Old Faithful Geyser Basin area - Part 2

Continuation of Old Faithful Geyser Basin and surrounding area basins.

The Grand Prismatic Spring  is an extremely colorful spring, particularly when viewed from above. Here is what the information says about it – This spring is the largest and one of the most brilliant of Yellowstone’s many colorful hot springs. Its massive expanse stretches approximately 200 feet across. The high temperature of its water – 160 degrees F – ensures that this spring is often cloaked in steam.

You can get a good idea of the colorful nature of this hot spring from these pictures.  Sorry I couldn’t get a view from above to really show the depth of colors, but we brought a sports car with us, not a helicopter.

This is the Turquoise Pool.   The National Park Service seems to have an endless supply of color names to call these aqua-blue pools…

Here is the Excelsior Geyser Crater

In the 1880s the Excelsior Geyser erupted in bursts up to 300 feet high. The thermal violence formed the jagged crater and apparently ruptured the geysers underground system, causing eruptions to stop after 1890. Then in September 1985, it roared back to life with forty seven hours of major eruptions, and went dormant again. Nobody knows when this powerful geyser’s next eruption will occur.

Although Excelsior Geyser is not currently erupting, it’s heated water outflow is nearly constant, pumping more than 4000 gallons of boiling water per minute over the crater edge into the Firehole River flowing by beside the geyser basin. This can be seen in the following picture, behind Sylvia.

                                                                  'Ain't she Sweet??'

So many basins, so little time.  Next - We're off to Yellowstone Lake and the East side of the Lower Loop
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