It could only be Yellowstone National Park. One of the few places in the US that have never been fenced or farmed it's also one of the first National Parks and treasure trove of just about any kind of geographic feature you care to name. Plains, hills, mountains, canyons, forests, lakes, rivers and marshes all sit inside the 40 mile wide caldera left behind by massive volcanic eruptions 2 million, 1.2 million and 600,000 years ago.
Much of the park is basically sitting inside the crater of a supervolcano ready to go off beneath it. The magma close below the surface results in extraterrestrial surface features like acid burned basins, sulphur spewing vents and superheated rainbow coloured pools caused by all the geothermal goings on.
The colours around the springs are variously the result of either the mineral content and chemical chaos going on in the waters bubbling below or by products of extremophiles: tiny organisms existing in effectively alien conditions of extreme pH or temperature.
Geothermal conditions make much of Yellowstone's landscape lethal to the unwary as boiling mud, acidic super heated water and gas under extreme pressure lie only inches below an often brittle surface. Having said that bison seemed to have developed a taste for sulphur facials.
Beyond the volcanic dangers, as a wilderness preserve, Yellowstone also brings massive unspoiled landscapes and wildlife to the party in the shape of moody elk, irritable bison and huge grizzly bears. Although the distant glimpse of a furry backside disappearing into the forest is more likely to cause traffic jams on the roads than personal injury. My personal wildlife score was: assorted elk mooching about like they owned the place, 12 bison (2 up close, remainder fuzzy blobs), 3 black tail deer (startled, in headlights), 2 wolves (glimpses, skulking off into treelines), 1 bald eagle and 2 grizzly backsides.
From the West entrance of the park it still took an hours drive to reach my campsite at which point a ranger advised that "we have three grizzlies coming through camp at the moment, one of them onery" and to store anything smelly (food, deodorants, cheesy socks) in the car least it attract attention. That, combined with a massive thunderstorm did not a first night's peaceful sleep make....
Stunning - a palette for the impressionists.
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