In the morning we pass by forests full of narrow trunked, straight lodgepole and white pines. Light flickers between the tall posts, and the road winds around mountains and gorge. Over the Divide, and into a great basin of boiling matter, steaming earth and spit. As you round the last hillside before the geyser basin, even in August, cool mornings generate steam until it fills the air hundreds of feet off the ground.
Inside the giant caldera, inside the crater of a supervolcano, giant plumes of water and steam violently erupt all around us. Here is mother nature, our great mother, in her most ancient of dreams. Here it is like it was in the beginning. Bacterial mats cover acidic earth, large animals congregate for warmth and security. A large eco-system of species can be seen interacting in their natural habitat.
There is little I can do to show justice to this place. While beautiful, rich in life and color, it is one of the most visited parks in our country. It was harder for me here, more than anywhere else I have been so far this summer, to keep the human element away from the image. More to come, and more to be said of this place later...
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