Solitary Sandpiper wading in a wetland in Yellowstone National Park

 

When we went for a backpacking trip to Shoshone Lake, in Yellowstone National Park, we saw and managed to get a good photograph of this solitary sandpiper. The wetland was right along the trail so after we remained still long enough, the bird continued its normal activity. We especially wanted to get its reflection along with a clear image of the bird.

Canon PowerShot SX520 HS, ISO 100, 1/200 sec., f8, 215 mm focal length

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

A Yellowstone elk female sticking out her tongue

 

A female elk feeds on clover and licks her lips because of how tasty it is. We saw elk along the road in Yellowstone and this female was right by the road. Clover is a special treat for many herbivores. Elk will migrate out of the park during the winter to seek fresh sources of food at lower elevations and milder temperatures.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

Yellowstone cutthroat trout feeding at the surface of the Yellowstone River

 

The Yellowstone River is famous for its fishing. Yellowstone National Park has a native cutthroat trout that gets its name from the reddish color over the gills. At the north side of Yellowstone Lake, the river emerges and travels north, eventually reaching the Canyon area. Where the river emerges there is a bridge that allows travelers to reach Lake Village. That bridge, from which we captured this image, is appropriately named Fishing Bridge.

Canon EOS 70D, ISO 400, 1/500 sec. f8, 400mm

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park, chunks of calcium carbonate sticking out

 Mammoth Hot Springs is sometimes called a mountain turning itself inside out. Hot water deep underground dissolves calcium where it combines with carbon dioxide to make calcium carbonate. Once that solution comes to the surface, the water evaporates and the remaining water cools, resulting in the mineral being deposited into flowing shapes. Calcium carbonate is also the mineral that cave features like stalagmites and stalactites are made of and the white powdery substance you can see in your kitchen sink.

In this photo, you can see some of the flowing shapes have broken off and are lying across the terraces at odd angles. One of the chunks at the upper left appears to be almost completely upside down, with "fingers" of calcium carbonate sticking up. The colors in the white calcium carbonate come from bacteria and algae growing in the warm water. A reddish tinge can also be a sign that iron is mixed in. We were on a boardwalk that leads down from the top of a hill to get in position for this shot. f/8, 1/800 sec, 55 mm, Canon Powershot SX530 HS.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

Great Fountain Geyser and forest fire smoke, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

This is a photo of the Great Fountain Geyser along the Firehole Lake Drive in Yellowstone National Park. This was taken on August 15, 2016 while a forest fire was raging on the horizon.  The smoke extends from the setting sun to the upper right corner.

Great Fountain Geyser is one of the geysers that the rangers can predict when it will erupt, but the window of time that it might erupt is plus or minus two hours. When it's building toward an eruption, the vent and surrounding terraces will fill with water to overflowing and the column of water will shoot up out of the pooling water, as opposed to geysers like Old Faithful Geyser that erupt out of a cone.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story.

Upper Falls of the Yellowstone River, Yellowstone National Park

A view from the brink of the Upper Falls of the Yellowstone River in Yellowstone National Park.  After viewing a major eruption of Steamboat Geyser in late July 2019, we enjoyed the rest of the sights in Yellowstone, including a hike to this brink.  The height of this waterfall is 109 feet and it always seems to kick up a lot of mist.  After falling over this brink the Yellowstone River takes a leftward turn toward the even-higher Lower Falls.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story.

Cave Falls from downstream, southeastern corner of Yellowstone National Park

We finally visited the harder-to-get-to southeastern corner of Yellowstone National Park known as the Bechler Region in August 2019.  Because of the many waterfalls and cascades in this corner of Yellowstone, it's also called Cascade Corner.

The highlight for us was visiting Cave Falls along the Fall River.  We posted an image earlier of the view of Cave Falls from the brink.  This view is from downstream.  The boulders on the left margin just below the falls are from the collapse of the alcove that gave Cave Falls its name.  So, these falls got its name from an alcove and not a true cave.  The characteristic that distinguishes this waterfall is that they are the widest waterfall of all of Yellowstone's many waterfalls at 250 feet across.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story.

Cave Falls in southwestern Yellowstone, long exposure.

We visited the southwestern corner of Yellowstone for the first time in early August 2019.  The highlight of the visit to this part of the park called the Bechler Region was Cave Falls.  It's also called the Cascade Corner because of the great number of cascades and waterfalls.  The river that forms these falls is the Falls River.  You can guess why.  This is the least developed part of Yellowstone and requires driving on dirt roads to reach.

Even though this waterfall is only thought to be 20 feet high, we've read that it's considered to be the widest of all the waterfalls in Yellowstone at 250 feet.

This photo was from the established overlook for visitors.  The "cave" that gave the falls its name was actually an alcove, the roof of which has collapsed.  The boulder field from that collapse is visible in the right middle of this image.  This boulder field is now marked as off-limits by the park in case additional rocks collapse onto the pile.

We visited the Bechler Region at the end of our trip to see the Steamboat Geyser erupt, so, after visiting Yellowstone for a few decades, we still got to experience things there that we had never experienced before.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story.

Sunset in Yellowstone, lighting up Clepsydra Geyser

We arrived in Yellowstone on our 2019 trip around sunset. After setting up camp at the Madison Campground, we went to the Lower Geyser Basin, a.k.a. the Fountain Paint Pots, to look around before it got dark. We got to see Clepsydra Geyser in its nearly continuous state of eruption as the sun was turning red on the horizon. Clouds floating overhead helped reflect some of the sunlight back down. The way the western clouds were shaped made the fiery colors take on the shape of two prongs or maybe a duck. At least that's what it made me, Rick, think of. At this stop along the park road, this feature is the farthest out on the boardwalk.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

Little Gibbon Falls, in Yellowstone NP, along the Gibbon River

We were hiking out from Wolf Lake in Yellowstone and saw a sign for a side trail to Little Gibbon Falls, along the Gibbon River. We figured it would be worth the time to go take a look and we weren't disappointed. This image is the view from the trail, which has a steep dropoff in this area. The water falls over rocks that have a stair-step pattern, which matches the sedimentary rock layers in the cliff face next to them.

We spent quite a bit of time here and were joined by dayhikers. We discovered from the map, that this waterfall is only about two miles from the road. But we were approaching it from the wilderness area, having backpacked in to Wolf Lake the night before. We also realized that we could've hike in to Wolf Lake from the main road on this trail and would've had less distance to cover. Backpacking in from the Ice Lake trailhead was a little bit longer. Something to keep in mind for next time!

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

Entering Yellowstone National Park...Yay!

So we're happy to enter Yellowstone's western entrance and give that a thumbs-up.

But then when it's time to leave, we give that a thumbs-down and wish we didn't have to go.

We took these twin-selfies, using a Samsung Galaxy S III on a selfie stick, in August 2016 at West Yellowstone at the entrance to Yellowstone National Park.

Yellowstone's Mammoth Hot Springs with hot water spilling over the edge of the terrace

View of Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park from the trail with hot water flowing from underground and spilling over the edge of a terrace that's constantly building up from the minerals, calcium carbonate, the water deposits. Steam rises from the water as it emerges from underground. The minerals form where the stream of water drips down, leaving an "icicle" of minerals. A couple of the chunks of mineral having broken off in the past and you can see the "icicles" point upward near the left-center of the screen. Another chunk is lying on its side with orange bacterial growth at the center.

This feature is in a state constant, gradual change and can engulf trees, and even parts of the terrace that are older, or the flow can shift and leave a section of the terrace dry and subject to erosion. This picture was taken with an ISO of 100, f/8, and 1/800 sec. The shutter speed helped to capture the drops of water spilling over the edge of the upper terrace.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story!

Bison enjoying lip-smacking good plants

This bison was part of a large herd right along the park road in the Lamar Valley of northeastern Yellowstone National Park.  During our visit in early August 2015 we saw herds of bison almost everywhere around the Hayden and Lamar Valleys, where they traditionally hang out, but in numbers much higher than we remember seeing before.  Bison are much larger in their forequarters than in their hindquarters partially as an adaptation to having to bulldoze through snow to get to forage in the winter.  The herds we saw had a wide range of ages from massive old bulls to young calves born this year.

Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story.

Lone Star Geyser, Yellowstone backcountry, double rainbow

A double rainbow in the mist of the Lone Star Geyser in the backcountry of Yellowstone National Park.  A three-mile hiking/biking path leads to this geyser.  When we watched this eruption, only five other people watched it with us.  Contrast that with watching an Old Faithful Geyser eruption with perhaps hundreds of people.

This geyser's cone is listed in "The Geysers of Yellowstone" as being over 9 feet tall making it one of the largest cones in the park.  An eruption occurs about every 3 hours and is typically 30 to 40 feet high and can last more than 10 minutes.

Remember, it's not just a photo, it's a story.

Castle Geyser and rainbow

Castle Geyser is in the same geyser basin as the world-famous Old Faithful Geyser, the Upper Geyser Basin, in Yellowstone National Park.  Its eruptions are among those that the Park Service can predict and they post those predictions at the Old Faithful Visitor Center and on an informational plaque in front of the geyser itself.

Castle Geyser typically erupts every 10-12 hours with a 20 minute hot water phase reaching up to 90 feet in height followed by a steam phase lasting from 30 to 40 minutes.  This photo was taken during the steam phase of Castle's eruption and a light wind was blowing water droplets from the steam column to the right where they formed this rainbow.

Remember, it's not just a photograph, it's a story.