All images of Yellowstone on this page are © Paul E. Evans, all rights reserved. They may be downloaded by individuals for personal use but may not be used for any commercial purposes without express written permission.

My Trip to Yellowstone in 1976

Evans Liberal Politics, by Paul Evans: one thing I may need to clarify is that any post/page on our site that does not specify an author was written by me.

The first thing you learn about Yellowstone is that most of the rocks and soil there are NOT yellow, but mostly a peculiar shade of greyish pink. There are all sorts of igneous and sedimentary rocks in the park, which is about 50 miles wide and high, in the northwest corner of the state of Wyoming. The igneous rocks are mostly volcanic, and there are granitic sorts of lavas, such as rhyolite, mostly pinkish yellow to pink or gray, and also basaltic lavas, which are denser and darker colored.

The geologic youth of the park in terms of landforms is clearly seen through the active geysers, the recent volcanic flows, and the hot springs and the relative “youth” that landform geologists or “geomorphologists” talk about. However many of the rocks, particularly the sedimentary rocks, go back to the Mesozoic Era, or at least 70 million years old. (There are many younger sedimentary rocks in the park, too, often with an included volcanic content to the sediments that comprise them.) The backbones of the granitic mountains in the west of the park go back to the Precambrian, older than about 600 million years. So you can find something of everything in Yellowstone. And the scenery is magnificent.

These images were taken in 1976, and I restored them after scanning them into the computer from just the original snapshots. All I had to work from were these poorly processed snapshots, and no negatives. Moreover, the prints were on a higly textured paper which revealed that texture in the scans. They were faded and the orginal processing left everything a faded out rosy pink plum color that did NOT show how stunning the landscape is. I have fixed them using a variety of tools in Photoshop.

Please see the bottom of the second page of this presentation to see my services in photo restoration. I offer high quality photo restoration. I present a “before” and “after” demonstration of exactly what I can do for you in photograph restoration services. Fees are negotiable, but you will receive the highest quality restoration available for your treasured photographs. I think my presentation here and at the bottom of the second page speaks for itself! If you are interested in my photo restoration services, please call 330-202-7661 or email me.

*****

The experience of my month spent camping out in Yellowstone while taking courses from The Yellowstone Institute — one of the most enjoyable times of my life — is something that is fresh in my mind. However I am simply describing these photos to you from memory rather than consulting the guides to Yellowstone which I own.

My sister drove me out to Northwest Wyoming after my sophomore year of college. She had a job for the summer working in Billings, Montana for the USDA as a veterinary meat inspector. (That’s back when we still inspected our food, right? Most of the money for that has been cut out of the federal budget.) My sister passed away in October of 2004, although she worked as a veterinarian until a week before she was hospitalized for the last time.

I had arranged to take college credit classes from The Yellowstone Institute. I checked up on this, and The Yellowstone Institute is still around and apparently thriving. Available are field seminars, lodging and learning programs, private tours, and backpacking courses. You can visit their website, here.

I took college credit courses on the Birds of Yellowstone, the Large Mammal Ecology of Yellowstone, and the Geology of Yellowstone. The last was particular appropriate since geology was my undergraduate major, at Miami University (OH). The director of The Yellowstone Institute was Hugh Crandall. He and his wife Aggie were wonderful people and sometimes let me use their car, an old Volvo station wagon.

It was great to get the car sometimes since my sister had just dropped me off there at Mammoth Hot Springs in the northwest part of the park, with a little 2-man tent (and it was SMALL). I was on my own! And it can SNOW in Yellowstone at anytime — even in July! Normally, I had to walk four miles each way to Gardiner, Montana, and back to do my laundry. The campground was two miles from Mammoth Hot Springs. There was running cold water and a cold shower was available but only with ice cold water. I mostly lived off of cold cans of Campbell’s soup and the occasional meal with Hugh and Aggie or in Gardiner. Here’s where I camped:

Here is a picture of my sister, Katharine, just as we were entering the park:

The place where I camped is just south of Mammoth Hot Springs, which is a major center for the northwest part of Yellowstone. There is a little town, a lot of rangers quarters, and a hotel. At least that is how it was in 1976, I bet it’s a lot more developed today. The hot springs themselves are absolutely unique — people come to see them from all over the world. Here are some photographs of them:

Jump to the top of the page.

This is called Minerva Terrace. It has been built by hot springs activity and by algae and bacteria. They are the kind of algae and bacteria found in Precambrian sedimentary rocks dating back to 3 billion years in age, but these have been built in the last 50,000 years.

Minerva Terrace, Mammoth Hot Springs, northwest Yellowstone National Park.

Here is a different formation of Mammoth Hot Springs:

This is called Opal Terrace. It was getting later in the evening as you can see by the background. Normally the very water itself is misty and “opaline” in appearance. The strange cone like formation in the background is called Liberty Cap, and was built by these same bacteria and algae, which thrive in the near-boiling water. You can tell what temperature the water is (how close to boiling it is) by the color of the bacteria-algae colonies thriving there.

If you know Yellowstone at all, you probably want to see the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River, right?! Here is an image I took:

Well, I’m NOT a professional photographer! (Although I’m a lot better today. At this time I used a 35mm SLR Cannon, but was not skilled with it.) If I had the negatives to work with at this point in my life, these restorations would be far better, but the quality of these efforts is for you to judge. At least you can see how spectacular this view is. Here is a view looking north up the gorge of the Yellowstone River:

Pretty forbidding, isn’t it! But awesome and compelling, too. That view and the view below show how actively the river is cutting into the region’s decayed, rotten rhyolite, a light-colored volcanic lava rock.

In fact, ALL of Yellowstone is very hydrothermally active. NO, I don’t have a decent photo to show you of Old Faithful. Sorry, folks. But the entire Yellowstone National Park, and then some, sits on the Yellowstone Cauldera, a near-circular vast volcanic cauldron, below the surface of the earth, which periodically errupts every 300,000 years or so. …And we’re due. They have traced ash from the eruptions of this cauldera across the entire United States. It is believed that these eruptions are catastrophic. Folks, we’re sitting on a ticking time bomb. Scientists believe the entire U.S. west of the east coast is at risk. In fact, the landscape around Yellowstone is believed to be younger than 50,000 years old, which is NOW in geological terms. Here is another shot of the gorge of the Yellowstone River:

Don’t believe me about the volcanic nature of the land here? Here is an image of prismatic basalt near Tower. Basalt is the kind of rock which errupts from Hawaiian volcanoes, and when it chills suddenly and in one mass, it can rarely form prismatic structure as you see here. The volcanic formations around Yellowstone are comprised of both the lighter colored, rhyolitic lavas which erupt explosively and lesser amounts of darker, heavier basaltic lavas like this, which tend to flow rather than erupt explosively:

Here are a few images of flowers found in abundance around Yellowstone. This first one is Arrowleaf Balsamroot, a plant which is edible. The Native Americans ate various parts of the plant, and also made a poultices of the leaves for burns. The National Park Service says that “the roots were boiled and the solution was applied as a poultice for wounds, cuts and bruises. Indians also drank a tea from the roots for tuberculosis and whooping cough.”

This next image is probably a flower called Harebells, although I am not positive:

Finally, what collection of images of nature from out West would fail to have an image of the beautiful Mountain phlox? Unfortunately my photograph is just a little out of focus.

All images of Yellowstone on this page are © Paul E. Evans, all rights reserved. They may be downloaded by individuals for personal use but may not be used for any commercial purposes without express written permission.

Jump to the top of the page.

Continue with the tour of Yellowstone Park on
Page 2 of Yellowstone.