One of the interesting things about my recent trip to Yellowstone National Park was to see how some plants adapt, survive and even thrive in an extremely hostile environment. This was the case for this grass clump that I found along the Fountain Paint Pot Nature Trail. As I walked down the trail I noticed that some grass clumps have found a way to grow amidst the toxic runoff from nearby geysers and hot springs. This particular plant was growing on the runoff of the Celestine Pool. Note the seed heads on the stalks.
The Celestine Pool was made famous in 1981 when a California man dove head first into the 200-degree water to rescue his friend’s dog that had jumped into the pool. The man did not realize that the pool’s temperature was that of boiling water and ignored warnings from park visitors to stay away. Both the dog and the man perished.
This image was taken with my Canon EOS 7D Mark II using my Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 II Lens set on 400mm. The camera was set on Aperture Priority mode with the aperture set at f/8, shutter speed at 1/400th of a second and the ISO set at 400. I did not use a tripod for this image. This is a single image processed in Lightroom and Nik Color Efex Pro.
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