Yellowstone National Park – part 2

On Tuesday I made a day trip into Yellowstone National Park (“part 1”) and on Wednesday we traveled east-to-west through the park with an aborted attempt to see Old Faithful. So yesterday – Thursday – I made a second day trip into Yellowstone with the primary purpose being to view Old Faithful.

It turned out to be much more than that.

I entered the park around 10:15am via the west (West Yellowstone) entrance where traffic was heavy. I traveled with fairly heavy traffic for 20 miles until I encountered some stopped traffic. I could see ahead to where the traffic was halted and my first thought was that there had been an accident (I saw a tow truck with a flashing yellow light coming the other way). For a while the traffic moved, albeit very slowly. But as I approached the point of the bottleneck I saw the problem: a herd of about 300 buffalo, some of which were on the road. I edge forward a bit further until the traffic came to a dead halt as the herd began to cross the road. I sat for nearly 15 minutes, engine off, as buffalo swarmed nearby, some crossing just one car in front of me. Very cool. I didn’t mind that 15 minute delay at all.

When I finally got to Old Faithful I had to endure a cold rain. I was underdressed, in shorts and a relatively thin hoodie. My first problem was trying to determine when it was next scheduled to erupt. I considered, then discarded, the direct approach of asking a tourist as it seemed that almost no one in attendance was speaking English. I got to the geyser and noticed that several hundred people were already waiting, which I took to be a clue that it was expected to erupt soon. I went into the lodge to get some coffee and found a sign that gave me the information I needed: it was scheduled to erupt at 11:25am. It was 11:10am. I got the coffee and got back to the edge of the viewing area by 11:20am. Exactly at 11:25am the geyser erupted. I got some video, then some stills.  Very impressive.

Next I tried to get into the parking lot at Grand Prismatic Spring and failed – too many cars for a very small lot. I tried again later and again got shut out. So if there was a failure on the day, that was it. I was disappointed, but that disappointment was tempered by the other things that I did and the other shots that I got that were spectacular and mostly unplanned.

I decided to take a run along Firehole Lake Drive, mostly because I liked the name. Well, it was well worth the investment of time as I saw the White Dome Geyser (but not erupting), Surprise Pool and Hot Lake – all very interesting. All very beautiful.

After the Firehole Lake Drive I went across the road to the Fountain Paint Pot Nature Trail. This was a boardwalk with a wide variety of geothermal features – a roaring vent, some smaller geysers and bubbling mud. Beautiful vistas and closeups everywhere I turned.

At this point I thought I was done taking photos and headed home. But more photo opportunities appeared, including one of an elk buck and his harem.