Last Day at Yellowstone

 This morning we left our hotel for our last day in Yellowstone.  After being frustrated in not seeing many animals on this trip, we were rewarded by having an adolescent elk having breakfast right by the hotel parking lot.  He was not shy at all and posed for us as we drove past.

Our morning visit was at the West Thumb Basin.  There is a lot of thermal activity here, but the ground is more open forming pools rather than geysers.  The color of many of the pools is beautiful.

As the thermal pools overflow, their temperature drops.  This creates just the right temp for different algae to grow.  The yellow to copper colors are dominant here.

On the shore of the lake there are several open hot springs with bubbling boiling water all the time.  We read that early explorers here fished in the lake and then cooked their catch right in the lakeside boiling springs.  Looked like it would work perfectly.

We left the basin and said goodbye to Yellowstone until our next visit.  We won’t forget the colors in the West Thumb Basin.