Mammoth Hot Springs, next to Yellowstone, is
 hot water sculpture in overdrive, forming travertine
terraces steaming with sulphur scented springs.
Boardwalks are used, not only to protect natural
resources, but to prevent people from scalding
water and slippery surfaces.
We’re not professional bird watchers, but I’m pretty
sure this is a ring-necked hot footer.  A real
survivor, adapted to a hostile environment.
An erie, otherworldly landscape.
Watching “Old Faithful”, so
named by an explorer in 1870, for
its remarkable consistency.
Unlike most geysers in Yellowstone,
Old Faithful’s heights, intervals and
length of eruptions have hardly varied
in over 100 years.  It erupts about every
90 minutes, 18 to 21 times per day.

             

The masses gather at Old Faithful with such
regularity that the National Park Service has
built a circumference of bench seating around it.
Microscopic critters live in these geysers.
The thermophilic hot-water loving species may
be remnants of some of the earliest life on earth.