Yellowstone National Park - Day 1 - Old Faithful Inn and Geothermal Features
Don and I drove straight from Grand Teton National Park to Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone National Park is celebrating its 150th Anniversary this year, so it was fun to be a part of the celebration. Yellowstone has a scenic road that serpentines 142 miles around the park called The Grand Loop. We covered every mile of the loop at least once and some several times. All going no more than 45 mph and most times much slower. We used the GyPS Guide app on our phone again to take us on the tour of The Grand Loop. This app is so great!
You’ve probably heard that Yellowstone NP is on top of a supervolcano, or caldera. The heat from the volcano produces many geothermal features: geysers, thermal pools, mud pots, etc. These, along with many waterfalls, forests, beautiful mountain views, and lots of wildlife, make this park so popular. We spent two days exploring, but could have used a few more. Now that we’ve driven the whole park, next time we will spend more time hiking and maybe fishing.
Old Faithful Inn
We were lucky enough to snag a room at Old Faithful Inn, the oldest national parks lodge. The lodge opened in 1904, but has been expanded and impoved many times over the years. There are a few of the original log rooms available, but they do not include ensuite bathrooms. I talked Don into staying in one of these rustic rooms and we had a little fun with the common bathrooms and showers down the hall. We probably won’t do that again, but it was fun and the rooms were beautiful…just like the entire hotel. Our room looked out on Old Faithful and just as we entered our room, she erupted…right on cue. That was the first of several times to see this geyser from our front row seat. Take a look at the photo gallery below showing the beauty of this grand hotel.
Geysers, Thermal Pools, and Mud Pots
Old Faithful is the most famous and reliable of these. She erupts about every 70 minutes or so. We saw a few other small geysers erupt, but probably the biggest surprise was one called Beehive. This geyser shoots taller than Old Faithful, but its eruption schedule is anywhere from 10 hours to 5 days. We just happened to see it while waiting for Old Faithful our last night. There were some young seasonal park employees who had been waiting all season to see it, so we felt fortunate to see this one. It was pretty cool for our visit, so there was lots of steam making the photos not quite as great as they could have been, but they are still awesome geological formations! Take a look a this photo gallery. Click on any photo to see a larger view.
