Category: **Our Awesome National Parks

White Porcelain at Norris Geyser Basin

Posted on by Joy

Yellowstone in winter is truly a wonderland. Quiet solitude, the result of few park visitors and the muffling effect of deep snow. Vast sparkling snow landscapes can feel disorienting and measuring snow depth in feet both define winter here. Last autumn we visited Porcelain Basin, one of two basins at Norris Geyser Basin. Today we will marvel at the basin in its winter glory–White Porcelain this time of year! Welcome to Yellowstone’s most acidic and hottest hydrothermal area and one of the most active earthquake areas in Yellowstone.

Porcelain Basin

Bundle up and let’s go

SNAP*Shot: Dusky Grouse

Posted on by Joy

dusky grouse male

Dusky Grouse are so interesting and this year I had an up-close and personal encounter (see below). Here is a male in full mating display in June, too busy courting to bother with us. He struts and hops with tail raised and fanned, neck feathers spread revealing his bright neck-skin patch, loud wing thumping, and making a deep wump-wump-wump, a sound that can be heard great distances by springtime hikers. These birds, about the size of a chicken and weighing up to three pounds, would rather walk than fly. Best known by locals for scaring the daylights out of you. You’ll be walking a trail, they wait until you are about two feet away, and fly up in a rapid, flurried take off almost hitting you. Yikes, my heart!

More grousing

Ride~About: Winter Wonderland

Posted on by Joy

Walks and hikes are great, but sometimes the road trip getting there is spectacular as well. Even in the car we can slow down and look around enjoying the landscapes, critters in the meadows, and features unique to the drive. We had six inches of snow overnight at Lamar Buffalo Ranch and the clouds are closing in as flurries begin to fall. A gorgeous winter wonderland, just in time for Christmas!

Lamar-

Continue our ride

Porcelain Beauty at Norris Geyser Basin

Posted on by Joy

edge of change-2554

The western side of Yellowstone offers an otherworldly experience of fumaroles (steam vents), hot springs, mudpots, and geysers . Here our wilderness walks are on boardwalks with brief excursions through hearty pines standing tall as they resist heat, steam, acidity, and constant sometimes violent change. Today we walk the volcano’s edge in northeast Norris Geyser Basin, the hottest and most acidic geyser basin in Yellowstone. Welcome to  Porcelain Basin.

Continue walking . . .