Yellowstone National Park - Day 3

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Yellowstone National Park - Day 2

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It was chilly when I woke up around 6:15. The views from the Lake Hotel room were stunning. I decided to take a lake-side walk. It was literally freezing; and I did realise a t-shirt wasn't a good idea. I met an old man from San Diego doing bird photography with his cameras setup. After a brief chat, I returned to the room. The hotel offers a pretty good breakfast buffet. We stuffed ourselves and headed out for another exciting day.

From the Lake to the Grant Village/Mammoth Springs is one of the most scenic routes. The yellowstone river to your right and the springs to your left. I stopped to take a close shot of bison. I didn't know that bisons (if aroused) can kick off as fast as a horse.



We took a lot of pics trying our best to capture nature's awesome creation. With a stop to buy battieries, we reached Mammoth springs around noon.

Apart from the classical yellowstone springs, mammoth springs offers thermophiles. They are rocks which change color over a period of time due to bacterial activity (harmful to humans). The white and brown colors seen in the pics are thermophiles. You need to be hooked on to your camera at yellowstone.


Everything you see is worth capturing. The next thing we had planned was Old Faithful, which is probably the most famous at yellowstone. With an ice-cream to cool us down from the heat, we started towards Old faithful geyser.

By the time we reached old faithful, around 2:30 pm, I had a minor headache. It could have been jet-lag or the sun. We decided to have lunch first and then visit the geyser. The Old Faithful geyser erupts approx every 90 min. We weren't sure whether we would have to wait (if the eruption had just occurred). With a little bit of luck we found that the next eruption was in about 10 mins. We took our places at the small arena to watch another beauty. I tried my best to get this video. So I will shut up for a min till you enjoy the video.

You see the eruption for some time but after the 1st 90 seconds, the steam takes over and hides the water. Beautiful, simply beautiful!

We had covered most of the things we had planned and were a little tired. Hence we deciced to go to the hotel. We reached around 5 pm and another eventful day was over. Next stop: Grand Teton.

Yellowstone National Park - Day 1

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In generations to come, this place will be a treasure of the people...
People will be proud of this spot. Springs will bubble up, and steam will shoot out.
Hot water will fly into the air...No one knows how long this will continue.
And voices will be heard in different languages in the generations to come.
-- Coyote's prophecy from Flathead Legend.

The above text says it all. From the pictures I had seen, I was excited to go to one of the most beautiful places on this planet, the Yellowstone National Park.
We took the early morning (7am) flight from Newark to Cody, Wyoming with a change in Salt Lake City. Salt Lake city is beautiful. Snow-clad mountains and a lot of lakes.

After reaching Cody at around 12:30 pm we rented an SUV solely because you can see more from an SUV than a regular car. The rental guy was so friendly; he gave us a lot of info about where different animals can be spotted. Cody is about 60 miles from the East entrance of the park. On entering the park, I was surprised to see a little traffic jam caused by Bisons.

You aren't used to too many traffic jams in the US caused by animals. The first sight of Lake Yellowstone was amazing. Completely frozen! We took some pics on the way and checked in at the Lake Yellowstone Hotel at around 4 pm.
We decided to go to West Thumb (Hot springs) as they were closer to the Lake. Shweta was excited after having studied these places in here curriculum. The springs are beautiful. I can't write enough about them. With the lake in the background, mule deers grazing, and the steam oozing out, it makes a beautiful sight. The mud pool and the springs are the highlights of West Thumb.

On the way back to the Lake we lost our way (about 10 miles) but were lucky to spot a grizzly bear. Although it can get tricky to differentiate a black bear and a grizzly bear, the hump is a good characteristic of the grizzly as seen in the pic.

It was getting dark; hence we returned to the hotel, had dinner and went to bed since we were a bit tired. It was an amazing first day.