What to Expect in Yellowstone

I had never been to Yellowstone National Park before, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. We were going to see the thermal zone — geysers including Old Faithful and some boiling mud. I had seen geysers and boiling mud before in New Zealand and Iceland, so I was prepared to be “underwhelmed.” I was wrong. We were in for feelings of excitement and lots of “wow” moments.

Our day began at “West Thumb,” a thermal zone and large lake with boiling mud and geysers. I was captivated. As the geysers steamed and bubbled, I composed my photos of the simple yet other-worldly beauty.

Steam rises from the boiling geysers at the edge of West Thumb in Yellowstone National Park.

Shapes of the land, water and sky make a nearly abstract scene at West Thumb in Yellowstone.

Rock or Ice Cream? Erosion Tales

I’m fascinated by erosion patterns in rock that make solid rock look like ice cream that has been scooped with a spoon or carved with a giant fork. So, I was transfixed by this “fork action” on the red rock in Sedona.

Seeing this horizontal pattern in the sandstone along Oak Creek made me wonder how Nature made this carving. So I asked my geologist friend, Steve Austin. Location: West Fork Trail, Sedona, AZ, USA.

It’s amazing what Steve can tell us just by examining this photo and knowing its location. He said, “The sandstone has horizontal layers but also has inclined layers internally (25 degrees). The cliff shows these inclined layers because rockfall has sculpted the surface. These inclined layers were formed in underwater sand dunes by flow velocity of 2 meters/second.”

Wow! That’s why they call Steve “Mudflow Man.”

Along the Teton Fault

Did you ever wonder why the Grand Tetons rise straight up out of a flat valley? The Teton Fault separates two tectonic plates at the foot of the mountains. For the past 10 million years, the mountains have inched up to 13,700 feet, while the flat valley floor has sunk to its current level at 6,800 feet above sea level, according to the National Park Service.

During the Ice Age glaciers moved south from Yellowstone region, filling the valley and then eroding the mountains into jagged peaks and melting into lakes. All of this geology history tells a fascinating story too gradual for us to observe, but we can observe the changing seasons and fall color.

The valley floor appears golden in late September along the Teton Fault in Jackson Hole, Grand Teton National Park.

Do the colors in this scene leave you feeling uplifted?

(The facts in this blog were provided by the National Park Service.)