Birthday Geysers (and so much more)!

Old Faithful 

I’ve been reliving fourth grade during this trip.  Fourth grade was the year that we learned about each region in the United States.  As I’ve been traveling I’ve caught myself thinking back to what I learned in fourth grade and thinking, “Oh wow, it really is like that!”  For some reason, the geysers of Yellowstone were the thing that intrigued me the most.  I’ve literally been dreaming about seeing Old Faithful since I was ten.

Daisy Geyser 

I decided that I would make that dream come true on my twenty-eighth birthday.  I was so excited!  You don’t even know!  I half ran and half skipped from the parking lot to get my first glimpse of Old Faithful smoking away until her next performance.  I rushed into the (extremely fancy) visitors center to check the time of the next predicted eruption.  I also got a chance to talk to a very friendly ranger.  I announced to him that he was talking to the most excited girl ever and he gave me a high five then proceeded to highlight must see sights on a map for me.  Then it was time to get a seat for the highly anticipated event!  I had enough time to have a birthday lunch while waiting, then it happened!  After a few warm up spurts, Old Faithful shot about 100 feet into the air and kept shooting water for about three minutes!  It was totally spectacular and mesmerizing!  It is such an amazing natural phenomenon that people clap after it (as well they should!).

Hot spring!

After checking the notes I took on the predicted times of eruptions of several geysers in the vicinity of Old Faithful, I realized that if I hurried I may be to Daisy go off!  I rushed down the bike path and about two minutes after my arrival Daisy erupted!  Daisy was more spread out and not quite as tall as Old Faithful, but nonetheless totally spectacular!  This geyser drew a much smaller crowd, so I was able to be right next to it.    As a result, I was able to see the water that came out of the geyser running down over the rock and towards the river.  That part was just as beautiful as the actual spout of water (yet doesn’t get as much press)!  The beauty was augmented by the fact that there were fields of brilliantly colored microorganisms living on the rock that became even more brilliant and beautiful when the water was rushing over it! 

I then proceeded to wander around Upper Geyser Basin, which has the highest concentration of geothermal features in the world!!!  I saw a few other geysers spitting water and several smoking away!  I also saw many hot springs!  While these features do not seem as if they would be conducive to fostering life of any kind, it turns out they are!  You can tell what temperature the water in a hot spring is based on the color because different types of microorganisms can live the various temperatures.  It also turns out that the diversity of the life in the springs may rival that of the rain forest!  Nature is so mysterious and cool!

After wandering around in the geothermal features for quite a while, I made my way to the back country office to inquire about backpacking.  I started chatting with the ranger that was extremely excited when I announced that I was able to explore the park without a set end date.  She immediately got out a map and started marking things and annotating the highlighted portions with specific directions about what to see or how to explore the area!  Shortly after she started this process, another lady came in and started chatting.  It turns out she was the nurse for the clinic and one of the bravest, most adventurous women ever!  She shared many stories about her adventures and even some pictures!  The two ladies, another tourist who joined the conversation after a short while, and I chatted for several hours!  It was so much fun to talk with other adventure enthusiasts! 

At that point, I realized that it was about time to figure where I was going to be spending the night.  I headed to the nearest campground and got in line to find out if they had any spots left.  A man went through the line to ask if people had reservations.  When the man in front of me replied that he didn’t the man looked rather concerned and said he may get the last one.  Then he got to me.  When I told him no he looked like there was no chance.  I replied, “Well, maybe it’ll be a birthday miracle.”  Then, birthday miracle number one happened when the man behind me said that I could camp behind his RV if they ran out of spots.  Then, birthday miracle number two happened when the people in front of me told me that they would just register me with them for the night and we could share the spot.  Then, birthday miracle number three happened when the man came out and hung up the “campground full” sing , looked at me, and announced, “You got the last one!”  I set up my tent on the last available spot then headed back to Old Faithful.  I got a burger and coleslaw from one of the restaurants and took it over to a spot near Old Faithful.  Then, I proceeded to have the prefect birthday dinner while watching super-heated water shoot 100 feet into the air!  It was perfect!  For dessert, I headed over the Black Sands Basin.  I thoroughly enjoyed wandering around the multitude of hot springs while soaking in the odd, yet not completely unpleasant smell and the glorious warmth from the steam.  I even had the pleasure of eating a bit of birthday cake by a hot spring, while completely surrounded by steam! 

The next morning I headed to the north-west corner of the park.  There are huge, beautiful sculptures made out of the deposits of materials that were left by the water in the hot springs that used to run over the area.  As I slowly worked my way back south, there were active hot springs and streams working on making new sculptures.  All this strange, other worldly beauty was made even more amazing due to the fact that it all was surrounded by mountains in the distance!  That’s the thing about Yellowstone. . .it has breathtakingly beautiful natural features and views everywhere in addition to the totally amazing and rather peculiar geothermal features!             

My exploring took me towards the eastern edge of the park.  There, I found a trail to go look at a waterfall in the canyon that the rangers highly recommended I go see.  Shortly after I began hiking, I got to a fork in the path.  I decided to go on the less traveled path first.  After a short walk through the woods with a few great views of a waterfall and the Yellowstone River!  It was so peaceful and relaxing!  As an added bonus, I was the only human there!  After soaking up the beauty and savoring the solitude for a while, I hiked back to take the other path.  The other path wound its way down the side the canyon a ways.  Then, I came around the corner, and, without any warning, was greeted with the most spectacular sight of my life!  I was standing right at the top of a water fall twice the height of Niagara Falls that plummeted down into the most majestic canyon I have ever seen!  There’s a reason they call it the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone!  And, just as if it weren’t prefect enough, there were rainbows created by the sun and the spray from the waterfall!  As I was examining the view, I saw a platform about three quarters the way down into the canyon across the river on the South Rim.  Obviously, that was my next stop!  After walking down about 300 stairs, I got to the platform.  It’s situated right in front of the falls!  I was better able to appreciate just how tremendously far the water was dropping!  There were also tremendous views of the river rushing through the canyon! 

As I slowly started making my way south, I came across a pullout with a view of a field with at least forty bison resting by the river!  I sat and watched the bison for a while.  They are such amazingly huge animals that really don’t seem to be designed in a structurally stable way!  Their fronts are so massive, but then they tapper into rather small backsides, and all of it is mounted on the smallest, skinniest legs ever!  Somehow the design works for them though! 

The next stop was at the mud volcanoes.  There were several mud pots along the path.  There’s something about a pond of boiling mud that is even more amazing and perplexing than a hot spring!   It’s so strange to see such a thick liquid boiling!  It made a different and odd noise too.  I rather resembles oatmeal that is boiling.  You can see start to form bubbles, but it takes it a while to get enough force to break the surface.  When it does it make a rather significant “blooping” sound.  It’s rather like watching water boil in slow motion.  As I walked along the path, I learned something amazing.  The geology of Yellowstone is moving at a much quicker pace that it does anywhere else.  Most places they tell you something happened recently in “geologic terms” and that means millions of years ago.  In Yellowstone, things change drastically within a lifetime!  For example, I was standing by a huge, steaming mud pot with a sign explaining that in 1948 the area was just a hillside covered in tress.  Then, without any warning, the earth exploded and shot the trees out of the ground.  The mud pot was tremendously violent and active for several years and it migrated about 200 yards from the original spot.  Then, it became the more calm and dormant mud pot that is there today.  That all happened in 63 years!  That’s amazing!   

By this point I was rather tired since I had worked my way through a good portion of the park, which took a while because it is gigantic!  Seriously, Yellowstone is bigger than Rhode Island or Delaware!  At that point, I started heading back to Old Faithful.  At this point I was starting to become moderately aged faithful since I was consistently drawn back to Old Faithful before I ended my adventuring for the day.  I found a spot away from the crowds on the boardwalk for this viewing.  Being a little further away really allowed me to better comprehend just how high the water was shooting out of the ground!  It’s so amazing!  I don’t think that watching water spontaneously explode out the ground and create a totally beautiful and natural fountain would ever get old! 

After spending the night at a lovely campground just outside the west entrance, I headed back into the park.  As I was driving, a bison started crossing the road right in front of my car.  I stopped for him.  He started walking right next to my car, at which point I rolled down my window to get a picture of him.  He was so close that when he turned his head to see what the noise was I was rather nervous that he was going to poke his head into my car!  After the bison moved on, so did I.  I decided to explore the geyser basins near Old Faithful.  The first one I got to had a heard of bison milling around the hot springs.  It was incredible to see such large animals walking around steaming ponds on the tremendously delicate earth! 

I spent the whole day totally immersed in a world of totally incomprehensible geothermal features!  It was grand!  After a morning full of hot springs, geysers, mud pots, and fumaroles (these are the hottest feature in the park. . .it’s a vent in the earth that just had steam shooting out of it because the water all evaporated before it got the surface due to the heat), I decided to join a ranger walk around the Old Faithful area.  When I got there, there were tons of people all crowed onto the boardwalk.  While I can totally understand everyone wanting a deeper understanding the geothermal features, it seemed like a little bit of an excessive turn out for a ranger program.  It turned out that Beehive, a huge geyser that only goes off about ever fourteen hours was set to erupt at any moment!  I got a great vantage point, then, it exploded 200 feet into the air!  It’s a much more narrow stream of water than Old Faithful is, and it also makes a really loud noise because the water is going so fast, it is breaking the sound barrier!

After wandering around the amazing features in the area again, I found a spot on the boardwalk with a good view of the back of Old Faithful and waited for her to put on her show.  It never failed to amaze me with its magnificence and grace!  Then, I went to get a good look at the Grand Prismatic.  The Grand Prismatic is the largest hot spring in the park (and the third largest in the world).  The ranger in the backcountry office had given me direction to walk down a trail for a while and then climb up into the trees to get a good look at it.  You can walk right next to it on the boardwalk, but all you can really see is the very edge and a ton of steam.  When you climb up into the trees, you have a bird’s eye view of it.  You can see the impressive size and the even more impressive displays of colors!  It is totally awe-inspiring!

The next day, I meandered north-east through the park.  I stopped at a section of geothermal features and saw the most amazing mud pot ever!!!  The mud was so thick and it was so hot that the mud bubbles shot up into the air and then plopped back into the pond of mud!  It was hypnotic!  After prying myself away from the boiling mud, I drove through the mountains up to the north­­-east corner of the park.  Then I took a short hike to go see the gigantic petrified redwoods!   Then I started heading back south and hiked a little ways to go see a natural bridge.  Yellowstone has a little bit of everything!  It’s a totally amazing land! 

The Grand Prismatic 

I finished up my Yellowstone tour by driving along Yellowstone Lake, which is huge and beautiful!  Then, you guessed it; I headed back to Old Faithful.  First I went to get some souvenirs at the general store.  When I was paying, I mentioned to the clerk that Yellowstone is the most amazing place ever, which got us chatting.  After he found out about my adventuring, he told me that I should come back as an employee for next summer. . .something to think about!  Then, I headed over to Old Faithful one last time for the visit and just after I got there, she erupted!  I’d say it was the perfect way to say farewell to the park!