Yellowstone Day 2

Sorry for the delay.  It's been a real challenge finding connections within the park.  I paid for wifi in Grant Village this morning but it wouldn't work.  So, anyway.  Now I'm at Old Faithful and it's really nice.  On with Day 2.  Day 2 took us up through the North Western section of the park.  We basically left our campsite in Tower Falls and headed North to Mammoth Springs. There are some spectacular terraces providing great views at the thermal pools in Mammoth.  We also stopped along the way to see a petrified tree that was 1 go-billion years old and a brief stop at Undine Falls.

This thing was really old.  It's actually from a time when this area was sub-tropical.  That really suprised me.  I wish it wasn't fenced in.  I wanted to take a picture of dad standing on the top of it.  Oh well.

This is Undine Falls.  These are all over the park but this one seemed really spectacular.  It's a long fall down though.  Very nice.  I'd stop again.

This is one of the larger thermal areas in Mammoth Springs.  It's really nice.  There's basically pools all over the place just bubbling and boiling.  And they come in all shapes, sizes, and colors.

You see alot of this at Mammoth.  There was a fire here in 1988 and it was really bad.  However, I'm not sure that's what got this tree.  My thought is that some of the hot water from the thermals got it.  Or maybe it just died.  These dead and dried out trees make great shapes.  So very cool.  Even the dead stuff here is beautiful.

Hill formations overflowing with hot spring water in brilliant shades of reds and sandstone are all around the terrace walkways.  They tell you not to get of the pathways as the earth is very thin in some places.  It really gives you a sense that this is a planet in constant change.

This is the remnants of several pools that appear to be dormant at the moment.  At one time I'm sure that they were boiling over with hot spring water.  All that's left is a huge expanse of residual mineral deposits.  Pure white.

Another Yellowstone road-side attraction.  A young Bull elk hanging with the ladies.  He's got a ways to go but I promise he'll get really big. 

We ended the day at Tower Falls overlooking the Yellowstone river.  On a hillside there was a sea of yellows and pale, sage-like greens.  I took several pictures but this one stood out because of the brilliant yellow.