Old Faithful

I think nothing says Yellowstone more than this beautiful geyser and we finally saw it when we drove the 'South Loop' of the Park last week!

Isn't that something? Erupting boiling (up to 99F) water every 60 minutes, or thereabouts, approximately 150' in the air, it is in fact the most predictable geographical feature on Earth.

But I'm getting ahead of myself while I'm actually way behind myself since in the meantime we have been already a second time into the park and are planning to go again tomorrow.

I'm just too busy putzing around to blog for some reason!

Well, lets try to start from the beginning. After driving to the West entrance and buying a year pass for the National Parks ($80) we drove for a while alongside the Madison River.

Not even 10 minutes into the drive we encountered a small heard of bison walking by the side of the road.

  

They were the first of many that day being the animal most encountered in the park together with elk. They're the ones that can cause the hour-long 'animal-jams' you hear about during the summer.

Boy, are they huge! Bulls can weigh upwards of 2000 pounds,

cows average about 1,400 and both stand approximately six feet tall at the shoulder.

Yellowstone is the only place in the lower 48 states where a population of wild American bison has persisted since prehistoric times, although fewer than 50 native bison remained there in 1902.

At the present there are about 3000 of them in the park.

They're very decorative, don't you think? Especially with those geysers in the back.

 

After turning right at Madison and driving south for 10 minutes we arrived at what is called the 'Lower Geyser Basin' for a first look at what makes Yellowstone so unique. Geysers!

Nowhere in the world are there as many.

All a result of huge volcanic eruptions some millions of years ago the magmatic heat still powers the park's geysers, hot springs, fumaroles and mud pots.

  

It's an almost eerie, definitely surreal, landscape, all these steaming holes and plopping mud pots!

Some of the mud pits and surrounding ground have a pH of 1-2 (same as battery acid) and can be as hot as 200F. The underground steaming water holes shift as it erodes the earth away. You don't want to stray of the path!

A lot of the pools and surroundings have beautiful colors as in cobalt blue waters and bright yellow and orange edges:

 

A little farther down the Firehole River, past Mount Haynes,

Mount Haynes

we spot a moose on the river banks. A little far away but I think you can see it's a moose .. no?

I'll include a small map of the lower loop here in case you already lost me :)

 

 

Next stop is the Midway Geyser Basin where we used one of the nice boardwalks that you can find all throughout the park and that enable you to get up close and personal with all the steamy soil and geysers without burning your shoes (serious) or falling through the, at places, thin crust of mud.

 

Past the huge crater of the Excelsior Geyser we arrived at the park's largest hot spring, the Grand Prismatic.

The beautiful colors are caused by heat loving bacteria!

Back on the road we encounter a small herd of the large population of elks in the park.

 

A little after noon we arrive at the Upper Geyser Basin, the site for the park's most well known feature, Old Faithful.

We're in luck, we think, because the next erupture is predicted to take place in about 10 minutes!

Unfortunately the geyser isn't as faithful as it used to be, which was about every 60 minutes. Over the years and probably due to some (smaller) earthquakes and shifting of plates deep underneath the surface eruption intervals have changed to 90 or sometimes even 120 minutes!

I haven't mentioned the weather yet but fortunately we picked a gorgeous day to visit. It has been unseasonably warm since we've arrived in Montana and while we're waiting for the big happening we're enjoying our lunch on the benches of the boardwalk that surrounds the geyser.

As you can see we're not the only ones!

Well, as it so happens, 'Old Faithful' is 30 minutes late today, but finally ........ there she (he?) blows!

Awesome!

Better late than never as they say and the delay was made up by it being an unusual high and long eruption so that was pretty spectacular!

Onwards we went, this time to, you guessed it, the WEST Thumb Geyser Basin! Although one of the smallest geyser basins in Yellowstone, its location along the shore of Yellowstone Lake ranks it as the most scenic.  

Blue Funnel Spring

Surging Spring

Fishing Cone is a thermal feature unique to Yellowstone. It is situated on the shore of Yellowstone Lake and received its name from early explorers who stood on the cone and cast their lines into the lake to catch fish. Without taking the fish of the hook they parboiled them in the vent of Fishing Cone!

Abyss Pool, depth 53 feet, is the deepest pool known in Yellowstone.

Not too far from the basin we came across a little traffic jam alongside the road. Usually a sure sign something (animal) has been spotted.

This time it was a young grizzly! According to the ranger who was among the on-lookers, probably about 2 years old.

He was sniffing his way through the grass, stopping to scrape at the soil here and there, trying for edible roots and plants.



What are you guys all looking at?
(wanna-be my lunch?)

Finally we reached the Yellowstone Lake which can boast to be the largest body of water in Yellowstone National Park and the largest freshwater lake above 7,000 feet (2,133 m) in North America.

In winter, ice nearly 3 feet (1 m) thick covers much of the lake, except where shallow water covers hot springs.

The lake freezes over by early December and can remain frozen until late May or early June. It just started to break up again.

 

It made for some pretty pictures, don't ya think?

 

 

Well, I think I'll leave the rest of the loop for another time. We were also pretty much pooped by know and decided to just keep on driving back from here unless some unusual animal would make his or her appearance. 

We still stopped a couple of times to make some pictures though. It's hard to ignore such stunning beauty!

Here's a little collage of some of the spring flowers that are popping up in the meadows. I feel I'm neglecting them a little in favor of the more spectacular (and much larger) features of the park but I think they're just as pretty.

Better yet, they sit still when you want to take their picture and don't try to kick, bite or attack you! :)

                   'Kitten tails', 'shooting stars' and 'buttercups'