Yellowstone, Day 3: Mammoth Hot Springs, Norris Basin, etc.

Mammoth Hot Springs are located closest to the North entrance to the park, and so on the third day, once we checked out of our hotel in Gardiner, this was our first stop.

Here is a little schematic map that will come in handy for understanding the park layout.

The main road forms kind of a figure 8 - two vertically stacked circles - and from that, road segments are leading to each of the five park entrances. The main junctions are listed on the map, and if you keep in mind that all these junctions are 3-way, you'll never get lost.

Our plan for the day was to start with Mammoth Hot Springs and Norris Basin, fit in some other geothermal zones along the way, and exit the park through the West entrance - since that's where our next hotel was located.

Mammoth Hot Springs

Mammoth Hot Springs is a beautiful area of multi-level, multi-color travertine terraces, with colorful pools here and there.

Travertine forms when hot water and steam percolate through limestone (somewhat similar to how stalactites and stalagmites form when cold water seeps through limestone, only upside-down, so to speak). This whole area is sometimes described as an inside-out cave, so no wonder I liked it!

The most famous formation is Liberty Cap, a travertine cone 37 feet high. Here it is, with a couple of elks nearby.

There are two boardwalk loops, lower and upper. All the photos above are from the lower loop, which is easily accessible from a few small parking lots along the way - or, if they are full, then from the visitor center parking lot.

Then you can even take the stairs or drive up the road to the upper loop. We chose to drive and found it less impressive than the lower one  - there are no terraces there, only some pools - also that parking there is scarce to nonexistent. So we just drove slowly along the road and back down. There is a parking lot near the exit, and you could walk up from there, but we didn't think it was worth the effort. The last photo is Orange Spring Mound, a huge travertine formation near the end of the upper loop.

Norris Basin

Norris Basin is the hottest and longest-known geyser basin in Yellowstone. It consists of two separate zones, Porcelain Basin and Back Basin.

It is easy to see why Porcelain Basin got this name...

There are no large geysers here - just a few steam vents and little fountains...

... and the unbelievable color variations.

The Back Basin, on the other side of the parking lot and visitor center, is home to several geysers, including the famous Steamboat, as well as a variety of steam vents, mud pots, hot springs, and thermal pools.

Here are a few highlights: Yellow Funnel Spring ...

... Blue Mud Steam Vent ...

... Green Dragon Spring ...

... Echinus Geyser ...

and Emerald Spring.

As for the famous Steamboat geyser, we didn't get to see an eruption. When we were there the first time, it was pretty active...

... but Steamboat is one of the so-called unpredictable geysers, nobody knows when it is going to erupt next. In this case, it erupted the very next night - in the middle of the night, when nobody was there to see it - as we found out when we stopped by again, a couple of days later.

Artists Paint Pots

Artists Paint Pots is a collection of about 50 geothermal features - little geysers, hot springs, but mostly mud pots - hence the name.

It is just down the road from Norris Basin (towards Madison Junction), a turnoff on the left. Again, there is a boardwalk trail - the whole loop is 0.6 mi long, but very rewarding in terms of different hues and colors that you can see.

Fountain Paint Pots

We were done with Artists Paint Pots around 4 pm. It was too early yet to head out to the hotel, so we decided to drive a bit south beyond Madison Junction and see what's there. And very soon, we saw columns of smoke raising up on the right.

We turned off and parked. That's Fountain Paint Pots - there is another boardwalk, also about 0.5 mile long. The highlights here are Celestine Pool ...

... Fountain Paint Pots ...

... and Clepsydra Geyser, small but very beautiful.

Firehole Lake Drive

By then, we were pretty much beat, but decided to do one last thing - drive along the Firehole Lake Drive. It is a one-way road, about 3 mi long, with the entrance just a bit south from the Fountain Paint Pots parking lot (on the left). It meanders about and comes back out just across from the Fountain Paint Pots. At this point, we didn't feel like walking any more, but fortunately you can see the highlights right from the car.

This is the White Dome Geyser...

... and this is the Firehole Lake, which gave the name to the drive.

After that, finally, we drove back north to Madison Junction and turned west. The next two nights we spent in Lake View Suites, about 20 minutes out of West Yellowstone, on the shore of Hebgen Lake. The hotel really had a nice view of the lake, from the balcony that ran along its front. Each suite had a separate bedroom (ours had two beds, for some reason), sitting area, full kitchen, and a kind of a nook, with table and chairs, on said balcony. The setup was nice, but we didn't get to enjoy it much. We were trying to maximize our time in the park, so came home late both evenings and left early in the mornings (while there is a kitchen in each suite, the hotel also provides free breakfast - but very basic and not at all tasty, so I don't recommend it). In hindsight, maybe I should have stayed closer to the park and saved 40 minutes of driving each day. Still, here is a view of sunset over the lake on our first evening.

> Day 4