Old Faithful - At Last!

I don't know why, but Old Faithful is just one of those sites that everyone wants to see, and I was no exception. While I thoroughly enjoyed the Lower and Midway Geyser Basins, I really was all about getting to Old Faithful. Old Faithful is probably the most famous geyser in the world. It was named in 1870 when members of the Washburn Expedition noticed how regularly it erupted. Here it is smoking a bit.

Despite what you've heard, Old Faithful has never erupted "every hour on the hour." While it erupts more frequently than any of the other big geysers, it is not the largest or most regular geyser in the park. Its average interval between eruptions is about 90 minutes, varying from 51-120 minutes. We were lucky. We arrived at the Old Faithful Inn, checked out the clock inside, and had about 10 minutes before it was due to blow. These pictures below show how the geyser starts to sputter some water, gradually building to the big eruption.

















Thar she blows!

An eruption lasts 1.5 to 5 minutes, expelling 3,700-8.400 gallons of boiling water, and reaching a height of 106-184 feet. As you can hear, it's fairly noisy when it erupts!

Midway Geyser Basin

This is the first view of the Midway Geyser Basin features. Seen from the parking area, you can see the steam from the Excelsior Geyser. The runoff from the crater into the Firehole River is about 4000 gallons per minute. In comparison, it would take Old Faithful almost 2 months to generate the output of Excelsior in 1 day.

The big draw at Midway is the Grand Prismatic Spring. At 250 x 350 feet, the Grand Prismatic is the largest hot water spring in the U.S. As a result, it's difficult to photograph the entire thing unless you're overhead. In these pictures, you can see the blue spring in the background and the bacterial mats in the foreground.

These pictures show the beautifully pigmented bacteria in the microbial mats that grow around the edges of the mineral-rich water. In the summer, the mats tend to be these beautiful orange and red colors.

Pretty cool, but we can hardly wait to get to the infamous Old Faithful!

Lower Geyser Basin

Our first real stop was the Lower Geyser Basin. The Lower Geyser Basin encompasses nearly 12 square miles, with a large variety of thermal features, including mud pots, geysers, pools, springs, and fumaroles.

The largest thermal area of the Lower Geyser Basin is the Fountain Group. From the parking area, 0.5 miles of boardwalk trails pass a sizeable assortment of geysers and springs at the edge of quite a large barren region of deposited minerals and very little vegetation. As you walk out along the boardwalk trails, it looks like a giant wasteland with plumes of steam rising everywhere.

The Fountain Paint Pots, temperature 202.8°F is a location where many small vents bubble noisily through thick, clayish mud of varying colors and consistencies. The mud is composed of clay and fine particles of silica broken down by acids and grinding action. The tinting of the mud in colors of pink and gray from iron oxides is derived from the original rock. The bubbling action results in escaping steam and gases - mainly carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide. Yes, it definitely smells like rotten eggs.

Just south of here is one of the most colorful pools in this area, the Celestine Pool.

Midway Geyser Basin coming up!

Madison River and Firehold River & Falls

Entering the West Entrance to Yellowstone, we followed along the scenic Madison River. The Madison originates in Yellowstone and flows in a northerly direction for 140 miles and is one of Montana’s premier wild trout rivers. We selected a lovely picnic spot, and as luck would have it, the weather began immediately spitting some rain. We didn't let that dampen our spirits, we just ate quickly standing up!

At the Madison junction, we turned right and followed along the Firehold River and stopped to enjoy the first of many picturesque waterfalls.

Next stop - the Lower Geyser Basin.

Arriving at Island Park, ID

We made the 4-hour drive from Ogden to Island Park, ID with our friends, Bill and Debby.

We were so excited to see them and to have the opportunity to spend this time with them. After stopping in Ashton at the Henry's Fork Foundation, we scooted down the street to a drugstore with an old fashioned soda shop. We were treated to delicious huckleberry milkshakes. Huckleberries are apparently a big deal here. They're kind of like blueberries but sweeter I think.

Bill and Deb have friends who generously loaned their cabin, located in Island Park, to us for this vacation.

The cabin was centrally located to everything. It had indoor plumbing and heat, and was only 35 minutes from Yellowstone. Who could ask for anything more? Perfect!

Yellowstone.....here we come!

Firearms Museum

Once we hit Ogden, Brent was anxious to visit the John M. Browning Firearms Museum. Located in the Ogden Union Station,

the building also houses a train museum and a display of antique automobiles. The Browning Museum has original models of firearms designed by John M. Browning. These include rifles, shotguns, pistols, machine guns, and cannons. I just sort of blew through it, stopping to look at some of the shotguns I was most familiar with. Brent, on the other hand, slowly, painstakingly, and very thoroughly enjoyed every single solitary display.

Thank goodness it's only a small museum. Otherwise, we might have missed Yellowstone entirely!

Bryce Canyon

Bryce Canyon is spectacular. A road follows the plateau rim for about 18 miles with various vistas for viewing. Each of these views are beautiful, but when you finally reach the vistas in the Bryce Amphitheater, it is incredible.

While we were there we couldn't drive the entire 18 mile road as they were doing a "prescribed fire." These controlled burns are done when there is a lack of natural fire, resulting in a high fire risk and a change in the forest structure. The prescribed fire is used to restore the forest health and reduce risk of wildfires. Anyway, because of this, we started our viewing at the Natural Bridge. This natural bridge was not formed by a stream as true natural bridges are. This would be more acurately called an arch as it was carved by both rain and frost erosion from the top of the rock.

The next viewpoint is Farview Point. Here ponderosa pines begin to give way to Douglas fir and white fir.

At Swamp Canyon you begin to see more of the hoodoos. A hoodoo is a pillar of rock, usually with fantastic shapes, left by erosion.

The Paria View is located just outside the Bryce amphitheater in an area that was carved by the Yellow Creek. The Paria River Valley and Table Cliffs Plateau form its backdrop.

Bryce Point gives you the southern-most view of the Bryce Amphitheater. As you can see, the hoodoos are very clearly defined. You're pretty high here and the air is noticeably thinner as you hike around.

Inspiration Point is just about the center point of the amphitheater. When you look down on these pinnacles and spires, it's just breath taking. Unfortunately I don't think the camera captures the incredible colors which I understand change with the sun.

We decided we were starting to run a little short on time, so we skipped Sunset and Sunrise Points. There are over 50 miles of hiking trails throughout Bryce. With my arthritic knees, we knew I wouldn't be able to hike to the bottom of the canyon and back up, so we decided a trail ride was a good opportunity to get a close-up look at the beautiful rock formations. Brent had the camera, so there are no pics of him. Although, we did purchase one taken while on the ride, but I didn't take time to scan it in. All I will say is that the cowboy said he tried to match up personalities of the riders and the mules. Brent's mule, Bonnie, ate everything in sight and farted throughout the whole trip. Hmmm, that cowboy knew what he was doing! LOL!

Here's a pic of me and my mule, Jewels. Jewels was a clever, sweet, even-tempered girl! A great picture of our guide, Brandi, down among the hoodoos.

This formation is known as Thor's Hammer. Brent did a great job snapping these pictures. Between the movement of the mule and the bright light, he had no idea if the pics would turn out or not. I think he did a pretty good job.
The end (so to speak) of a fantastic 1-day trip to Bryce Canyon.
Stay tuned for more of our trip.