Yellowstone’s Mud Volcano is among the most…uh…fragrant areas in the park.  It’s worth the nasal assault, though, because the features fit the park’s secondary theme of weird.  (With its acres and acres of astounding scenery, the park’s primary theme is, of course, wow!.)  And if you’ve ever lived in a house with well water, the scent may be somewhat familiar to you.  Likely a bit stronger than you’ve experienced, but familiar nonetheless.

The mud volcano itself — which apparently isn’t a “real” mud volcano, according to those snooty scientific folks; does that make it a fauxcano? — is among the first features on the area’s relatively short walking path.  Years ago it shot mud into the air and thus actually resembled a small volcano, but eventually it became a victim of its own perpetual rage: one side of the volcano collapsed, leaving it looking more like a hot tub at Pig Pen‘s house.

The sign accompanying the volcano included an amusing account from the first American explorers to encounter the startling sight of mud shooting into the air.  I don’t recall the sign well enough to recount it here, but as you might imagine, they were understandably perplexed: not only had they never seen such a sight, but they’d also never even heard of the possibility of the existence of such a sight.  We have such a muckle of information available to us now that most natural phenomena are widely known or easily discovered, but that wasn’t the case 140 years ago.

As it turns out, the trail through the mud volcano area happens to be one of the better places to get an up close and person experience with a few of the park’s many bison.  We became aware of that little tidbit when we turned a corner and saw two bison lounging near the trail.

They eyed us curious tourists with obvious disdain — just look at the bison’s expression in the first photo! — but fortunately, it was a lazy disdain.  Had they wanted to make trouble, we would have had few escape choices, and all of them would have involved uncomfortably hot pools of mud or water.  But they were content to munch on the grass, we were content to take photos, and the nearest hospital was content not to have patients with severe bison-related injuries.

A few minutes down the trail from the volcano was a cluster of mudpots, which are more features in which you could cook pasta (though you shouldn’t actually try that, and I don’t know why you’d want to).  The first and most prominent was Black Dragon’s Caldron, and it had its own sign recounting its own strange history.

If you can’t read the sign in the photo, it says: “This mudpot roared into existence in 1948, blowing trees out by roots and forever changing this once quiet forested hillside.  A park interpreter named the new feature for its resemblance to a darkly colored ‘demon of the backwoods’.  For several decades, it erupted in explosive 10-20 foot bursts of black mud.  Over the years, it has moved 200′ to the southeast and become relatively quiet.  However as change is constant in Yellowstone, the black dragon may one day roar back to life.”

Further along the trail were a few more mudpots that were considerably more agitated than the currently sedate Black Dragon’s Caldron.

Near the end of the trail was a large pool of reasonably placid water with a set of odoriferous neighbors:

The clouds of steam on the right side are coming from a few of the park’s four thousand fumaroles.  They’re sort of like steaming manhole covers, except you might require medical attention if you walked over the top of a fumarole.  They’re sort of warm in the same way that Yao Ming is sort of tall, Star Wars is sort of popular, and analogies are sort of easy to make.

The area on the near side of that pool of water was covered with dead trees, a most curious fact helpfully explained by another informative sign:

If you can’t read the sign, it says: “Covered by dense forest until 1978, this hillside changed dramatically after a swarm of earthquakes struck the area.  In spite of being jolted again and again, the trees remained standing, but met their demise soon afterward when ground temperatures soared to 200° F or 94° C!

Roots sizzled in the super-heated soil and trees toppled over one by one as steam rose eerily between the branches.  No wonder the hill was dubbed ‘Cooking Hillside.'”

The trail ends back at the parking lot, and adjacent to the parking lot is another pool of piping-hot water.

When we reached the end of the trail, we found that the parking lot itself provided a fine example of the extraordinary heat produced by the park’s thermal features.  The lot had the usual collection of drains to collect rainwater, but the features encroached underneath the pavement and turned one drain into just another vent for its carpet-cleaning steam.  Park rangers placed a traffic cone on top of the drain to prevent visitors from parking or walking on the hot metal, but since the cone was rubber, it wilted under the relentless assault of the intense heat.

Of the many curiosities Yellowstone has in abundance, the fuzziest may be the bison.  The iconic animals litter the park’s landscape, and they spend their iconic days munching on grass, stopping traffic and (usually) tolerating the many tourists who sincerely believe it’s a good idea to invade their personal space.  Let me assure you: it’s not a good idea to invade the personal space of a creature that weighs up to 2,200 pounds, runs as fast as 35mph, leaps a three-foot fence, and has two horns that are simply perfect for making a delicious tourist kabob.

Sadly, though it may sound like I’m exaggerating the ignorant boldness of tourists, there are plenty who behave as though the bison are friendly household pets.  Despite the countless extra-large warning signs throughout the park, it’s common to see somebody approaching a bison in order to get that awesome picture to post on facebook; when we stopped at one bison-induced traffic jam, we saw one tourist exit his car and walk to within maybe 20 feet of the animal to take photos.  We also heard the story of a park ranger who arrived just in time to prevent jaw-droppingly stupid parents from placing their young child on top of a bison for a photo.  These are the things that happen despite the ever-present signs that say, in so many words, “Caution: wild animals are wild”; I can’t imagine what would happen without those signs.

We spotted quite a few bison throughout the day, but it wasn’t until the middle of the afternoon when we spotted one where we could stop and get a few photos without causing a traffic jam.  (As indicated in the previous paragraph, many visitors weren’t afraid of stopping traffic to ogle the bison; however, we weren’t inclined to be so discourteous.)

Those two photos make it look like the bison was maxin’ and relaxin’ in a secluded meadow, but that wasn’t quite the case.  Since they’re wild animals, the bison are free to roam wherever they desire, and occasionally they desire to roam in the few populated areas of the park; the bison in the above photos was convenient for us because he’d decided to dine right next to the batch of cabins that included our residence in the park.

Our cabin was somewhere behind the two in the photo, but still: that bison was practically our next-door neighbor.

Since Yellowstone is a huge park, it takes a lot of driving to see the sights.  That’s not such a bad thing, though, because while you’re driving to the next notable feature, you’re surrounded by an endless array of notable scenery.  Also, you’re surrounded by an endless supply of turnoffs intended to let you enjoy the scenery at zero miles per hour.  Our mid-afternoon travels took us alongside Yellowstone River, a broad river winding through a lush green valley that was eye-catching enough to cause us to stop the car twice to enjoy the view.

Our first stop was at a turnoff farther back and up the hill from the river; from there, we got a splendid view of one of the more serene and welcoming areas of the park.  I’d be happy to live there, except I wouldn’t want to ruin it by living there.  (That’s how I wish more people would view small towns.  Hey, folks: if you all move into a small town to live the small-town life, it’s no longer a small town.  Think about it.)

Not far down the road, we stopped at another turnoff that provided a view of what looked like an entirely different river from the one that seemed to be wandering haphazardly through a meadow.  (A few miles downstream, the Yellowstone River plummets over the two majestic waterfalls of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.  That water has no idea of the thrill ride that awaits it.)

If you look closely, you may notice a curious dark line angling through the grass towards the river.  That’s a path where the grass has been worn away.  In my infinitely sensible wisdom, I assumed that path was something created by official park human ranger people for use by official park human tourist people, so I took full advantage of that very thoughtful amenity.  It was unexpectedly narrow — at best, barely as wide as my two feet — but it led me right down to the river’s edge, where the view was even better.

When I got back to the car, I realized the path in the grass wasn’t there for use by park visitors; rather, it was a path created by park wildlife, much like the deer trails I’ve seen here in Michigan.  It was at that moment I realized no matter how hard you try to avoid being one of those tourists, at some point during your visit you will be one of those tourists.  It’s inevitable: when you choose to don the mantle of tourist, you are doomed to be a complete idiot one time.  That, I think, should be the First Law of Tourism.  I’m just glad my unavoidable moment of idiocy was fairly benign and not life-threatening.

Having ogled the Other Grand Canyon by way of two very easily-accessible ground-level overlooks, we decided it was time to end the laziness and tackle a reasonably strenuous challenge.  We chose what sounded like the most promising (and thrillingly-named) destination within my range: the Brink of the Lower Falls.

While the path to the Brink isn’t a particularly long trail, it’s also not the easiest trail.  It works its way down the canyon wall by working its way back and forth through 180-degree turns, sort of like San Francisco’s famous Lombard Street, but narrower.  Here you can see four different legs of the path.

The path is narrow, and while it’s mostly smooth, it does have its imperfections.  Also, as the above photo shows, aside from the handrails at the turns, there are no fences or handrails to prevent an unfortunate visitor from accidentally taking a painful shortcut to the bottom.  (The good news is that there is a fence at the bottom to prevent that unfortunate visitor from accidentally taking a refreshing swim at the end of his painful shortcut.)  I doubt most visitors worry much about the open edges, but as I walked down the trail, my questionable balance and propensity for stumbling prompted me to be unusually cautious — especially when oncoming traffic had the inside of the path, forcing me to walk near the edge.

The canyon wall around the path holds fine examples of plants adapting to grow in difficult places; for example, because of the steep incline and the intrusively supportive rock, this particular tree is sponsored by the letter J.

The walk to the bottom of the path took me about 15 minutes, but as I noted, I sacrificed speed for caution; if you’re not entirely out of shape and you trust your balance, you could make it in 10 minutes.  (I’m sure you could make it in even less time, but there’s no real reason to hurry.  It’s a fun trail; just enjoy it.)  When we reached the end, we found that the overlook’s name wasn’t exaggerating: it truly does let you stand at the brink of the falls.  To illustrate its crazy location, here’s a photo of the lower falls from Artist Point; the Brink overlook is circled in red.

The path to the Brink provides little in the way of canyon views, so there’s really no clue to what awaits at the end of the path.  That’s good, because when you’re finally presented with the view from the Brink, the impact is incredible.  I’ve been blessed enough to have seen beautiful sights across the United States and even in Europe, and I can say the view from the Brink of the Lower Falls is, without a doubt, among the most beautiful I’ve had the privilege of seeing.  That was my first thought when I reached the end of the path and saw the canyon bathed in sunlight and capped by a gorgeous summer sky, and even now, a year later, it’s still my thought when I see the photos of the canyon from the Brink.  I can’t fully elucidate the qualities that pin the scene at or near the top of the list, but I know it’s there.

What makes the whole scene even more remarkable is the adjacent presence of the waterfall.  There’s no optical illusion or misleading angle in the above red-circly photo; the overlook lets you stand at the edge of the cliff right next to the river, with only a fence separating you from a refreshing swim of certain death.  So while I was showing my shocked face to the canyon, I was listening to the thunderous roar of endless gallons of water pouring over the cliff and crashing onto the rocks below.  It’s one thing to admire a waterfall from afar, but it’s something else entirely to get an up close and personal experience of the power of a waterfall.

So: enough jabbering.  Here’s the view.

Those pictures don’t even have the phone number of doing the canyon view justice, but they’re enough to provide an idea of the stunning panorama that awaits.  If you ever visit Yellowstone — and you should, post-haste — and you’re wondering what to visit on a beautiful sunny afternoon, go to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and walk the trail to the Brink of the Lower Falls.  It’s one of the highlightiest highlights of the park.

Among the many features of Yellowstone, a few stood out to us as the best to visit in our (sadly) limited time in the park; it should come as no surprise that one of those was the ambitiously-named Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, a marvelous hole in the ground with two waterfalls and plenty of spectacular views.  After getting our first look from the easily-accessible Upper Falls Viewpoint, we proceeded farther down the canyon to Artist Point, a popular overlook that provides a superb view of the lower falls framed by the canyon walls.

Artists Point stretches out into the canyon, but the remarkable views begin early on the walkway to the end of the point.  Of course, not knowing how far the path continued and how much more open the views would get, I took the first chance I got to grab a photo of the scenery; the above photo is the result of that impatience.  But, as I soon discovered, I wasn’t the only one to shoot without first exploring.

After spending a few moments observing the throng of camera-bearing tourists, we moved on to the actual point of Artist Point.  The views of the upper falls from the point itself weren’t remarkably different from those of the misguidedly popular roiling mass magnet, but since the point of the Point is actually in the canyon and beyond most of the obstructive trees, the views of the canyon as a whole are worth the short (and very easy) walk.

Most of Yellowstone bears a generally neutral outdoor smell, but the sulphur in the park’s thermal features provides a more pungent odor for tourists to enjoy in those relatively small areas.  And, as anybody who’s lived in a house with well water can attest, the odor isn’t all the sulphur contributes to the park: just as it stains carpets and toilets, it also stains rock.  But unlike those generally unpopular carpet and toilet stains, the stains on Yellowstone’s rock are gorgeous.

Of course, those stains need more than just intermittent bursts of water from the most spectacular geyser eruptions to form; the colorful compositions pictured above were caused by the more consistent flow of hot water from a variety of less dramatic holes in the ground.

Sternly-worded warning signs are a frequent and prominent feature throughout the park, and for good reason: for the flocks of tourists who might not know what common sense means outside an urban setting, the unrestrained natural world can be dangerous.  This sad truth is newly illustrated each year by careless or foolhardy visitors who venture off the established boardwalks and trails and fall into the park’s thermal features; some escape with severe burns, but others aren’t so fortunate: 20 visitors have died from encounters with the thermal features.  If you imagine jumping into a huge pot of boiling water on a huge stove, you have a good idea of what it would be like to fall into one of the park’s thermal features — and, I hope, you have an even better idea of why the warning signs aren’t paranoid suggestions.  In many cases, the water actually is visibly boiling.

As we were examining the curious features, one Hispanic visitor — who apparently didn’t think much of the warning signs — felt compelled to see if the water really was as hot as it looked.  The water exiting the spring in the above photo ran within arm’s reach as it traveled under the boardwalk, so he knelt down on the boardwalk and reached his hand out toward the water.  The moment his finger touched the water, he immediately jerked his hand back and exclaimed, “Muy caliente!”

Before I could muster the necessary amount of disdain to laugh at his obvious lack of common sense, he made another decision that prompted me to put my camera to my eye.  After he made sure the tip of his finger was still there, he eagerly gestured to his wife to test the water, just as he had done.  A thoroughly sensible woman might have pointed to his reaction as a fine reason not to follow his example; instead, as a relative aimed her camera to record the moment, she knelt down on the boardwalk and reached toward the same scalding water.

To my relief, her arm was a bit shorter than her husband’s, and she wasn’t nearly as committed to the idea as he had been.  She posed for a photo as shown above, but she elected not to make the extra effort necessary to reach the water.

(Just a note: though I made an effort to detail some of the park’s dangers, it’s not my intention to make this post an unpleasant representation of the Yellowstone experience.  The park is a stunning and highly accessible display of some of earth’s more grandiose and bizarre features, and I believe it’s one of the places everybody should make an effort to visit.  But from both the tone of the warning signs and the numerous stories of behavior that ranges from foolhardy to fatal, it’s apparent that far too many visitors aren’t inclined to take seriously the very real dangers of the world outside our controlled civilization.  If you are able to make a visit to Yellowstone, see as much as you can and have a great time…but please, pay attention to the warning signs, treat the park’s features with a healthy respect, and exercise intelligent restraint and common sense.  Yellowstone isn’t an amusement park; it’s the real world.)