Day 42
6:15 PM MT.

Leaving Livington we take US 89 South towards Yellowstone.

Yellowstone National Park is located in the northeaster corner of Wyoming and was established as the world’s first national park by an act of Congress in 1872. Yellowstone spreads its 2.2 million acres over a vast area of volcanic activity. The product of volcanic eruptions over the past 2 million years, the park is covered with magmatic heat geysers and hot springs, waterfalls, lakes, and rugged mountains.

We meet our friend and host, Dale Reinhart, who is a landscape architect here at the Park, in Mammoth Hot Springs where he sketches out for us our best options during the limited time we have in Yellowstone. For the first time on the trip the mercury really drops and we break out our winter coats and hats for the freezing day to come. Next up is Norris Geyser Basin, an area coverd with springs, geysers, fumaroles, and mudpots.

There are incredible microclimates here that exist in and just barely above the hot water pits and flows. This bright green grass is growing in boiling water in twenty degree weather.

Next we head east through Norris to the Canyon area. I’ll let the photos from Inspiration Point, Lookout Point, and Artists Point speak for themselves. The colors on the canyon walls are a product of the differing chemical concentrations of the hot water springs bursting out of the canyon walls.

It’s icy and getting dark so we head towards Lake to stay in a single room efficiency Dale has lent to us for the night. What a day.

-Josh