Music • Photography • Writing
National Parks Of The American Rockies
Yellowstone
Page
1
Page
2
Page
3
Some parts of Yellowstone seem timeless, like the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River. But a closer look reveals the tell-tale red color of hot springs on the canyon walls. The hot acidic water quickly tears apart the weak volcanic rock, sending large pieces into the roiling river below.
Some things, of course, like these blue gentians, are renewed every summer.
Yellowstone's historic buildings, like the Old Faithful Inn, were built in such a way that it's hard to imagine the park without them. The record wildfires in 1988 nearly took some of these classic structures.
In Yellowstone, things that seem to be written in stone are often quite changeable. This mound of travertine at Mammoth Hot Springs gradually swallowed up a small tree, just the top of which is still visible. (Travertine is formed when hot, acidic water flows over layers of calcium-rich limestone. When the water flows out of the ground, the water cools and deposits the calcium into mounds and terraces that cover the entire mountainside.) This mound, though, is one of the few springs still active in the area and many of the formerly beautiful terraced springs are now dry and gray.
One of my disappointments on my latest trip to Yellowstone was to find that hot water supply to Canary Spring,one of the most beautiful hot springs at Mammoth, had changed course. But I discovered something more interesting that you can see in this indistinct photo: fresh green grass, still growing, is already being petrified by the mineral waters.