Unlicked Envelope: Beyond the Reach of Human Art

Today we ventured into the Hayden Valley, with the hope of seeing bears. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any (it was a sparse wildlife day), but we still had plenty of beautiful places and (stinky) thermal features to visit.

We first stopped for some gorgeous mountain views over Yellowstone Lake, getting our first glimpse of the Tetons as the morning fog burned off. Next, we stopped to admire the river and saw our first harlequin ducks, the males showing off their dramatic coloring next to the demure brown females. A trail along the river was filled with pussy willow bushes and hopping birds, and the trees were hung with the chartreuse old man’s beard.

Harlequin ducks

Old Man's Beard

Pussy willows

Then, it was time for some thermal features, this time of the highly acidic variety. The hydrogen sulfide gas bubbling up through these pools made them inhospitable to life, gradually killing off the surrounding vegetation after the vents formed. We looped around, seeing Mud Caldron and climbing past the Cooking Hillside, so named because the ground started to steam in 1978 after a series of earthquakes. The ground temperature soared to 200F, killing the trees on this hillside. They gradually toppled, and no new life regrew.

Mud Caldron

Next up were Sizzling Bason and Churning Caldron, whose waters roiled not because of temperature – that sits just below boiling – but because of the gas rising from underground vents. Black Dragon’s Caldron is a mudpot that arrived in a hurry, blowing out the nearby trees in 1948 and erupting in 10- to 20-foot bursts of black mud for the next several decades. In recent years, it has quieted, and we were greeted with only a gently bubbling surface.

Churning Caldron

Black Dragon's Caldron

Next to Black Dragon’s Caldron is Sour Lake, a beautiful, peaceful lake whose acidity prevents much life. Yellow crystals of sulfur dot its shores. We ventured on to the Grizzly Fumarole, which changes from day to day and season to season, morphing from a fumarole to a bubbling mudpot depending on how wet the conditions are.

Sour Lake

Crystallized sulfur

Grizzly fumarole

Next up was Mud Volcano, after which the area is named. After a large eruption in 1870, Mud Volcano blew itself apart and instead became a pool of bubbling, muddy water. Its main claim to fame, though, is the lowest pH of any of the pools; its pH gets as low as 2! Our group morbidly debated how long it would take for that acid to eat through various things… including a person. We decided it would be a matter of hours. The other fun fact about Mud Volcano is that bison are often seen to hang out here for days, and they think its because they get high on the hydrogen sulfide gas.

Mud Volcano

To finish off our loop, we stopped at Dragon’s Mouth Spring. This fantastic name came from a park visitor in 1912, who felt that the water surging from the cave mouth resembled a dragon’s tongue lashing out. These gushes of water reached all the way to the boardwalk, but the dragon has held its tongue since about 1994. The cavern also used to emit roaring echoes of the water surging within. Recent earthquakes have caused rocks to fall into the cavern, effectively muzzling the site.

Dragon's Mouth Spring

Killdeer

Our other main stop for the day (which we saw from all angles) was the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River. This gorgeous canyon was carved by the river out of the rhyolite (hardened lava) and tuff (welded ash) over the past 500,000 years and overlies the underground Yellowstone Volcano. The canyon reaches up to 1200 feet deep and 4000 feet across, and stretches for 20 miles. and features colorful walls painted by the different ores. When early overseers of the park were trying to convince the government to fund park rangers to protect these national wonders, one of them brought a painter and a photographer to document the beauty and natural marvels. That painter was Thomas Moran, who called the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River “beyond the reach of human art”. We first admired the Upper Falls, which drop 109 feet, and then the dramatic Lower Falls, which boast a 308-foot drop.