Yellowstone - South Loop - Day 1

We spent two days in Yellowstone National Park this summer. The trip was great, the drive was long but the scenery was beautiful.

• Yellowstone was the world’s first national park
• Yellowstone is home to half of the world’s geothermal features
• Yellowstone is home to the most remote spot in the lower 48 states

Yellowstone National Park is a nearly 3,500-sq.-mile wilderness recreation area atop a volcanic hot spot. Mostly in Wyoming, the park spreads into parts of Montana and Idaho too.

There are plenty of interesting Old Faithful facts to consider. For starters, this famous attraction in Yellowstone National Park is the most predictable geyser that can be found anywhere on the planet, which makes it the most famous of the geysers in Yellowstone.

Erruption

A lot of people watch the erruption

Around the park

The Grand Prismatic Spring is Yellowstone’s largest at 90 metres (295 feet) wide and 50 metres (164 feet) deep, and works like many of the park’s hydrothermal features. Water deep beneath the ground is heated by magma and rises to the surface unhindered by mineral deposits. As it bubbles to the top it cools and then sinks, only to be replaced by hotter water coming from the depths in a continuous cycle. [1] The iridescent pigments are caused by bands of microbes – cyanobacteria – that thrive in these warm to hot waters.

Firehole falls - The Firehole River plunges 40 feet over the Firehole Falls just before it meets up with the Gibbon River at Madison Junction. The falls are surrounded by steep rhyolitic rock cliffs that make up the Firehole Canyon, 

Norris Geyser Basin — One of Yellowstone National Park’s most popular geyser basins, Norris is home to Echinus (one of the Park’s most popular geysers) and Steamboat (the world’s tallest geyser). In addition, there are several miles of boardwalks from which you can explore dozens of multi-colored thermal features.

Formed over thousands of years of erosion caused by wind, water and other natural forces, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is the primary attraction in Canyon Village and one of the most popular hiking areas in the park. The canyon stretches approximately 20 miles long and about half a mile wide. Just as remarkable as the canyon's terra-cotta hued cliff walls is the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River, which is nearly 1,000 feet deep, and earns the title of longest undammed river in the country, meandering for more than 600 miles through Wyoming, Montana and North Dakota.