Geysers galore! I spent the day wandering around the thermal areas of Yellowstone’s Upper Geyser Basin today. To be honest, I’m a little geyser-ed out at this point. Read on to hear about the highlights!
I’m glad I’m such an early morning person because heading out at the crack of dawn and getting back to my hotel by mid-afternoon is working for me. I was through the park entrance a little before 6 this morning and stopped about a dozen times to take pictures of the steam rising off the geysers (it was 38 degrees!) en route to my first destination.
First up was Yellowstone’s most famous geyser. I picked up a breakfast sandwich at the lodge (which tasted okay but was unexpectedly quite messy to eat) and then grabbed a seat by Old Faithful. I had no idea when the next predicted eruption would occur until I heard someone say it was at 8:46AM. After finishing my sandwich, that left me with about a half an hour to hike up to Observation Point. While the bugs swarmed around me, I watched the steam start, followed quickly by water shooting straight up. Seeing it from above gave some perspective to just how impressive the park’s most predictable geyser is!
My next stop was at Solitary Geyser. It requires a little more effort to get to than many of the others on Geyser Hill and I was pleasantly surprised to find only two people there when I arrived. Solitary erupts every 4-7 minutes and is really just a series of larger bubbles in the colorful pool for about 30 seconds at a time. I stayed through four eruptions and had a nice chat with two sisters from Tennessee who drove out to Yellowstone to work for the summer. I was happy to just sit and enjoy my surroundings for a little while.
Heading back to Geyser Hill, I walked the main boardwalk loop and then headed out the trail through the rest of the Upper Geyser Basin. I passed all manner of springs, pools, and geysers and even saw an eruption of Grand Geyser (which erupts every 4 to 8 hours), which put on quite the show. Grand Geyser shoots up to 200 feet and I watched it for at least 5 minutes before it petered out. The other highlights were seeing Riverside and Daisy geysers erupt and admiring the aptly named Morning Glory Pool. By the time I got back to the Old Faithful area, I had walked 5+ miles and I was pooped. I saw another eruption of Old Faithful and then indulged in a huckleberry float (huckleberry soda with vanilla ice cream) from the General Store.
I was beyond exhausted after my morning adventures (I woke up at 3 again today; I blame it on the time change) so I took a few minutes to drive through Firehole Lake Drive again and then called it a day. Dinner tonight was a meat pizza at the Wild West Pizzeria followed by a nightcap back in my room.
Traveling with Laura 