Yellowstone National Park

Our first day in Yellowstone was spent visiting the Old Faithful geyser area. We quickly realised that visiting YNP would involve considerable amounts of driving, particularly as two key roads were closed (a joke in Glacier NP is that there are two seasons, winter and

construction) and many campgrounds were shutting, due to shut or were full. The parking lot at Old Faithful is huge, the day we visited was busy enough, we wondered how busy it is in peak season.
We enjoyed the geyser area managing to see old faithful erupt (not hard as predicted eruption times are posted). We also managed to see Grand Geyser, the world’s tallest predictable geyser erupt. They post eruption times for this but they are plus or minus 75 mins which means you have a 2 and a half hour window when it could erupt. Luckily for us it went early so we did not have to wait too long in the near freezing conditions.

After spending a couple of hours wandering around the Upper Geyser Basin we went inside and had a look at the Old Faithful Lodge. This is another very impressive national park building. The ceiling is 75 feet high and there is a huge balcony for viewing Old Faithful from – very nice if the sun is shining.

Grand Geyer

Next we headed down to the Geysers at Biscuit Basin and then on to see Grand Prismatic Spring which is a famous very colourful spring. We however did not get to see it in all its glory. We started poorly by walking for about a mile on a trail which did not even get close to it. There was a hill you could climb for a view which Rob did. It was not that impressive as it was cloudy and raining and there were power lines in the way. We headed back to find the trail on the other side which started about a mile down the road. By this time Simone was

Biscuit Basin, yes it's very cold

cold, tired and hungry (hungry is a constant state!). We headed out on a boardwalk but with the wind and the steam we could barely see the spring. Probably the most interesting part of the walk was getting waves of warm steam over you while walking in the cold and rain.

The highlight of our first day in Yellowstone was seeing our first bison. This was an animal we had not yet managed to spot and we were certainly impressed with the size of them. We tried, without much hope of success to get a camping spot at Madison inside the national park. As we suspected they were full (on a cold wet day in September – who knows what it is like in peak season) so we enacted plan B and drove out of the park to a National Forrest Campground for the night. 

Norris Geyser Basin

After three nights at West Yellowstone (where we visited the Grizzly Bear and Wolf Centre we wrote about last blog), we were up early to head into the park and find a campsite at Norris. September is nearly the end of the season and you still have to be there early morning to get a spot. We managed to find one next door to two girls around Symi’s age which she considered a score. We spent the afternoon exploring the Norris Geyser Basin which as well as being one of the hottest and most acidic basins in Yellowstone is also part of one of the word’s largest active volcanoes, sitting on the intersection of three major faults. The different colours you can see are all related to what micro-organisms can grow in different water temperatures.

That evening was a good one for Symi. Playing down in the stream in the meadow in the golden autumn sunshine with real children and building log bridges across a creek. To top it off there was then a fire and toasted marshmallows. Does life get any better?

Lamar Valley

Next day we had to shelve visiting Mammoth Hot Spring Terraces due to yet another road closure (this would have resulted in a very long drive to see them). Instead we headed off the Lamar Valley where we had been assured of spotting wildlife. We were not disappointed. We saw huge herds of buffalo (about 1000 in one meadow) along with North American Pronghorns (an antelope, fastest mammal in North America. It can sustain nearly 90 kph and reach 115 kph!) and elk. We even managed to get ourselves in a Buffalo Jam (there’s another thing off the bucket list). We thought about walking up Mt Washburn but decided it was a little late (bit of a mistake since we have now found out is it one of the 16 best walks in the NPs according to our national park guide).

Yum!

Bison jam.

After spending another night at Norris we headed out to see the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Expectations were not high as we felt Yellowstone had wildlife and geysers but not outstanding scenery so far. Also we had seen the real Grand Canyon. Well we had to take it back. It was stunning. We did two walks down into the canyon just to get a better look.

Lower Falls Yellowstone River

We had booked to stay down near West Thumb in the south of the park for the next two nights where we went on a ranger led walk around the Geyser Basin. These are always interesting and informative. It was interesting to hear about the different things the tourists got up to in the early days – like catching fish and cooking them in the hot springs (bit of arsenic with your fish anyone?)

Fishing Cone Geyser

After our last night in Yellowstone we were excited to head just south to the Grand Teton NP to see what was on offer there.