In Yellowstone (America’s first National Park), there is a well-traveled place called Grand Prismatic Spring, the largest hot spring in the park and the third largest in the world, after Frying Pan Lake in New Zealand and Boiling Lake in Dominica.
Like much of the park, its magic is powered by unseen geothermal forces, deep reservoirs of heat bubbling up from inner earth to puff out geysers of superheated water on a reliable schedule (as in Old Faithful), or burble into pools like Grand Prismatic Spring that overflow and give life to colorful communities of microorganisms. My favorite are the spring’s outer rings, where I imagine microscopic mandarins meandering until they burst the spring’s boundaries to create juicy overflow channels.
These tiny colorful microorganisms are called thermophiles, which fall into a frankly totally badass category of life known as extremophiles: an organism that probably once had its own MTV show. Extremophiles thrive in extreme environments — in this case, heat. But there are also radiophiles, which love high levels of radiation; piezophiles, which are found at the bottom of the ocean because they need immense hydrostatic pressure; halophiles, which love salt more than my dad; and more.
I’m not the first to say so, but c’mon: Earth be crazy. This place looks like the origin, or perhaps the end of the rainbow, where its many colors all came splashing down, painting the landscape like an artist’s tantrum, boiling the blood of the leprechaun.
Centered within the various springs, especially the main pool, is a blue so vivid that it seems preternatural, until a sign explains that the constant steam coming off the heated pool reflects the sunlight back into the water, doubling down on the blueness of it all. In the pool’s center it is near boiling; no life survives save the brilliant blue.
But radiating out from the pool’s center are white and yellow rings, living colors that thrive in the spring’s hottest waters. Surrounding these in turn are the red and orange rings, which escape in little veins reaching outward from the blue heart.
The first time I saw the Grand Prismatic Spring about a decade ago, I knew I’d return someday. It’s hard to compare life experiences, but one I’ve had similar to this was in Puerto Rico where I dove into a bioluminescent bay. These, too, were microorganisms doing their work, tiny things that when disturbed emit light through a chemical reaction.
I recall jumping into that Puerto Rican bay and opening my eyes underwater to see my body brightly glowing, its paleness illuminated in the underwater blackness on a moonless night, a feeling as though I were floating in space. I came up laughing with the absurdity, the magic of it all, water spilling from my nose as I laughed before I could breathe.
At Grand Prismatic Spring there’s an elevated boardwalk, a half-mile loop that safely takes visitors around the springs. Above and across from the largest pond there is a birds-eye-view that can be had by hiking a trail of a mile-and-a-half, a relatively easy walk but for the last few hundred feet, which rise steeply, so that when you arrive you feel as though you’ve earned it.
The last time I visited the springs I didn’t notice this overlook, so I headed up for another angle of this incredible place.
Walmart hiking lot
Anytime you travel a popular hiking trail of some length and to some specific destination — a waterfall, scenic valley, or pristine mountain lake — you are almost certain to be asked on your way back down, “Is it worth it?” by some tourist (like yourself), a conversation starter and little acknowledgement that, hehe, we are tired and out of shape. We have spent our days typing at our desks, or searching out and hunting for the closer parking space at Walmart or Target, rather than hiking from the back of the lot, and now we are paying for it.
And as I am thinking of this on my way back down from the overlook, of what I might say if someone asks me this question, a huffing and puffing man and his wife do ask it of me. And so I say what I have been thinking, which is that “It’s one of the top 50 sights I’ve ever seen in my life on this planet, and I’ve been here for almost 50 years (before that I was on another planet). It honestly feels like pure magic to me. It would be worth it if it were 100 miles. Keep going.”
And they said something like, “Oh really? Wow. I guess we better keep going then.”
And honestly, if I were pressed to name 49 things better than the Grand Prismatic Spring, I couldn’t. I should have said top 5.
Childlike wonder to depressing midlife crisis
Which is saying something, because after a certain age it gets hard to have that childlike wonder at things. You’ve seen so much, experienced so much, begin to feel sometimes as though life is repeating itself (or is it just me?). But step into any national park and you’re sure to find something that will blow your damn mind, and Yellowstone lives up to the hype.
The flip side is that I have been bored lately. I am tired. I find myself less and less interested in things I used to enjoy, exhausted at the thought of daily living. Where are the big things, the big adventures that life used to feel like it had in store?
What I’m feeling lately is not a terrible sadness though, no painful great depression, just a kind of droning, a dullness in the day-to-day. I think I may be reaching some new stage of depression equilibrium, a mid-life crisis maybe, driven, I think, in part by AI and the existential death it carries in its theft and destruction of organic creativity, and in part by the lack of a girlfriend.
I can’t help but think the answer to everything may be to become more of an extremophile. While I was out the last 2.5 weeks on vacation, I learned to ride a motorcycle. I’m pretty sure that is going to lead to some new adventures. Stay tuned.
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