As dull as a stone they said, rock likened to blandness and boring tones. If this is what you imagine minerals to be then maybe you should step into Yellowstone National Park, the oldest national park in the United States. This is how a one week camping trip within the park might go like.

Monday starts with nature’s watering spouts, Upper Geyser Basin within the park a minefield of water jets that could set off at any time. This is where you can find 3 of every 5 geysers that have been located on earth. The Morning Glory Pool chases away those Monday blues with its amber and bright yellow crystal rim diving into the subterranean with walls of lime green. Tuesday continues with a trip to the moon at Norris Geyser Basin. Here the steamboat geyser releases a whopping 300ft wave as you pass by, the tallest in the world. Wednesdays are for valleys, the curved bowl of Hayden Valley cupping herds of bison, a smattering of honking Canadian geese and lumbering grizzly bears by the edges. By Thursday, the bizarre and otherworldly landscape seems to have grown on you. That’s till you walk up to the Grand Prismatic Spring, a bubbling cauldron 370ft wide and 121ft deep painted in the most vivid shades of orange, green and cobalt blue. Tower Fall is for Friday, giants and monsters molded into the water frozen in motion in winter. A wall of snow and ice 132ft in height forms in winter each year, at times trapped within a bubble of brittle ice that glints under the light like a bauble. Never again would one think of minerals and rocks as lifeless after a week at Yellowstone.