Friday, September 9, 2011

Sep 9 – Biscuit Basin Trail

More geyser and hot spring pictures today. I think it would take a really long time for us to tire of looking at these things. We went back to the Old Faithful area to the last few parts we missed.

Driving down, this is what the Fountain Paintpots area (from yesterday) looks like on a cold morning from the highway.

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First we did the boardwalk at the Black Sands Basin.

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So much steam and hot bubbling water.

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We just love seeing these signs posted. Out comes the bear spray!

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Next we went to the Biscuit Basin, first to do the boardwalk, then to walk a trail to a waterfall and lookout.

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The Sapphire Pool is what the Morning Glory Pool (near Old Faithful) must have looked like before it was clogged.

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We could not see the bottom.

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This is called Jewel Geyser. The book said it erupts every 7-10 minutes so we sat and watched 2 eruptions and they were almost exactly 10 minutes apart.

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In between it bubbled a lot just to tease you.

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Another small pool with lots of mineral encrusted branches.

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The 4 mile loop trail first followed a creek up to 70 foot high Mystic Falls.

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We saw a bunch of these beautiful dragonflies.

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Then you climb up 550 feet. At this altitude (7500 feet) and with the heat it was quite tiring.

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There always seemed to be something steaming off in the distance.

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The view from the lookout of the entire Old Faithful area was definitely worth the effort. We stood at the fence and had lunch while we stared for a long time.

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We even saw Old Faithful go off in the distance.

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A view back down to the Biscuit basin area.

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Back to the car.

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We saw a bison herd on the way home. Not sure why they sat out in the sun because it was very hot by now.

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From the highway we saw this guy drawing a crowd as he wandered around the Grand Prismatic Spring.

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