Yellowstone NP

Well here we are in Yellowstone National Park, the oldest in the world and one of the biggest. As I have already mentioned, it's sits over a huge volcano that is still active. If it ever blows properly, it has the potential to change life on this planet as we know it. About half the park sits inside the caldera of the volcano, and all of the geysers and similar activity are caused by what's going on deep below us - I guess they are acting as the escape valve for the underground pressure, which is a good thing.

We visited some more of the active geysers this morning, particularly a series of them known as the Artists Paintpots. I'm not exactly sure why, but I'm guessing that it's because the pools of water around each hole were coloured with swirls of colours, and with a lot of them together it looks a bit like an artist's paint board.

Travelling along the rim of the caldera, we headed for Canyon Village and a late breakfast, courtesy of our van's fridge which doesn't seem to be working on gas when we don't have power, and our milk going off as a result. Stocked up on petrol, cash, and food for the next 24 hours, as it's a long way from one service centre in the park to another.

By the time we'd finished all of that, it was lunchtime, and the queues for everything were out the door. Not only is Yellowstone big, it's also incredibly busy. They have supermarkets, restaurants, cafes, lodges, petrol and repair stations, RV parks, campgrounds, and medical clinics. They even have fully functional road flyover interchanges at the busiest intersections in the park. Canyon Village is one of the three busiest service centres in the park, and so being there at lunchtime was pretty chaotic, and time to get out.

The ranger had told us that it was pretty easy to get away from the crush - 85% of visitors never go more than 50 metres from the carparks - so we took her advice, packed our lunch and drove down to one of the trailheads, and walked the Clear Lake Trail around the South Rim of what is known as The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Very like the Grand Canyon we all know about, but obviously not as big. Walked about 3km past Clear Lake and the Lily Pad Lake, ending up at the south rim of the Canyon where we sat on a rock and tried to eat lunch with our hearts on our mouths as Brendan hopped around rocks on the rim edge taking selfies on his camera, with absolutely no barrier between him and the river below.

Despite the attempts of a few wind gusts to spoil our holiday he came back safely, and we walked along the South Rim past Artist Point (the rocks look like an artists palette) back to the crush at Uncle Toms Point and nearby carpark, catching amazing views of the Lower Falls cascading into the canyon. We were told that this is the second most photographed spot in the park behind Old Faithful, and it's in this area that Yellowstone got it's name.

Mid afternoon, we drove south to Yellowstone Lake and did another 3km hike at Storm Point, with lovely views of the lake, and some distant views of Grand Teton. The highlight was the colony of marmots that were frolicking around the rocks (just what is the collective noun for marmots?).

Late afternoon the animals came out as we drove back to Canyon Village through the Hayden Valley, and Bison and Elk spotting were the order of the day. Also spent a few minutes at the Mud Volcano which spews hot mud rather than hot water.