Iron Spring Creek
We saw a variety of things today, though all involved water in some way. First this morning we stopped at the geysers and hot springs of the Black Sand Basin. It was quite cool this morning, so the hot steam formed great clouds of white above many of the features. Iron Springs Creek flows through between the geysers, and the name reflects the rusty stain where hot water flows over the rocks and into the creek.
Sapphire Pool
From there we drove on to the Biscuit Basin, where we saw the beautiful blue water of Sapphire Pool underneath a cloud of steam. We continued on past the end of the boardwalk along a hiking trail for another one and one-half kilometers to Mystic Falls. The last kilometer of the trail follows the Little Firehole River until it reaches the falls. They are a large cascade at least 25 metres high, with several smaller drops above that.
Mystic Falls
We ate lunch when we had returned to the parking lot, at one of the few picnic tables we’ve seen, overlooking the Firehole River. A large bull bison was scratching against a dead tree, and many tourists were photographing him.
After lunch we continued on and drove around the Firehole Lake drive. One of the highlights of this tour was Firehole Spring, where the boiling water deep below the surface of the water flashes white in the sunlight, and looks very much like a flame below the water. We continued on by Firehole Lake where geysers spout hot water continuously into this tiny pond. The hot water then flows on over terraces, the hot steaming water forming the Hot Cascades.
Finally we stopped and walked the loop trail around the Fountain Paint Pot. The geysers and clear hot spring pools here in Yellowstone are much more numerous and spectacular than those we saw in New Zealand. However I wasn’t nearly as impressed with the mud pot. New Zealand’s were far better. Just past the paint pot was Red Spouter which spat reddish mud a couple of feet into the air. However, right next to it, and much more impressive than the spurting mud was a roaring fumarole where escaping steam made a deafening roar as it escaped from a hole in the ground.