Since Sarah bought this amazing book back in college, she has been awed by its cover photo and wondered where in the world is this colorful place?!?!.
Well, check it out: it's right here in Yellowstone, so we obviously weren't going to miss it! We were both really excited to stare into the depths of the prismatic spring. So we saw it…though the book was on to something when it took the picture from the air; from the ground, you really can’t appreciate the colors because you can hardly see them. If you look at the picture you can see that the 150 plus degree water has created a nice puffy cloud. So those clouds might look cute and all, but when it blows right over you, it's like you're in a sauna that smells like sulfur. Not so great...
Now we should mention that it's still worthwhile to see, because it's huge. Look in the bottom right hand corner of the top picture and you can see the walking path. It's about 6 feet wide, which makes it about 30 feet from the edge of the pool. We know we're acting all gripy because we didn't get to see the colors, but if we were any closer, we'd be steaming like broccoli. It was amazing, but we recommend bringing your helicopter and wide angle lens.
Nerdy note: the vibrant colors you see come from the varieties of bacteria that grow in these springs. Microbes that live in such hot water are called thermophiles and there are some that enjoy highly acidic environments called acidophiles. The yellow and orange microbes in the pool give a clue to the temperature of the water since they grow in 170 degree water. The blue in the middle of the pool is where the water is really deep. The discovery of these rare organisms, "Thermus aquaticus" led to all sorts of discoveries including PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction), which allowed for faster sequencing of the human genome. If you've got some time to kill, check out this link.
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