Old Faithful

The world’s largest concentration of geysers can be found in the Upper Geyser Basin of Yellowstone Park. The local trail guide lists at least 13 active geysers, plus another four irregular and unpredictable geysers. Yellowstone is one of only five locations worldwide where geysers can be found. Garry and I have previously seen geysers at three of these locations; New Zealand, Chile and Iceland. The fifth location is on the remote Russian peninsular of Kamchatka.

I recall seeing the Pohutu geyser in Rotorua as a young man.  The geyser and its neighbouring hot springs were fascinating. However, I’d never really appreciated just how unique this childhood experience was until recently. Despite our best efforts Garry and I still find it hard not to chuckle every time an American tourist squeals in delight at the sight of bubbling mud or a steaming cliff.

Tonight we’ve based ourselves in Old Faithful Inn, the park’s first modern tourist lodge. It opened in June 1904. The original structure has since been expanded twice; once in 1913 and again in 1927. It’s an extraordinary building. The entire building has been constructed from local pine logs. It’s main lobby rises more than 76 feet, the height of the mature logs that support its roof.

In the middle of the lobby rises an enormous chimney which vents two equally impressive fireplaces. An incredible 500 ton of local volcanic rock was used in its construction. A series of mezzanine floors encircle the lobby, each trimmed with golden pine banisters. Even the roof is constructed from half round pine logs. I’m sure none of our photos will do it justice.

The lodge offers free 30 minute tours of the building throughout the day.  We joined one to learn more about the building's incredible history and its maintenance.  We were fascinated to learn how the entire hotel is closed up for winter.  It's ground floor windows are boarded up and the building is left to it fate while almost five feet of snow falls.

Outside the lodge, a path takes you directly to an arc of seating in front of Old Faithful’s white sinster cone. This geyser is known around the world. It erupts with a high degree of reliability every 90 minutes or so. Each performance lasts up to five minutes, with jets of water shooting as high as 55 metres. The performance attracts a huge crowd who encircle the geyser's white sinter dome up to four people deep.  Since we arrived I’ve watched it erupt three times. It’s a delight to watch.

Garry and I were also fortunate enough to see the White Dome geyser erupt earlier in the day in the Lower Geyser Basin. We arrived minutes before the show began. We noticed water beginning to bubble over its five metre high cone and decided to linger. We weren’t disappointed. In no time at all a white jet of super-heated water was blasting into the sky.

The visitor’s centre at Old Faithful posts predictions for five local geysers in addition to Old Faithful. Some are less accurate than others. For example, the largest of the regular geysers, Grand Geyser, is predicted within 90 minutes of its actual eruption while other predictions have a window of plus or minus two hours or more.

Other highlights today included a quick return visit to the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Centre. We wanted to catch the animals being more active after breakfast. They duly obliged. We saw three active wolves and five bears. One bear even caught a live fish from the pond in its enclosure. Garry loved every minute of it.

The Grand Prismatic Springs were another memorable sight. This is Yellowstone’s largest hot spring and easily its most dramatic. An array of temperature tolerant thermophile bacteria live along the edge of its steaming pool. Their colonies create vivid rings of yellow, green and orange that constant perfectly with the pool’s deep blue depths. It’s easy to see why the spring has become Yellowstone’s iconic poster image.

UPDATE: 7 September
The moon is almost full at the moment.  This meant Garry and I were able to venture out after sunset to watch old Faithful erupt in the moonlight.  We witnessed one eruption before going for dinner, then returned shortly after dinner to watch a second.  It's simply mesmerizing to watch this geyser do its thing; again and again.
 

Hot stuff!

Yellowstone National Park sits atop a dormant volcano. Almost half the park’s surface area consists of a giant volcanic caldera almost 75kms across. It last erupted in an earth-shattering explosion more than 640,000 years ago. Its ash fell across half of the continental USA, while in the park itself the ash fell so thickly massive cliffs were created.

Today, geothermal activity can be found throughout the park. Perhaps the most famous of these hotspots is Old Faithful geyser. Garry and I are off to see this wonder tomorrow. Today we had to content ourselves with the less impressive Norris geyser basin.

It’s home to the park’s largest geyser, the Steamboat geyser. It erupts infrequently. When it does, its plume rises more than 91 metres into the air. It last erupted in 2005. That is, until two nights ago when it erupted again in a massive blast. When we arrived this morning, the vent was still blasting jets of superheated steam.

Nearby we also witnessed the Constant geyser in action. It erupted twice while we were there, albeit for 10-15 seconds at a time. We waited for some of its larger neighbours to burst into life. However, we were out of luck. The remained stubbornly silent. Although in a distant corner we did manage to see a small venting geyser roaring away.

While the geysers were a bit of a disappointment, our first sight of the day wasn’t. We visited the Grand Canyon’s north rim where you can walk right up to the rim of its iconic falls. We were lucky enough to have the brink of Upper Falls to ourselves for almost ten minutes. Without a doubt though, the highlight of the day was Lookout Point. This overlook offered a truly postcard-perfect view of Lower Falls in all its splendour.

Return of the wild kingdom

Last night we ventured out at dusk for some wildlife spotting in nearby Hayden Valley. All the guide books tell you this is when animals are most active around Yellowstone - especially at dawn and dusk. We weren’t disappointed. Within minutes of reaching the valley's broad grassy flats we spotted a roving herd of Bison and almost transformed a bounding Chipmunk into road kill.

However the highlight of the evening occured when the herds of Elk came down to the water’s edge to drink and graze. Garry and I were thrilled to see a couple of bucks with their characteristic crown of antlers. Unfortunately, the light was fading and our photos have turned out rather pixilated.

This afternoon we were rewarded with yet another memorable wildlife encounter. Garry spotted a couple of Mule deer standing in roadside bushes. As we pulled over for a closer look the deer decided it was now safe to cross the road. Much to our delight they gingerly stepped on the asphalt and crossed directly in front of us.

This means we’ve now seen Pronghorn (an antelope-like deer), Elk and Mule deer in the park since Wednesday. We’re still hoping to see some bighorn sheep before our vacation ends.

Earlier in the day we enjoyed another unexpected encounter. While visiting the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone we spotted an Ospery nest precariously perched atop a narrow rock pillar. We were thrilled as its owner held vigil while we watched.

We spent the remainder of our afternoon in West Yellowstone, just outside the park, at the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Centre. The centre is a refuge for injured and orphaned animals no longer able to fend for themselves in the wild. It also houses several bears and wolves conditioned to humans. These animals have lost their fear of humans and persistently venture into towns, campgrounds and the like. The centre takes these animals into captivity to prevent them being shot.

We saw four magnificent Grizzly bears, including Sam, a 450kg bear from Alaska. They show him alone as he’s become rather territorial. He was really was huge, with enormous paws and rather deadly looking claws. As I said to Garry, “I have no idea if bears shit in the woods – but – if I ran into that thing in the wild I certainly would.”

Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

A young landscape painter by the name of Thomas Moran is said to have inspired the creation of the world’s first national park. In 1871 the recently formed US Geological Survey funded an expedition into the Yellowstone region. Moran, and an accomplished photographer William Henry Jackson, were commissioned to document their findings.

Moran painted an enormous canvas of Lower Falls cascading through the technicolor depths of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. This vista and others like it encouraged Congress to pass the Yellowstone National Park Act in 1872. Interestingly, its passage into law occurred just months before the New Zealand government passed similar legislation establishing Ruapehu National Park.

Lower Falls is one of two iconic falls in the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. The Yellowstone river first plummets over Upper Falls (a mere 109 feet high), before dropping an impressive 308 feet over Lower Falls. The river then swirls and weaves its way in a foaming torrent through 20 miles of dramatic canyon. At its deepest point the canyon is more than 1000 feet deep and little more than 4000 feet from rim to rim at its widest point.

The canyon walls are an impressive array of white, red, yellow and pink bands and streaks. The colours are the result of geothermal activity in the canyon walls. If you look closely you can see tufts of steam still rising from vents. Surprisingly, the canyon is relatively young in geological terms. It current form was created around 10,000 years ago as retreating Ice Age glaciers created flood event of biblical proportions.

Garry and I spent this morning touring the canyon’s south rim. We stopped first at Uncle Tom’s trail to capture an iconic view of Upper Falls before venturing down more than 328 metal steps to view the even more dramatic Lower Falls. The view three-quarters of the way down the canyon wall is simply breath-taking. However, the decent is rather hair-raising and Garry wasn’t game to venture the entire way.

We then ventured on to Artist Point, considered the canyon’s most famous outlook. The view from here is simply magic. Visitors are greeted with a view more than a mile up the canyon towards Lower Falls. It’s very similar to the landscape captured by Thomas Moran – and, to be honest – it really does look like his 19th Century canvas. Garry and I saw a full-scale reproduction of his work in the nearby visitor’s centre yesterday.

 The remainder of our morning was spent tracing the Yellowstone River through the Hayden Valley to its headwaters as they emerge from Yellowstone Lake. The Hayden Valley is renowned for its wildlife spotting. We weren’t disappointed. Several bison entertained us with some superb roadside grazing. We subsequently returned to the area at dusk and were lucky enough to spot elk herds grazing along the river bank.

Our travels today took us along the eastern shores of Lake Yellowstone as far as Lake Butte Overlook. Here the road branches off and climbs 200 metres to a panoramic view across the entire lake. The view was magnificent. We soaked up the iridescent blue expanse as its sparkled and glistened in the afternoon sunlight. It was the perfect end to a wonderful day exploring the central region of Yellowstone National Park.

In fact, we enjoyed today so much we’ve made some last-minute changes to our itinerary. Instead of dashing south to view the Grand Tetons we’ve decided to spend another day in the park. We’ve now booked ourselves a room in West Yellowstone on the park’s western boundary. We’ll make our way there tomorrow following another glimpse of the Grand Canyon and a wander through the Norris Geyser basin (home to the largest geysers in the park).