When I was planning the itinerary for our Yellowstone trip, it was so easy to become overwhelmed by all of the different things in the park and how far apart they all seemed from each other.

I’d heard that “bison jams” and terrible traffic could keep you stuck for hours, so I was afraid to plan too much. But when we got there, it was an entirely different story.

We were stuck in traffic a grand total of *two* times in five days of near-endless driving within Yellowstone. Both times in Lamar Valley, one for bison and one for bears, for maybe 15 minutes each. And each time we were kinda grateful for it because it gave us a chance to slow down and admire the scenery. Maybe we were just lucky?

Anyway, my point is that we had SO MUCH time to do every single last thing in this park and I’m so glad that Fountain Paint Pots was one of them. This is where my favorite spring is.

Like most of the roadside stops in Yellowstone, you park in a little parking lot and follow a long wooden boardwalk in a loop to see all of the cool geothermal things in the area.

When you start, on left is a bunch of cool decimated trees within a hot bacteria mat. These are everywhere around the park and I think they’re so cool.

And on your right is more bacteria mat. That pile of bison poop seriously cracked me up. Imagine having the sheer audacity to walk on something so dangerous, nevertheless poop on it.

The first cool blue thing you see is the Celestine Pool.

And then you immediately come upon the prettiest thing in the whole world.

Here’s Silex Spring. ❤ So good. See the tiny people on the boardwalk for scale?

We learned that the more turquoise/blue the water is, the hotter it is. The closer to orange it gets, the cooler it gets.

That’s why the center, by the origin of the spring, is that beautiful color. And that’s also why the orange bacteria mat (at the edges, away from the bubbling center) isn’t hot enough to sizzle that bison’s feet off.

Tourists stupidly throw coins and other junk into these springs (I guess to see what will happen? who knows), then the park has to clear them out. The junk plugs the opening of the hot spring, affecting it’s temperature and just generally screwing the entire ecosystem up. The Morning Glory Pool by Old Faithful is sadly famous for this.

Then you come up on this trail’s namesake, the fountain paint pots. You should click on the picture above to enlarge it and read the sign, the information about this geothermal stuff is so interesting.

Watching the little bubbles was so mesmerizing. It makes all of these gurgling sounds and smells pretty bad. I loved it.

And neighboring Leather Pool. It’s so weird to think that the road is just right there and cars drive so close to it alllll day.

We walked down the boardwalk to find a large geyser group. Morning Geyser, Fountain Geyser, Spasm Geyser, and Clepsydra Geyser were all erupting at the same time.

Morning Geyser is in the front, Fountain Geyser is in the back.

It didn’t occur to me that this is a rare thing because it’s the only time I’ve ever heard of them or seen them, but there was a lady on the boardwalk watching them in tears. We over heard her say that she’s been to Yellowstone 30+ times and had never seen Morning Geyser erupt, let alone with Fountain Geyser alongside it.

Clepsydra and Spasm Geyser were going off a few feet down the boardwalk from Morning and Fountain, and we too cute pics of each other back and forth. 🙂

I absolutely love the milky blue and turquoise colors of Yellowstone. They kill me. So pretty.

By the way, this was August 30, and it still got super hot in the middle of the afternoon.

Yellowstone is super sunny and exposed because trees don’t grow on the geothermal areas, and the boardwalks that snake over/through them have zero shade. It’s November now and my feet still have the zigzag Chacos tan I got on this day haha.

The boardwalk trail continues back to where the junction at the Celestine Pool is, then you’re done!

It’s a relatively quick stop and most definitely worth the visit.

Learn more about Yellowstone: https://www.nps.gov/yell/index.htm
And about the Fountain Paint Pots: https://www.nps.gov/thingstodo/yell-fountain-paint-pot-trail.htm
And about why Silex Spring is so cool: https://www.nps.gov/places/000/silex-spring.htm

Fountain Paint Pots trail via AllTrails: https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/wyoming/fountain-paint-pot-trail