Close encounters of the iconic kind

No visit to Wyoming would be complete with stopping by one of the most iconic natural / unnatural formations in the World. If you haven't seen Close Encounters Of The Third Kind go get it and see what Spielberg was up to before ET.

From storm clouds to fluffy clouds

My first day back on the road was a stormy start with heavy skies for most of the morning. As I headed out of the Greater Yellowstone area and onto the prairies of Northern Wyoming it was back to blue and some serious heat with it. Hotel for the night was courtesy of the Old Ten Sleep Highway, now replaced with shiny blacktop leaving it forgotten and empty as it wound it's way off into the hills.

Diggin' on human power in Wyoming

America loves the motor car (well in fact they love girt big trucks masquerading as cars), so much so that most touristy places I go end up with a 1/2 mile exclusion zone around the car park beyond which 80% of Americans will not walk.

This is A Good Thing because it means the application of a little human powered activity i.e. walking or, in this mornings case, paddling, results in accessing proper wildscapes without screaming kids, revving engines, yakking people or white socks pulled half way up to the knees.

A Wilson got to Wyoming before me

After the magnificence of Yellowstone, I was prepared for a duller landscape, but immediately below Yellowstone lies the Grand Teton mountain range and national park so there was no let up in the jaw dropping scenery. In Winter this area becomes one of America's prime snow destinations, but seen under Summer skies, there's a whole other life to be had.

Sulphur and furry backsides in a still active caldera

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.