethora of hot springs and geysers of various shapes and colors. It was hard … really hard to choose what to photograph and what not to. The Blue Star Spring was the quiet and pretty one.
And it got better as I wandered through the trails …
However, the one that stood out was the Grand Prismatic Spring—the largest hot spring in United States and the third largest in the world. But it’s not its size but its colors that make it such an amazing sight. The colors begin with a deep blue center followed by pale blue. Green algae forms beyond the shallow edge. Outside the scalloped rim a band of yellow fades into orange. Red then marks the outer border. I climbed up the hill along the Fairy Falls trail and got this view.
The colors pop even more from up-close.
