Wyoming Wilds

Transited through Yellowstone into Grand Teton NP today.  Yes, there are annoying crowds of tourons here and there, but by no means everywhere...and the scenery is grand and unusual!  This is Gibbon Falls.

In Yellowstone, I focused on the Norris Geyser Basin, a spot I'd bypassed in my two previous visits.  The barren, unstable ground combined with the dead spars from the 1988 fires can render the scene apocalyptic.

Pearl Geyser.  The graduated dab of blue in the middle looks like something an artist would add.  I've never seen blue in a gradient pattern like that before.

Porcelain Basin is an otherworldly place with a wide variety of coloring due to different minerals.  The steam from the fumaroles in the background seems to blend in with the cumulus clouds.

Porcelain basin is always active.  The vent in the center of the pic was blowing steam full blast, continuously.  The coloring here reminds me of the pictures I've seen of Io, one of Jupiter's moons.  And indeed Io is highly volcanic so the same processes are probably at work in both places. 

Yellowstone Lake, 7733 feet above the sea, is an inland sea itself.  Not as blue as Lake Tahoe, but much wilder and less developed.

I chanced upon an island with one (1) pine tree upon it.  Change the pine to a palm and you'd have your quintessential tropical island where a cartoon guy gets marooned.  But palms can't grow at Yellowstone Lake, where winter temperatures routinely touch 30 below.

A panorama of the Tetons.  Grand Teton is the jagged peak on the left, mount Moran on the right.  The glowering clouds turned into thunderstorms this evening...nice light show.

A bull moose munching his dinner.  While I took the picture, I was munching my dinner...at the outdoor bar of the Jackson Lake Lodge.  Sipping a nice NZ Sauv Blanc also.  Wildlife viewing in comfort!

Another pic of ol' Bullwinkle.  Not bad when you can photograph moose whilst at the bar.  These two moose pics were taken with my new Nikon Coolpix camera, and I extended the zoom to its absolute limit, where the resolution is not crystal clear.  Blow these pix up and you have an instant impressionist painting!