The Caldera Experience

Yellowstone National Park,WY,ID,MT & Grand Teton National Park,WY

The oldest national park in the world and youngest of the Rocky mountain ranges

Five of us set out to the oldest national park in the world- Ashok, George, Issac, Satya and myself. The trip was during the memorial day weekend, May 21-25 2009.

This will be a joint description of the Grand Teton (GT) and Yellowstone(Y) National Park. GT is south of Y, and is hard to miss, especially if you are going that far west.

GT is a starking textbook example of land shaped by fault-block mountain building and Y contains the world's highest concentration of geysers and non-commercial hot springs in the world. Areas like Iceland, New Zealand tap their geothermal features to get energy, but those at Y remain untouched and at their natural best. GT and Y are part of the Rockies and represent ever-changing landscapes thanks to volcanic and tectonic activity of the earth.

Lewis and Clark Expedition was a famous expedition in early 1800s that led to the discovery of the areas in the two parks and in the subsequent declaration as a national resource to be preserved for future generations. The discovery of the Tetons and Jackson Hole area is credited to John Colter, part of the above expedition around 1807. He left the expedition that time and explored these areas. I believe he kept no journals, and the accounts present are whatever he narrated to William Clark, of the Clark expedition. Tetons are the youngest mountains in the Rockies, but are supposedly made of the oldest rocks in North America. The rocks are metamorphic, and come from depths of the earth where the earth above exerts intense pressure and are heated by the temperatures of the molten rock below them, thus causing 'metamorphosis'. Metamorphic rocks are some of the hardest and least porous rocks known. The molten rock from below, during movements along the fault, intrudes into this rock layer, to form granite and diabase, a dark volcanic rock. There were streaks of black on the ranges and these are diabase rocks, also called 'black dike'. Movements in the fault causes earthquakes and causes mountains to rise and valleys to drop. The tallest among the Tetons is the Grand Teton at a height of 13770ft (~4000m).

The park is about 40miles in length and 15miles wide. It is the only national park with an airport inside it- Jackson Hole. Makes it rather inviting to fly straight to it, but the layover at other cities and time that would be wasted made us decide otherwise. So we flew into Salt Lake City on the 20th and stayed at a hostel that night. We had rented a Chevy standard SUV, and it looked like a monster for me to drive. Isscac and I were to share driving. That night Issac drove, and I decided one thing- I can do all the driving on the highway and Issac can do the driving in the parks. That worked out just fine. Surprisingly, I found myself comfortable driving that thing compared to the smaller cars I had driven so far. When we reached the booked hostel, we had quite an interesting experience getting the door of the hostel/house to open, trying the combination given to us in the email. As it turns out, the housekeeper sent us an 'updated' email, telling us the new combination, and we knew about it after we called him. George was right in that it does represent one of the 256(?) combinations...:P. Nevertheless, our trials were closer to the right one, we felt. So much for the 'breaking in'... we tucked in and had quite a good night's sleep. Our plan was to start around 8.00am next day, do some grocery shopping at a walmart nearby and then head off to GT campsite that night. SLC was relatively warm, but we reminded ourselves of what was coming in the night, given that the temperatures at this time of the year was still in the +/- single digits(C of course) inside the park.

We reached GT at about 1700ish...but unexpectedly the first campground, Jenny Lake was full! I read now that that campsite is perennially full, but how were we to know? All the campgrounds were first come first served(FCFS). We moved on, towards the east side, to Signal Mountain area. Luckily we did find one, close to Jackson Lake. A good portion of the park is occupied by this lake, and the drive alongside is quite a scenic one. Having gotten to the campsite, we immediately decided to take a walk along the lake, watch the sunset and then return to pitch our tent. The walk was well rewarded in terms of natural beauty, no doubt, but it was getting increasingly colder. The panoramic view of the Teton range was breathtaking and I forgot all the cold air around me as I stood staring at the evening glory of the sun setting behind the mountains. Capturing some of the scenery is possible with a camera, but the feeling of awe in terms of the 180 degree view offered by the eye and the majesty of the peaks is unforgettable. It seems that the signal mountain areas is the best place to appreciate the unusual geology of the Teton area....the abrupt meeting of the valley floor and the mountain range. I did my best to capture some of the sunset nevertheless, hoping the pictures would come out just as fine(I own a film slr camera). It was around 10pm, and it was getting darker and colder. We proceeded back to our campsite. The next step- dinner. I must say at this point that one of the best decisions prior to this trip was to take 10packets of MTR ready to eat Puliyodharai and Bisibele bath. A packet is good enough for a meal, and with these supplemented by groceries from Walmart including bread, cheese, jam, bagels, tortillas and some canned food, we had a pretty good supply of food to last us. We had also rented a stove at SLC REI and had bought 3 propane tanks. Puliyodharai packets were the first to be opened. The cooking experience was not that good, and we could not heat the food quickly (recall, we are at an elevation of about 6000ft) and the first eater, unluckily George, was having the coldest of the lot. The heating got progressively better as the water was boiling in time, and the rest of us had a slightly better meal. The food was oily, but nevertheless tasted good in the cold. The last step for the day, we started pitching our tent. George and Ashok had some experience of it from their florida experience. The night air being cold as it is, we quickly retired for the night, and packed ourselves into the tent. Not a very peaceful night in terms of sleep though, but we knew what the temperatures were going to be.

The plan next day was to spend exploring in the GT park, before proceeding to Madison Campground at Yellowstone that night. A mile from Signal Mountain area is Oxbow bend, where wildlife is supposed to frequent. Apparently an 'oxbow' is formed when a portion of a river 'pinches' of it by intrusion of land into the river, making it meander and flow in a 'U-shape'..I remember seeing the white pelican and the white-crowned sparrow(Ashok is a keen bird-watcher and he identifies the birds for us). We drove to Colter Bay visitor centre area, where the Hermitage point trail originates. In the span of the time we had, this trail is very much doable and requires about 4 hours. It is an 8.5miles loop and starts and ends at Colter Bay parking area. It is a flat trail leading along Jackson Lake,Heron Pond and Swan Lake. We saw many birds (including the Grey Jay, which I was able to capture quite close..) and the uinta squirrel...what seemed to bear tracks (both the parks are bear countries, and we read enough about it to be on guard..) turned out to be horse tracks made by the ranger horses. It was a little disappointing that the pictures of fresh dropping taken by George was in vain. Nevertheless, as Ashok pointed out, the dropping had 'fibre' or grass in it..which made it unlikely that it would be a bear's...anyhow..the little scare of possibly meeting a bear upclose is fresh in my mind. At some point on the trail, we lost direction and I am kind of proud of having the mind to bring a compass along. It did put us back on track and we returned safely to the parking lot. We had about 2 hours of drive to do to reach Madison (looks like we were not done with Madison yet) and were told that we were to be there as soon as possible to get a good camping ground.

Learning from the first night's experience, Ashok and myself decided to rent a better sleeping bag at the Old Faithful basin area. Rightly as forums on the internet said, there are really no renting outlets inside yellowstone. We ended up buying fleece blankets instead. As we bought our blankets and were waiting for rest of the party to come and pick us up(they had gone to locate a good campsite), for the first time in my life, I saw a geyser erupt (the word 'geyser' comes from Icelandic 'geysir' meaning to gush or rage; thinking about 'geezer' was an interesting extension, but more on than later). It was an awe-inspring experience, if you will. I took pictures,no doubt, but I decided that I was definitely going to come back and watch the eruption happen. Apparently, the Old Faithful is very faithful, and has never known to miss it's 33-120minute eruption schedule. We reached Madison campground at about 6.30ish in the evening, if I recollect correctly. We got a good campsite, and this time, we decided to pitch tent first, give ourselves ample time for dinner and making a campfire. Satya was the fire expert and I was aware of the pitching procedure by now and better at lighting the stove. Since we had decided to relax that evening, it was a much better experience overall compared to the first night. Having made a decent plan of how to spend the rest of the trip, decided to call it a day. What also made our experience more warm was the extra set of blankets that Satya managed to get from a ranger. He apparently developed a good rapport with her and she was kind enough to lend us blankets. And warm it was! I had a sound night's sleep. The Firehole river was only about few hundred yards away. I woke up around 6.30am and strolled over to the riverside with Ashok and George. We could see bisons on the opposite side and some birds. What was refreshing about camping experience is that you wake up to call of the birds at about 4.30am and no other sounds. Being close to nature was only tip of an iceberg experience. We had bagels/bread/jam/creamcheese for breakfast (these did a world of good in that cold climate) and set off to the Norris Geyser area.

The human history of Yellowstone National Park is by itself quite a narrative, and I will skip that purely for the purpose of preventing repetition from the sources and lack of justice that will ensue on my part. I would instead, like to relate more of the caldera experience.

Caldera basically means a large crater formed by volcanic eruption, or by collapse of a volcanic cone. The word is derived from spanish 'cauldron' or from late latin 'caldaria'. Collapse occurs because of withdrawal of magma from an underlying chamber some 2–3 mi (4–6 km) beneath the surface, resulting in foundering of the roof into the chamber. The area of the caldera that formed in the Y area is about 1000 sq.miles. It seems the caldera region was south of Y about 600,000 years ago, and is still moving north. The formation of the caldera as such is only of the many recent events. Three eruptions were known prior to that in the south of Y and were spaced about 600,000 years apart. That means we are due for another one. With much anticipation we went, but the earth decided to patiently fume away instead. The caldera is now buried by lava flows, and is no longer so dramatic feature. Well, on the timescale of human lifespan, it's fair to say that the investment in the park is a permanent and well-thought out one. The park was established in 1872, after much backing from the Northern Pacific railroad,members of the 1870s expeditions and became the first national park in the world. Yellowstone has it's own 'Grand Canyon' and it is easy to believe that the name Yellowstone comes from the technicolour walls of the Canyon, when interestingly, the name takes after the yellowish-tan bluffs near the confluence of the yellowstone and missoruri rivers in western North Dakota named by a British fur trader called David Thomson.

A little more on the geology, since that fascinated me throughout the trip and made me severly regret not paying attention to subjects other than Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Mathematics at school and college level. Eruptions caused formation of many mountain ranges in all directions in the park. In the northwest direction is the Gallatin Range, in the north is the Absarokas, the northeast is occupied by the Beartooth plateau(exception), the east again contains Absarokas, to the south is the Two Ocean plateau(we did not explore much of the south at all) and to the southwest is Teton Range and Madison plateau. Most of the park is between 7000-8000ft elevation, as you can imagine. Almost all of the areas are accessible by branching off the Grand Loop Road, which is of shape of number '8'. The road itself is 142miles long.

As I said before, we set off to Norris Geyser basin area. This was 23rd May. Y has the world's largest concentration of geysers in about a couple of miles area and this in turn can be divided into different regions. Norris lies to the north followed by the Lower Geyser basin, Midway Geyser basin and then the Upper Geyser basin to the south. Yes...it is quite counter-intuitive to think of the 'Upper' basin to the south, but as it happens, the Firehole river upstream is the Upper geyser area and the downstream area is called the Lower Geyser basin. No connection to the notion of north-south direction indeed. Norris basin is named after Philetus Norris,the park's second superintendent(1877-82) who is notable for constructing some of the park's first roads and for the shameless frequency with which he named park features after himself. It contains most of the acidic geysers. As we walk by the geysers, we can constantly smell the sulphur in its most familiar form- smell after fireworks(Sulphur dioxide),smell of rotten eggs(Hydrogen Sulphide,H2S) and sulphuric acid vapours. Somehow the phenomenon of olfactory adaption did not apply then, and I never stopped smelling them. Geysers are said to have very complicated underground plumbing system as compared to its cousin geothermal feature such as the hot springs and is not still well-understood. Geysers are basically formed by snow percolating to the depths of the earth, where it gets superheated and with hard rocks such as rhyolite(volcanic rock rich in silicon) above it, intense pressuers build up over time. Eventually the superheated water dissolves silica and rises to the surface. As you can imagine, the superheated water suddenly feels a drop in pressure at the surface and hence gushes out. As it gushes out, it brings with it, geyserite or siliceous sinter which deposits around the mouth of the geyser. It is white...and the vapours are white..the land is white...and the sky is also bright with sunlight. I had a hard time taking decent pictures indeed! The crust of the earth in these regions is quite thin, about 2-3miles thick....and in many areas they advise us to stick to designated paths. The pools in the geyser basin also contain Fe and Cu minerals, due to which they attain red and blue shades. As far as life is concerned, this is the ideal place for extremophiles( we did notice a solitary lodgepole pine though) - thermophiles and/or acidophiles. These organisms are also responsible for the brilliant colours. Thermoacidophiles, as the name says, like to survive in sulphur rich environments of 60-80C and pH less than or equal to 2. These organisms can be bacteria, algae or archae, and use sulphur instead of oxygen for respiration and therefore anaerobic. The colours of the colonies are in stark contrast to the white landscape caused by the geyserite. The algae, called Cyanidium are thermophilic, impart green colour. Acidophiles use the iron for energy, present in large colonies in runoff-channels. I have some pictures of those in picasa. There are two basins in the Norris area- Back basin and Porcelain basin. Each geyser has a name, and it was interesting to relate the name to the appearance/character of its eruption. Back basin has Emerald spring,steamboat geyser(world's tallest geyser, last major eruption was in 1988 I believe..), cistern spring(erupts after steamboat for a day or two),Echinus(largest acidic, named after Echinoderms(sea urchins) and erupts every 80minutes or so and has spiny geyserite(silicate mineral, also called siliceous sinter) deposits), Porkchop geyser,Pearl geyser, veteran geyser(geezer is the more appropriate word..:)) and minute geyser( does it refer to the time or size?seemed more like the latter). During our walk, we came across many rocks that looked like rhyolite, obsidian(volcanic glass) and supposedly pumice. The obsidian was very interesting to look at, and I marveled at how sharply it was cut and the mirror like shine. Another geothermal feature is the fumarole. They differ from geysers and hot springs in that they are essentially steam vents and have no water present at the surface. We saw many of these in the Back Basin area itself. Watching them really made me feel like the earth was venting steam through her ears! And what roaring sound it made! Made me feel like my mother was angry with me for some wrong that I did(in this case mankind in general I suppose). Time constraints prevented us from doing the Porcelain basin. I was quite saturated with the gases in my lungs anyway...so I was ready to move on.

Our next stop was the Lower-Midway-Upper geyser basin area. We stopped at the 'Artist Paint pots', a collection of yet another set of geothermal features called mudpots. A mudpot is formed of mixture of clay(kaolinite) and water- these are bubbling,viscous and found higher in altitude than the geysers, reason being that on slopes, water retention is less and hence the greater proportion of clay. The clay as such is formed by dissolution of the silicate minerals by sulphuric acid produced by the utilisation of H2S by the microbes in the water. The consistency of mixture depends on the season. In the spring it's loose and thicker in summer. The consistency determines how the mud pot looks. Many of them looked just like a thick creamy paste churned by the earth, coloured by S(yellow) and Fe(red/brown) and hence the name- paint pots. Eruption of these involves the mixture as such and we had quite a time watching one of the 'active' ones. It was white in colour, and Satya and George must have taken nearly hundred shots of it, to capture the 'eruption' of mud bubbles-escape of steam from the boiling mixture...I took some 6 shots of it, and not with much ambition of getting a bubble bursting. I took a peek of their pictures, and they were really good! So much for the digital camera!

It was about around 5.00pm, we were getting tired. We were to stay at the Old Faithful Lodge cabins that night. We decided to go to the Old Faithful straightaway. I got to watch the Old Faithful erupt this time in full glory, without the distraction of taking pictures. Quite satisfied with the experience, we returned back to our cabins. The cabin was such that you could watch the Old Faithful erupt from the room itself! What a strange feeling! Geysers erupting outside your doorstep! The eruption reaches to a height about 100-120ft (Steamboat geyser eruption reaches to about 300ft- thats about the height of the statue of liberty!) Our initial plan was to go for a campsite in the Mammoth area the next night, ie,the 24th. But as it turned out, we were there for the Memorial Day weekend, and hence the campsites were expected to get full by 7.00am! It seemed very unpractical to go all the way to Mammoth to just book the campsite and then return to see the Midway Geyser basin area(we were yet to cover this). So then, we decided to book a private lodge in the Mammoth area( called Comfort Inn, not among the lodges managed by Xanterra lodges) for 24th night. Having taken care of the accomodation for the next night, we peacefully slept. Our plan for the next day was to cover the Upper and Midway Geyser area, and then possibly go for a trek to peak of Mt. Washburn.

The first thing in the morning of 24th, we set out to walk around the Old Faithful area. Of the many types geysers present (cone and fountain) Castle geyser,Grotto geyser (its opening was like a half-open mouth, more like a cleft-lipped geyser) were cone-type and Riverside geyser (along the Firehole river) and Old Faithful are the fountain type geysers. There are over 130 active geysers in an area of 1sqmile! The above ones are just the ones that lie along the river. We also made a visit to the Morning Glory Pool. Metaphorically called 'Fading Glory'...it is been sadly a target of vandalism. As a result of people throwing coins, trash etc into the pool, the vents got blocked which reduced the water circulation and decreased the temperature of the water. This allowed cooler temperature organisms like cyanobacteria and other algae to thrive, imparting the colour it has developed today. It was remarkable to see images from then and now, and how the pool has developed its colours. The colours in all geothermal features are very much indicative of the temperature, and blue for example is due to organisms in a cooler area than a red-coloured area. Nevertheless, years after the vandalism has stopped, there is still beauty in the pool, in a different way,because of its colours. While walking along the river, we saw the Coyote and bisons on the other side. The view of the Coyote was quite a close one, I was pretty excited and clicked away to glory. The coyote belongs to the wolf species, is slender and has a reddish-grey form. We also watched a pair of Northern Flickers sort of 'communicating' with each other in some way, doing some sort of dance on a tree. It was a pretty sight, unfortunately I had no idea of what they were talking ofcourse.

We had heard of the largest hot spring in Y being in the Midway Geyser basin. It's called the Grand Prismatic Spring. Before that we made a stop at Gibbon Falls area, where the Gibbon river flows. It was the first waterfall we were seeing(not a very deep one though- about 80ft, nevertheless beautiful), and we spent a bit of time here. I saw the violet-green swallow (thanks to Ashok for the name) here for the first time. It is such a beautiful bird, with a shining metallic green body reflected brilliantly by the sunlight. We also managed to take the only group picture(s) here. Reaching the Midway geyser basin area, I was awed by the confluence of nature's different elements present here. Firehole river (liquid form of water), the Excelsior geyser and Grand Prismatic Spring(gaseous form of water) and snow (solid form of water) beyond on the mountains...that was a fantastic view. Ashok has a good picture of all three in one place. Excelsior geyser is(was) the most powerful geyser. It erupted with so much force during 1985 for 2 days that it blew apart its plumbing system and longer can establish the pressure to erupt since, and hence just continues to let steaming water flow into the river. It is quite a sight to watch the hot water meet its colder counterpart. The Grand Prismatic Spring is the largest hotspring in Y. Hot springs are different from geysers in that they don't have as much complicated plumbing underneath, and just represents a body of water constantly replenished and peacefully simmering away. Here again, the brilliant display of colours and fogginess in our pictures continued. I very much wish I had an aerial view of the spring. It would have been a grand experience!

Soon, around 2.00pm we reached the Chittenden Bridge road, where our trail to Mount Washburn was to begin. The mountain is named after Henry Dana Washburn,surveyor general of 1870 expedition. Due to construction the road leading upto the trail head was blocked to vehicle traffic. So what? We parked our car at the nearest lookout, had a quick lunch and set out on the hike to the mountain top. In a short trip this is a highly recommended trail, as it offers fantastic views of Yellowstone lake, Grand Canyon, the Teton Range, Hayden valley and Firehole river. What else can you wish for? The elevation of the mountain is 10,243ft. There are two trails leading to the top- one starts in the north, at Chittenden road, and the second, from the south, at Dunraven Pass Picnic area. Both are 3miles one way, and the change in elevation is about 1400ft. So we were roughly starting our hike at 8600ft or so...Need I repeat the jawdropping views of the surroundings? Pictures not worth even thousand words now, and I could just stare at the mountains all my life. Anyhow, there are some pictures to remind us of the humbling experience. We could see the Grand Canyon of Y to the east, the Absarokas to the north-east and the Gallatin range to the north-west and Tetons to the south. It was cloudy and seeing beyond was harder. I found something to do interesting to do on the trail. I started counting 'poles'..these looked like markers placed for the snow-ploughers to note the bends on the road. I got Ashok and George also to do the counting for me, so we were checking our count once in a while during brief periods of rest, to take pictures or to catch our breath. I counted 155 poles in all from peak to the trail head and then 41 poles from trail head to the parking area). I am not going to comment on the intellectual advantage of this exercise since we can infer the spacing between two poles (3miles/155) but then they were not equally spaced, so that's futile.....nevertheless it was a fulfilling one at the very least. The uphill walk to the trail head took us about 45minutes and then the climb up took us about 2 hours. As far as animal life is concerned, we saw squirrel(s), birds(grouse- a most interesting bird, the male performs an elaborate mating dance with erect tail,puffed breast,inflated air sac on the neck and much hopping and stamping. It nests in tall grass bushes; lots of mountain blue birds; ravens; osprey). As we reached elevations about 9000ft, we saw many colourful lichens growing on rocks. Lichens are result of a symbiotic relationship between fungi and algae. I learnt a lot about plant life on this trail than anywhere else. Depending on what elevation you are, you see different vegetation. At lower elevations of 6000-7000ft, one comes across douglas firs. These are supposedly taller, more massive than the lodgepole pine trees(found at higher elevations), have needles is in singles. The needles are soft to touch, and learnt that cones are about 3 inches long with conspicuous lobed 'tongue' on outside of each scale. I am sure I did not see these cones, but many of the trees did not seem to have cones yet. From the needles, we could only have guessed. We should have paid more attention to the cones, I feel, since among all the trees we saw George had trouble pinpointing the type based on the needles alone. (7600-8400ft) we could see lodgepole pine( got used to seeing this tree so much in the park). The limberpine also grows at lower elevations, and looks much like whitebark pine and has even 5 needles to a bundle. From elevations of 7000ft to timeberline, whitebark pine grows and form part of the subalpine growth. Needles can be 5 to a bundle, grow to about 3 inches long, and the cones disintegrate before dropping to the ground. The lodgepole pine grows at elevations of 7600-8400 ft and are most abundant in the park. They are dependent on forest fires to melt the resins that seal their cones shut,ensuring that their seeds disperse only when fire has prepared a fertile bed of ash, whereas other lodgepoles disperse during fall like regular pine trees.Needles are 2 to a bundle,about 2" long, tall, staight trunks,small nearly round cones. These cones very much resemble the ones that I see around home here during fall. I collected a couple to keep at home. They grow in places where soil is quite thin, have flat and shallow root systems. That's quite a bit of information on alpine vegetation. When we reached the summit, the view was breathtaking and the cold air did not matter then. There was shelter and a watch tower, showing the various peaks viewable from the summit. The descent was much faster, and got down in about half the time. Tired, we drove to the Comfort Inn for the night.

The plan for next and last day at Yellowstone was to visit Mammoth Hot springs, visit the Canyon area and possibly visit the highest lake in North America, Yellowstone lake. Indeed, the visit to Mammoth Hot Springs was an experience of a different kind altogether. Hot springs, like I mentioned before, are benign cousins of geysers. In Mammoth area, instead of the hard rhyolite rock, we find travertine, a form of limestone. Limestone being softer than rhyolite dissolves more easily in water and does not allow build of pressures required to erupt like a geyser. It is said that the travertine grows about 1 inch a day! Limestone contains Calcium carbonate and when brought upto the surface, decomposed to give off carbondioxide and deposites to give beautiful terraces. Quite regal to look at, I found names such as 'Cleopatra terrace' most apt. The colours on these terraces are due to living and fossilised thermophiles. Some of the springs include Minerva terrace, Canary spring, New blue spring, Orange spring mound, White elephant back terrace,Angel terrace, Cleopatra terrace and Jupiter terrace. The hot spring cone liberty cap(named after hats worn during french revolution) is not a hot spring anymore, and has dried up, but an attraction nevertheless. This took the better part of the morning, and our next stop was the Canyon region.

We saw Pronghorn deers( I would not have noticed it if I was driving..;)) and black bears(this was thanks to a large crowd standing and watching) on the way to Falls. Black bears are primarily vegetarian ,half are black, anomalies include brown and cinnamon.They have more tapered muzzles compared to the Grizzly, smaller ears and smaller claws. We also had a good look at the Elk. The elk/wapiti/red deer is the most abundant large mammal in Greater yellowstone area and males(bulls) have darker throat mane and grow 5ft long multipoint antlers. We also saw bisons at various places, and is apparently the continent's largest land mammal and quite sensitive. Among the birds, the common ones were Canada geese, yellow-headed blackbirds and black-billed magpies and ofcourse, ravens. Interesting fact- Ravens are said to have intelligence equal to that of a dog.

We reached the Brink of the Lower Falls area. We had second thoughts, but decided to stop here, since there are two falls here, and I am glad we did. There are two falls- Upper and Lower Falls. Upper Falls is upstream of the latter, and is a smaller one, has a height of 109ft, is formed by the Yellowstone river as it leaves the Hayden Valley. It becomes the Lower Falls as it goes downstream, which is much taller and has a height of 308 ft(seemingly twice the height of Niagara Falls!) into a 20mile canyon. We took a trail which was about 600ft drop in about a mile length. Getting down was really easy, and I managed to see the Yellow-rumped warbler at close quarters (thanks to Ashok again), got some good pictures of it. Reaching the Brink, I was speechless to see the grandeur of the Falls and the Canyon beyond. A most beautiful rainbow stood above the falls just enclosing the yellowstone river, the canyon and the walls of the Canyon. I could stare at it forever, and never grew tired of taking pictures. I am always wondering about how different elements of nature circulate, especially water....imagining the fury of the river and the amount of water gushing down, seems to go on for years and the source seems to be limitless. Quite a marvel.

Our next stop was to have a look at the Grand Canyon of Y. Not as grand as the actual Grand Canyon(I have been there), but nevertheless with a beauty of its own, the walls of the canyon was interesting to look at. It is carved by the yellowstone river. It is formed of rhyolite and the yellowish hue comes from action of hot gases and water on rhyolite, softening it to a considerable extent. Managed to catch an Osprey in flight here and a good panoramic view of the canyon. On the way to Fishing Bridge, we stopped briefly at Hayden valley where wildlife is supposed to frequent. Here I saw what turned out to be male and female cinnamon teal( Ashok at work again). We had given up any hope of seeing any Grizzly bears, and luckily we found a big crowd at one of the turnouts in Hayden valley, where somebody had spotted a mother and son grizzly about a mile away. We could clearly view them through a scope one of the people had, and boy! what a joy that was! We finally got to see Grizzlies! It seemed like a mission was accomplished. Grizzlies are different from Black bears in that they are a little bigger, and have a prominent shoulder hump and long, non-retractable claws. They are said to have an amazing sense of smell. I wonder if they could smell so many humans a mile away.

Our last stop for the trip was Fishing Bridge and the yellowstone lake. Fishing is not allowed there anymore since it led to dramatic decrease of the cutthroat trout fish which is an important source of food for the bear population, and one can see how the food chain would affect the natural ecosystem. I managed to capture a flying pelican on my camera. Turned out to be a decent shot. Lastly, we( George, myself and Satya mostly) wanted to capture the sunset at the Yellowstone lake. Y lake is the largest alpine lake in NAmerica above 7000ft and the deepest spot is 320ft. That's deeper than the height of the Lower Falls! Gulp..Having happily exhausted almost a roll for just the sunset and put my tripod to good use, I felt satisfied with my photography for the day, and we all drove to Grant Village Lodge to finally retire for the night and end the trip. Quite an enlightening trip, I must say and I definitely have more appreciation for nature and its elements now(not that I did not have before...I have been on treks..but this was more informative than the others..). Hope to make more of such trips in future for sure.