Yellowstone!

What can I say about Yellowstone that could capture for you the sheer awe and raw splendor of it all?  Nothing. Not a damn thing. There is simply no way to encapsulate the beauty of Yellowstone, not with all the words and photos and videos that all of America combined could possible write, take, and shoot.

Yellowstone is massive beyond visual comprehension, it is active and teeming, everything is utterly alive - even the very air seems to have an energy all its own. I am a Colorado girl, my upbringing completed in the quiet serenity of the Central Plains; my parents' rural 5-acre property, though often dry and crunchy to behold, harbors a nice variety of wild fauna. I am accustomed to the sound of wind in wide-open spaces, I am comfortable surrounded by the silent guardianship of solitary pine trees and prairie shrubbery. Despite all this prior experience, I was wholly unprepared for the unadultered wilderness that is Yellowstone. I wish I could explain to you how vast, how quiet, how pure the place is.

I think I was most blown away by the active volcanic sites. As I mentioned before I am a born-and-raised American central-westerner - although my family did our fair share of traveling for the Air Force, I have never been anywhere even close to volcanic activity of any kind. So to see mud that bubbles up from the ground, and natural pools of boiling water, and caves that continuously belch a heady sulfuric steam, surrounded by a vast and unblemished landscape, was so much more than I could have possibly anticipated. A fascinating, dangerous beauty.

We arrived at the park right at 8 am as the gates opened, and drove through the park for 8 amazing hours. There was much more to see than we could have fit into the time we had at our disposal, and the summer heat and mountainous altitudes sapped us of the energy required to hike the paths to some of the most popular attractions. We did, however, see so much more than I had hoped for: Elk grazed lazily on the lawns of the quaint supply-shop towns, guarded from a safe distance by park rangers and photographed from much less-safe distances by fascinated tourists. Bison herds with their calves in tow stopped traffic in both directions to cross the street at a pace they found quite comfortable. Sparrows dove for my head as they swooped through the currents after flies. A particularly overly-warm ground squirrel laid itself out flat like a rug on the pavement underneath our rear bumper at a rest stop, trying to cool itself in the shade it cast.

We stood with the crowd and watched as the Old Faithful geyser erupted, as it has reliably every 93 minutes or so for the last 100-someodd recorded years. We climbed a very steep, very rickety walkway to the top of a small bluff to see the hot springs that reminded me of so much watercolor paint, surrounded by green grass and brilliant travertine, running along vivid orange mineral trails to bright turquoise pools of water. We kept a safe distance as wild bison took a dust bath beside a boiling mud pond no more than 500 feet away, and then laughed as it strolled down the paved walkway in the direction of some startled and quickly-backtracking tourists with nothing more on its mind than munching on some sweet summer grasses a little bit down the hill. And in between all of this excitement, the countryside - lush and treed, run through with sparkling rivers and waterfalls - scrolled past the open car windows, bringing with it birdsong and pine-scented breezes.

On our way out of the park towards Montana, we took the scenic highway and drove through the Beartooth Mountains. The road switchbacks and curves to hug the mountainsides, and Rich reports that driving on it makes you feel very much like James Bond. The place is a perfect blend of high plains dotted with fallen stones and sharp craggy peaks skirted by trees, all highlighted by snowpack that is still two feet thick in places. In the middle of a July so hot that some parts of the country have melting mailboxes and airplanes that sink into the pavement, I had to put on a sweater as we passed through the peaks.

This is not quite as detailed a post as I had hoped to give you, my faithful followers. I wish I could detail the entire day for you and capture the splendor of it all, but alas, it is all something of a blur. We began at 6 am and ended the day sometime around midnight, and we drove the whole day through - unfortunately, the details have been a bit lost on the shuffle. So, the best I have to offer you are the pictures and the video we took while we were there. It doesn't capture what it's like to be there, I highly recommend you all pay it a visit for yourself, but hopefully it will give you all a vague idea of what you're missing by not going.

Enjoy the multimedia after the jump, friends - fairly image heavy, consider yourselves fairly warned.

I will post more media from this adventure soon, there were far more videos than I could comfortably cram into this humble post. Stay tuned!

Yellowstone Lake

Just an example of the countryside. It was such a beautiful day, too! 

I added this picture to point out the fallen trees. Although it has been 20 years or more, evidence of the wildfire can still be seen everywhere. 

These skeletal, charred trees dotted the landscape. Further evidence of the devastating wildfire. 

First bison of the day! 

The ponds gave off smelly, sulfuric steam - even on a warm July morning! 

Nothing to see here, just a boy scout about to be deep fried. I thought it was hilarious. 

The first waterfall we saw! Beautiful, roaring, massive. 

There she is! Old Faithful, in all her glory. 

I am not sure exactly what I expected, but the sight of water surging up out of  the ground like this was stunning. 

I think my one of my favorite parts about Yellowstone was all the foreign tourists. These fellows, inexplicably shirtless (it was not THAT hot) at Old Faithful, with an even more inexplicable gray kitten on a leash. These boys seemed in a good mood, and the kitten appeared happy to see them, so I assume no foul play was afoot. All I can figure is that they were, how shall I put this delicately, "fishing for chicks". 

We stopped for a rare outdoor cigarette (rare only because of the burn ban in effect),  and nearly missed this very well camouflaged beetle. I'm not sure if you can tell from this picture, but the beetle's back was speckled with metallic gold. The little guy looked like iron pyrite with legs and antennae. 

The ground squirrel I mentioned. He was adorable. 

Your humble blogger, in all of my touristy glory. 

"The Artist's Paintpots", a series of brightly-colored, mineral-rich hotsprings. 

The Paintpots run with vivid streams, much more brightly colored than I was able to capture in the blinding afternoon sun. Rich can also be seen here documenting this particular feature. 

This one taken by our loyal chauffeur, Rich - the bison stopping traffic to cross the street. 

 I took no photos of the Beartooth mountains, it seemed inappropriate - so I took some video instead.