Yellowstone
Still more pictures

The fearless chipmunks strike again. One is at this girl's feet, while the other has crawled right into her hand. I suspect that tourists have made these little animals quite comfortable with people. 
My last view of a geyser basin, on the day I am about to leave.
Hayden Valley, also known as paradise on Earth. This is one of the traditional favorite haunts of wildlife watchers. The river meandering through the valley, is the Yellowstone. Though very placid here, the Yellowstone River features some considerable rapids, nit to mention a series of waterfalls. 
Scalding water bubbles up from the heart of the Earth. The rangers tell us that this water is not really boiling, but is bubbling because of dissolved gasses, which are released as it is exposed to the lower pressure of the surface. 
Despite what the rangers tell us, I would wager that this water is boiling. This is the same formation as that in the previous photo.
On the road again, and regretfully , leaving Yellowstone. Actually, this picture was taken after almost a full day of travel. It was getting late in the day, and I was almost literally in the middle of nowhere.
These are some of the most sparsely populated parts of the country. Even the desert here is not as uninhabited as these mountain areas. It is particularly shocking after the throngs of tourists, rangers, and service people in Yellowstone. 
I felt obligated to take at least one picture of an oil well, since I had seen so many of them dotting the landscape. They are not exactly common in my home state of Wisconsin
Is that a strange looking sky, or what? This is  the middle of the sparsely inhabited basin area, a very lonely place. 
This was all very exciting on the way out, but these desolate stretches just made me want to get home. 
Heading back up into the beautiful mountains. This time, I am on the way back home. 
What a road, and what a view! This type of thing initiated a life long interest in geology. I am out of the basin area here, and back in the Big Horn Mountains. 
Previous Page Yellowstone Home Forward to 1990