Revelation of the Revolution: Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park 2017

Yellowstone National Park. Last year, when my mom first suggested that we visit Yellowstone, the first images that popped into my head were bison, dry climate and canyons. I thought Yellowstone was similar to Yosemite, so why would anyone want to go? I thought they were both were dry, hot climates that had canyons. Plus, we were going to visit the Canadian Rocky Mountains, which from the pictures on google, appeared to boast more aweing views [especially Lake Louise]. Turns out lots of people want to visit Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park [the two are located right next to each other, so we visited both on one trip] each year. In fact, we booked our 10 day stay one year in advance.

• YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK •

Yellowstone National Park is about the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined and spans across three states [MT, ID, WY] though is primarily in Wyoming. The roads in the park are designed to provide easy access to everything and prevent people from getting lost. There is one giant loop in Yellowstone that loops around the entirety of the park and takes visitors around all the must-see locations. There are hotels/lodges scattered around these notable locations.

Old Faithful Inn

Old Faithful

This was our second stop at the national park [we stayed in Jackson Hole the first night] and my family and I stayed there for two nights. Old Faithful is not only the name an area that is brimming with geysers and hot springs, but it is also the name of a famous geyser that erupts every 90 minutes. There are three lodges built around Old Faithful and benches placed around the geyser inviting people to sit and watch the geyser explode up close. If you’ve never seen a geyser explode before, it’s quite amazing. Steam is continuously bubbling out of the hole, but around eruption time, the steam starts to flow in greater concentrations. Eventually, due to a pressure build up, an enormous flow of water explodes from the hole and is thrust high into the air. I’ve never seen anything like it before and I keep trying to imagine what it must of been like for the explorers who discovered Yellowstone back in the 1800’s to see something like this happen and not have a scientific explanation for why it happens.

My dad likes to think of this photo like this: New faithful waiting for Old Faithful to erupt [in background]

The science behind why geysers formed and how they work continues to intrigue me. A geyser is formed by fractures in the earth. Earthquakes often form geysers, in fact, I believe Yellowstone experiences frequent earthquakes which actually help maintain and form new geysers each year. Magma underneath the surface of the Earth heats the water that rises with each explosion. The water that sprays out from geysers comes from melting glaciers, snow, and rainfall. Fractures in the earth allow steam to form and rise out of the geyser. However, geyser eruptions are engendered by a contraction in one of the fractions in the geyser that hinders the escape of the steam. Thus, an abrupt pressure drop causes water to explode through the contraction in the fracture.

How geysers work diagram

Behind Old Faithful, there was also a 3 mile boardwalk that overlooked many geysers along the way. Geysers usually lack color, however, hot springs [which don’t explode but constantly blow off steam] were all vivid in color. Their hues ranged from reddish browns to sapphire blues and emerald greens. On the boardwalk, I was able to see hot springs and geysers of all shapes, sizes and colors. Here are a few pictures I took to show the variances. Each geyser’s color is dependent upon the temperature of the water. I believe warmer water produces more colorful hot springs, while cooler water hot springs are less colorful. Sadly, many of the hot springs we saw were being discolored by littering and coin throwing which clogs the fractures that controls the hot springs high temperatures.

Morning Glory, one of the hot springs that's losing it's vibrant color

Small geyser, in middle of explosion

Whitish geyser

Brown on edges caused by heat loss perhaps from littering

Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone is prized for the yellow rock that forms the walls of the canyon and the waterfall that sweeps right through the canyon. There are two sides to the canyon, a North and South side. I personally enjoyed the South side more since there was a more direct lookout to the canyon, popularly known as Artist’s Point. Our visit to the Canyon consisted mostly of driving, since it is difficult to get from one point to another along the canyon.

From Artist's Point

Artist's Point in black and white

Mammoth Hot Springs

Mammoth Hot Springs is the headquarters of Yellowstone National Park and beholds a unique scene of travertine [CaCO3 main ingredient in limestone, dissolved by carbonic acid which is formed when hot water is mixed with CO2] terraces. Mammoth possesses stunning colors on the terraces of the springs, which almost look like dripping watercolor. My family climbed a boardwalk to view various springs. Initially, all these springs had water running down them [CO2+ H2O→ H2CO3 which is carbonic acid that dissolves calcium carbonate in limestone to form travertine] and formed the stones and colors of the terraces, but due to global warming and other geological shifts, the water in a couple springs was dried up. Mammoth is also considered a ‘hot spring’ though it is quite different from the hot springs at Old Faithful. These hot springs are more vertical and resemble waterfalls. I thought the colors of these springs were gorgeous shades of whites and warm oranges.

Side view of Minerva Terrace

Palette Spring up close

Top of Minerva Terrace

Minerva Terrace

Canary Spring

Grand Prismatic

Perhaps the Grand Prismatic is the quintessence of Yellowstone, it’s picture printed on postcards, book covers and calendars sold at the park. We visited the Grand Prismatic twice actually, viewing the spring from a different view. Again, we walked on the boardwalk, observing surrounded hot springs before making our way over to the Grand Prismatic. Yet from a distance, the steam rising from the Grand Prismatic caught my attention since it looked like rainbows were rising from the hot spring. The steam looked red in some areas, blue in other areas, which was correlated with what the area underneath really was. Mountains surrounded the Grand Prismatic, topping off the look.

Panorama of Grand Prismatic on first visit. Notice the colors of the steam.

Details of Grand Prismatic

My family’s second trip to the Prismatic involved a little bit of hiking, as we were aiming to look at the Grand Prismatic from a high vantage point. This allowed us to see the entire spring at once. The view was ineffable. It was like looking at an opal pendant but in blown up a million times bigger.

Panorama from top of Grand Prismatic view

Lamar Valley - Roosevelt

Lamar Valley is known for its animals. If visited at the correct times of day [dawn or dusk], you’re guaranteed to see animals. Lamar Valley is near the Roosevelt Lodge, which was a notable lodge we stayed in. It was uniquely primitive. Although there was no internet or cell service anywhere in Yellowstone [on top of mountains there was a little bit of service], Roosevelt was almost like camping. There were many individual cabins around an area at the base of a mountain. Many cabins were simply bedrooms and didn’t have a private washroom. I think of it as a rustic setting, a place that truly encouraged engaging with the surrounding wildlife.

Our cabin #78

Back to Lamar Valley. In the valley, binoculars were a must. Most animals were seen as simple dots in a green field with the bare eye. With our binoculars which blew things up 8 times, these tiny dots in the field were barely recognizable as animals. To put that into perspective, many animal watchers set 16-20x binoculars on tripods and sometimes waited for hours to see animals. I think my favorite animals I saw in Lamar Valley were 5 wolves running through the field. I don’t know who was the first person to spot these wolves trotting in the field behind a herd of probably a thousand bison, but from a distance, they looked like 5 miniscule dots. Up close though, I could just barely make out their snouts and ears.

However, there is one common scene I will not forget from Yellowstone. And that scene is a traffic…caused by bison, either crossing the road or walking on the road in front of cars. It was incredible. I felt the bison had more power and control than the park rangers. At dusk, massive herds of bison graze in Lamar Valley and sometimes choose to cross to the other side of the road. When they attempt to do this, giant lines of 50-100 cars are blocked on both sides of the road. People are sticking out their cameras, getting close up pictures of bison which also contributes to the traffic. It was quite a sight. Park rangers were driving around, trying to get people to stop taking pictures and concentrate on driving forward, but even they had to stop when bison attempted to cross the road. I remember there was one male bison walking in the middle of our lane. The car behind it had no alternative than to slowly follow the bison at the speed it was walking, jamming up a long line of cars. Quite a scene and I am still amazed at how much power these animals have…certainly more than park rangers.

Seen on hike

Bison causing traffic issues

Bison herds at dusk

Two deer/pronghorn/elk I saw on hike. Not sure which it is…

Throughout my trip to Yellowstone and Grand Teton, I saw 4 black bears overall. According to a park ranger, there are only about 150-200 grizzly bears in the entire Yellowstone. Those statistics amazed me. I definitely suspected there to be more since pictures of bears are found everywhere in Yellowstone, on t-shirts, in lodges, on postcards and books. The park rangers advice to my family was this: if there is a lot of people parked on the side of the road, it’s probably a bear. Sure enough, on our way home to Roosevelt, there was a ginormous crowd of people standing on a hill. We suspected it to be a bear and sure enough it was. There must’ve been at least 150 people standing at the edge of the hill, observing the one black bear who was meandering through the hills. My dad caught a picture of it.

Black bear on road side. Credit: Qiegang Long

The new images that arise when I hear Yellowstone:

Bison
Geysers and steam from hot springs
Rustic feel

• GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK •

Grand Teton National Park reminded me a little bit of the Canadian Rocky Mountains and Yellowstone. It’s a perfect mix of both. It has the glaciers on the mountains that the Rocky’s have. The mountains are also certainly sharper looking than in Yellowstone, which look more grassy and soft. However, Teton’s sky looked more opaque like Yellowstone’s because the sky had very few clouds. The Rocky Mountains however, had dense clouds everyday. They almost added volume and shadow to the mountains below.

Grand Teton [tallest peak] from our lodge

In comparison to Yellowstone, Grand Teton is much smaller. We spent 5 nights in Yellowstone and 3 nights in Teton. Our first day at Teton was spent driving around the entire park. The setup is similar to Yellowstone, one giant loop that goes around the whole park. The main view was of Grand Teton, the mountain which still has some glaciers on it. However, compared to the 1940s, when Ansel Adams took a photo of Grand Teton, there is far less ice remaining. Here are some pictures that I took while driving around Teton.

Where Ansel Adams took famous photo of Snake River

Ansel Adams in photo. Compare 1940s glaciers with 2017 glaciers. Very skimpy

Panorama of Grand Teton

Our second day at Teton was spent hiking at Jenny Lake, which is probably the most visited place in the park. It was a difficult 3 mile hike, but we took a boat back. There were two main sights we saw at Jenny Lake, Inspiration Point and Hidden Falls.

Jenny Lake view

Falls. Water rolling over rocks.

And that concluded our Yellowstone/Grand Teton National Park Summer Trip. There was lots to see and I experienced a very different lifestyle these past 10 days. At Yellowstone, I was forced to be away from my devices for 5 days and I must say, that must have been the most difficult part of the whole trip. It was like one second I was connected and the next minute, I knew nothing about what was happening around the world. But it was part of the fun. Visiting Yellowstone has really helped me open my eyes to things I’ve never seen before, like geysers and bison [up really close!]. Yellowstone’s geological features have also allowed me to apply some of the chemistry I learned in eighth grade to explain real geological features. This trip has allowed me to taste the western culture, experience a different lifestyle and observe many more of earth’s natural treasures. And now…I’m back home in Boston.

[Additional Photos, maybe more to come?…]