Upon entering, one of the first things we came to was the Madison River. The road followed it east and stopped at a bridge where scraggly buffalo were grazing in a field.

Farther east the Madison River meets the Gibon River, and we saw more buffalo along roadside pullouts, so we took the obligatory pictures.

Our first long stop was at the Artist's Paint Pots, which involved a short walk through a stand of sapling pine trees and up a muddy hill to the boiling mud "paint pots." During the walk the light snow started in again.

Here I am at the paint pots. They were a little innundated from the rainy weather, but bubbling anyway. Claire also took a little video of the paint pots, because a static picture doesn't do them justice.

Back inside the warm car, we drove on to one of the major concentrations of thermal features in Yellowstone, Norris Basin. It was mainly drizzling at that point, and still freezing cold, but it made the steam rising from the ground more dramatic. It also made standing in the path of sulfurous but warm gyeser discharge desirable.

The trails interlacing the area first lead downhill and then become boardwalks, as you can see in the picture.

A random, pleasingly blue pool. Apparently, some of the thermal features are expanding, and as the area they affect gets bigger, they kill more trees.

I liked this dead tree trunk.

We headed north from Norris Basin towards Mammoth Hot Springs, passing this meadow on the way.

The road descends through this rocky pass into the valley that holds the Mammoth Hot Springs.

I helpfully point out more snow at a pullout.

Arriving in the Mammoth area under a gray cloud, we parked on the top side, and started our walk down on a system of boardwalks and stairs. This is the view from above.

More of the top of Mammoth Hot Springs.

As we were walking down the side of the springs, a photogenic rainbow appeared.

I like the scene so much, here is the same shot, with Claire's camera.

Different shades of oranges and yellows streak the spillway.

Most of the area, though, seems dry.

At the bottom we stopped to look back up at the entire spring-created mound. Then we started walking back up. Note the boardwalk on the far left.

We had been thinking of going as far as Yellowstone Falls that day, but the weather was deteriorating. It started to snow again, harder this time, as we headed back to West Yellowstone. We stopped so I could stand in the snow.

Claire knows what I'm laughing about.

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