Today was an interesting day and our final day doing the "tourist thing". It was also fascinating to see all the things that we have read about and seen on TV and movies about Yellowstone. I won’t try to describe our day in a linear fashion as I had been wont to do on previous days; there is just too much that we saw and too many details to try to keep straight. So I shall just hit a few of the highlights and let the pictures say the rest, saving thousands of words and considerable time and space.
Yellowstone has much more than geysers, in fact, the park is divided up into five distinct areas, or countries. We only visited one, Geyser Country, the home of Old Faithful and literally thousands of other geysers, hot springs and mud pots. One must stay on the marked trails and boardwalks. The "thermal features" are at or even above boiling temperature. Some of the ground is a mere crust floating on boiling water and falling through would be very serious indeed..
Most of the park lies in the state of Wyoming, but it also lies partly in Idaho in the south west and Montana in the north and west. Besides lying in three states, the continental divide runs through the park, so that while most of the park drains east, the south west corner of the park is west of the divide, draining west to the Pacific Ocean.
Doug found the barren ground, hot steaming pools and high spouting geysers created kind of a extraterrestrial feeling. This could have been the moon or Venus or Mars. The geysers don’t shoot up all the time. Much of the time they are quite calm except for frequent eruptions of steam bubbles. However, while you are looking at one, another may erupt somewhere else around you.
Of course, the star of the show is Old Faithful. It erupts on average, every 92 minutes, but can range from 51 to 120 minutes. The predicted time of the next eruption is posted in several places around the area. We went to watch about 10 minutes before the predicted time and sat with a hundred or so people to wait; and wait we did.. At around the predicted time, it appeared to be shooting some water out of the steaming vent. Then it went quiet again. After about another quarter of an hour, it started to shoot and spray in spits and starts and then it suddenly roared to life. For several minutes, thousands of litres of boiling water and steam shot more than 100 feet into the air. The power is amazing. Just as quickly as it started, it was over with just a steady cloud of steam rising from the vent.
Within sight of Old Faithful sits the Old Faithful Lodge. There we found a very good cafeteria where we lunched on Buffalo meat loaf. Mmmmm, very tasty. We also bought some souvenirs there and a beautiful book of photography which we got signed by the author.
By this time, we had had a pretty full day and it was time to head back to town. It is 30 miles from Old Faithful to West Yellowstone following two lane park roads through forest that is not too unlike Banff or Jasper. There is a lot of wild life in the park and we got to see quite a bit of it including several bison and elk. One bison, a large bull was walking along the shoulder of the road as we drove by him. He looked awfully big right beside the car.
At another point, we saw a number of female elk with a couple of calves in a large open field. A big bull was approaching from the far side and as we watched, he tossed his head with its huge rack back and bellowed out to the females. They ignored him. Hmmmm.
Back to the hotel then found a restaurant for supper. Enjoyed some nice pizza and had enough left over for lunch the next day on the highway to Spokane, WA. It was a very good day, but ended quite cool and rainy.
Yellowstone has much more than geysers, in fact, the park is divided up into five distinct areas, or countries. We only visited one, Geyser Country, the home of Old Faithful and literally thousands of other geysers, hot springs and mud pots. One must stay on the marked trails and boardwalks. The "thermal features" are at or even above boiling temperature. Some of the ground is a mere crust floating on boiling water and falling through would be very serious indeed..
Most of the park lies in the state of Wyoming, but it also lies partly in Idaho in the south west and Montana in the north and west. Besides lying in three states, the continental divide runs through the park, so that while most of the park drains east, the south west corner of the park is west of the divide, draining west to the Pacific Ocean.
Doug found the barren ground, hot steaming pools and high spouting geysers created kind of a extraterrestrial feeling. This could have been the moon or Venus or Mars. The geysers don’t shoot up all the time. Much of the time they are quite calm except for frequent eruptions of steam bubbles. However, while you are looking at one, another may erupt somewhere else around you.
Of course, the star of the show is Old Faithful. It erupts on average, every 92 minutes, but can range from 51 to 120 minutes. The predicted time of the next eruption is posted in several places around the area. We went to watch about 10 minutes before the predicted time and sat with a hundred or so people to wait; and wait we did.. At around the predicted time, it appeared to be shooting some water out of the steaming vent. Then it went quiet again. After about another quarter of an hour, it started to shoot and spray in spits and starts and then it suddenly roared to life. For several minutes, thousands of litres of boiling water and steam shot more than 100 feet into the air. The power is amazing. Just as quickly as it started, it was over with just a steady cloud of steam rising from the vent.
Within sight of Old Faithful sits the Old Faithful Lodge. There we found a very good cafeteria where we lunched on Buffalo meat loaf. Mmmmm, very tasty. We also bought some souvenirs there and a beautiful book of photography which we got signed by the author.
By this time, we had had a pretty full day and it was time to head back to town. It is 30 miles from Old Faithful to West Yellowstone following two lane park roads through forest that is not too unlike Banff or Jasper. There is a lot of wild life in the park and we got to see quite a bit of it including several bison and elk. One bison, a large bull was walking along the shoulder of the road as we drove by him. He looked awfully big right beside the car.
At another point, we saw a number of female elk with a couple of calves in a large open field. A big bull was approaching from the far side and as we watched, he tossed his head with its huge rack back and bellowed out to the females. They ignored him. Hmmmm.
Back to the hotel then found a restaurant for supper. Enjoyed some nice pizza and had enough left over for lunch the next day on the highway to Spokane, WA. It was a very good day, but ended quite cool and rainy.
1 comment:
Hi
Doug & Diane
I wish I had gone on the trip with you. The tree in the picture at yellowstone Park looks cold.
You've done a beautiful job on your sight.
Linda Parker
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