YELLOWSTONE
A few Septembers ago, I made a trip to Yellowstone for an off-season National Park venture. Considering the land is essentially one large volcano that can and will destroy us all one day, the terrain itself does quite the job at reflecting that.
Going in September makes for an unpredictable time weather-wise, but the 25 degree mornings don’t matter so much when frost is this much of a stunner.
Easily my favorite thing about Yellowstone is how absolutely violent it is. You end up spending most of your time here on boardwalks, as somehow this is the only thing keeping you from evaporating into a geothermal pool. Personally I’m haunted by the story of a man that fell into one of these and instantly, uh, melted while going off trail for a picture. It’s dangerous just to be here and a good reminder that as humans we are so, so fragile. Oh, and stupid.
Kinda seems like a duh, but the steam rising from these is purely from how cold it was outside. From what I’ve seen of more typical views, these are actually just clear and bubbling with no fog obstruction. For that reason, I entirely missed Grand Prismatic Spring. A bummer, considering that’s one of the stars of the park. The mist certainly made for an overall more ominous visit though, and I would argue made for even better photos.
The thing about these pools is…I wanna swim in them so fucking bad. However, it’s a pit of acid and the smell is appalling so alas I must release that dream.
Moving onto another brand of intensity, we have the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, which is also a majestic park highlight.
Further around the lower loop sits the Norris Geyser Basin, which is the actual sight of the park’s grisly geothermal death a few years ago. Huge oof.
In other boiling news, we have the Boiling River. This is where a massive hot spring feeds into the Gardner River, causing hot-tub like temperatures that are totally swimmable and won’t dissolve you. Even on a day where it was in the 30s, there were people stripped down and fully committed the experience. Couldn’t be me, but I love it for them.
Yellowstone is the essential National Park experience I believe everyone should have.
