Havin’ a Blast

Day 10 – Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

Today was our last day in Yellowstone.  Most of our time these last three days has been focused on the eastern side of the park so today we decided to focus on the western side.  While the eastern side has more wildlife, the western side has more geothermal activity.

The Roosevelt Arch at Yellowstone's northern enterance.

We were gonna start the day with a bike ride along the northwestern border of the park, following the Yellowstone River, but that didn’t work out.  First, the trail was outside the park and it took us a while to find it.  When we did find it, we say that it was more of a mountain bike trail and our bikes might have a hard time with it.  So we decided to head back into the park and save the biking for later when we got closer to Old Faithful. 



Terrace Falls at Mammoth Hot Springs.

As we headed back into the park, we went through the town of Gardiner, Montana.  While the town itself is nothing special, we did see an interesting sight at the high school.  The school’s football field was being used – by elk.  A group of about 12 elk where munching on the turf and drinking from the sprinkler.  I guess such is life when you border Yellowstone.



A thermal pool at Mammoth Hot Springs.

We headed back into the park through the Roosevelt Arch and stopped first at Mammoth Hot Springs.  While the springs were not flowing at full speed, it was still neat to see.  Amy thought they were taunting us with pictures of what it looks like when the springs are flowing, but we still enjoyed the stop. 

A view of Yellowstone from behind the thermal falls at Mammoth.

We continued to head south on the western part of the figure 8, stopping off at points of interest along the way.  We stopped at the Obsidian Cliffs, Kepler Cascades, Firehole River Canyon, Firehole Lake, and Firehole geyser.  We were lucky and made it to Firehole Geyser just as it erupted.  We also stopped by Steamboat Geyser, but that one we did not see erupt.  It would have been news if we had seen it, since the last eruption was in 2005.  A times, this geyser has gone 40 years between eruptions, although when it does erupt, it will shoot water 3-4 times higher than Old Faithful.

Old Faithful erupting.

Our last stop of the day was at Old Faithful.  We just happened to show up 5 minutes before it erupted, so we didn’t have to wait very long.  We learned that while it now erupts every 83 minutes or so, it used to only be 50 minutes, but is slowly getting longer in between.  After watching the eruption, we took a short bike ride on the trail by Old Faithful.  The trail was only about 2 miles each way, but we made numerous stops at Grotto Geyser, River Geyser, and Morning Glory Pool.  All were really cool, but we were getting geysered out, so we decided to head back to camp.

Morning Glory Pool near Old Faithful.

Tonight ended up being laundry night.  We each did a few loads and got all set to move on to the Grand Tetons tomorrow.   We’ve very much enjoyed Yellowstone and I could definitely see coming back here for more hiking, but I can’t wait to get down to the Tetons!