Mammoth Hot Springs

This article concludes my report on my stay in Yellowstone National Park.

At the end we drove to the northern exit of the national park to Gardiner and from there we spent a day at the sinter terraces of Mammoth Hot Spings. Coming from Norris Geyser Basin coming from the south, one sees the terraces on the left hand side and looks directly at the main terrace with its white and yellow slopes. During the journey we were lucky enough to have had clouds in the sky and the more beautiful the effect of the sinter terraces in the total becomes apparent.

Lower Terraces

The next morning we had left early to enjoy the morning sun on the lower terraces. What colors!

 

In the picture on the right you can see the grey structure »Devil’s Thumb«, which was created by a sintering source that had been stationary for centuries. Today inactive, it is slowly integrated into the active sinter terrace.

 

Again and again, dead trees can be seen in the terraces, indicating that new springs are flooding living slopes and causing grasses and trees to die.

Main Terrace

Above the main terrace you can see only grey soils that indicate the inactivity of the springs. However, if you go further south and turn back to the wooden pat eastwards, you can see the active zones of the main terrace in front of you. In the background white terraces, in front of them red-yellow terraces with large water basins:

 

There is even a dead tree trunk built into the terrace structure — I just had to capture it as a panorama (just click on it to see it bigger):

 

The Canary Spring is located a little below in the east. Here we had a great view into the valley. This was also the part of the terraces that we had seen the day before. What a contrast between the hot spring and the grey of the old sinter slopes and the dead trees!

 

During the descent we had a view of the Jupiter Terraces in back light. The steam is particularly beautifully visible in front of the dark mountain. In the morning hours that would have been all in the light.

 

What a great farewell to the thermal springs and geysers of Yellowstone. A week full of experiences and impressive nature.