YNP Part4 - Mammoth springs, Norris Basic, Firehole Canyon

I was woken up in the morning by chilling air blowing at me through the open window. The cabin was not cooling well so someone must have left the window open. It was litteraly downpouring! A drastic change in the weather from yesterday. Yesterday had been a beautiful day.

We had planned to start early today, and thanks to Veronica's mom we were able to leave by 9 am. It was quite cold and the temperatures were further dropping. We were all kind of prepared with winter jackets. Rishi had been a darling yesterday, sleeping through the most of the day. The only place he was up was Old Faithful and I took a lovely picture of him there. Unfortunately I lost the memory card of my camera.

He fell asleep as soon as we started. We decided to drive to the farthest point which was Mammoth springs and then see every thing on our way back. The three vehicles tried to keep together but eventually we all separated and spent a lot of time trying to find each other and again ended up separating! So it was only us and Veronica.

The first thing we saw there was pallet terraces. This entire region is quite different and unlike any part of the park. The springs here are in terrace form and the entire hill looks like it is blanketed in white.

There's a lot of things at Mammoth springs as it the park headquarters and also it happened to be an army base in the past. We stopped for lunch in the restaurants in this area but they were all overcrowded mainly because of rain and cold. Lot of people seemed to be unprepared and trying to stay indoors. We picked up our lunch and ate it in the car. Rishi was awake and getting a little cranky from being trapped in the cars for a long time. At least there was lots of space in the back and he could play around while we were parked.
He fell asleep again as we started for Mammoth main terraces drive.

Again this was beautiful! White terraces with brown green and pinkish shades from algae and bacteria. The entire region can be seen from the start of the trail and the trail is quite long going up and down the hill. We spent almost an hour there.

We went about the one way drive and noticed another nice spot for photography, Rishi was up again so he got some pictures too :)

Here's Rishi in his various moods :)

We moved on towards Norris Geyser Basin and stopped on the way to take pictures of Roaring mountain. What an amazing site! As we moved ahead we were halted by a group of 3 Bisson. Then we stopped at one of the meadows on the way, I caught some lovely wild flowers in my camera :)

Reaching Norris Geyser basin we realized that its a huge trail and not stroller friendly so we kept to the top of the trail with view of the entire basin below us. Some amazing small geysers, small pools and vents could be seen. Going to the right as soon as the trail starts took us to a secluded section with multiple small geysers going off back to back.

Also this is the site many people may associate Yellowstone with. I have seen these kind of pictures loads of times.

Moving down south we stopped next at Gibbon falls. I and Veronica went ahead to look at the falls and Vivek stayed in the car with a sleeping Rishi. A few minutes at the overlook and the weather started to change drastically, we rushed to the car so that Vivek could take a look at the falls too and before Vivek could even reach the overlook hail storms started! What a day! We waited for the hail to stop before moving to our next destination. Gibbon falls were so very pretty but for me that was not the real attraction of the overlook. The real attraction was the valley ahead through which Gibbon  river flowed after the falls.

Our next and final destination of the day was Firehole Canyon drive and it also turned out to be our favorite of the day. Driving along the mountains one can the marks of lava flows through crevices and rifts in the mountains. The site of the Firehole river flowing along side it pretty.

We reached Firehole falls took some pictures and headed back towards Madison and west gate to the cabins.