Yellowstone National Park: Old Faithful
On day 10 of our trip out west we finally headed to the place that both of us were most excited to visit: Yellowstone. Neither one of us had ever been and all that we had heard about it from friends and family put our expectations very high. We headed out from our hotel in Driggs, ID and drove 2 hours to the south entrance of Yellowstone. Going up through the south entrance allowed us one last glimpse of the Grand Tetons on our left. Due to COVID, the park was not requiring entrance fees and the roads in the park were a lot less crowded than we had heard they may be, which was a nice surprise.
We had heard that if you wanted to see wildlife, Yellowstone was the place to go, and it sure didn’t disappoint. Almost immediately we started meeting large bison and elk crossing the road and hanging out in the fields. By the time our trip to Yellowstone was through, we almost started to not be impressed at the amounts of bison that we saw. It seemed like every turn there was one on the side of the road. You never truly get tired of seeing these massive creatures no matter how many you come across though.
Coming up through the south entrance, we knew that the first place we wanted to visit would be Old Faithful. After all, this is what most people think about when you mention Yellowstone. However, after looking at the map, we decided to take a quick trip to West Thumb Geyser Basin. This small 1-mile loop trail on elevated wooden boardwalks circles around some of the park’s smaller active geysers and provides a nice overlook of Yellowstone Lake. If you come early in the morning, expect to see some elk and bison hanging around the area. If you don’t see them, you will at least see their hoof prints! The area also has bathrooms, a gift shop, and a cafeteria.
Neither of us were quite sure what to expect in regards to geysers. We thought everything we saw was going to be spouts of hot water shooting up into the sky. We were surprised at the many different types of thermal pools and calderas that we saw. Many of the pools had bright, vivid colors of turquoise, green, purple, orange, and yellow. The colors are produced by thermophiles - microorganisms that live in hot waters and the colors produced by these unseen organisms make for some beautiful pictures.
After a quick trip to West Thumb, we headed northwest on the park’s main road to Old Faithful. We arrived 20 minutes before the next eruption of Old Faithful and were amazed at how high and how long the geyser shot up for. We thought this was going to be the best geyser we would see but boy were we wrong. The Old Faithful Geyser Basin trails take you almost 3 miles up and around the Firehole River offering you over a hundred different thermal features to look at including geysers and thermal pools. If I could recommend two to see for sure they would be the Morning Glory pool and the Grand Geyser. The Morning Glory pool is almost at the far end of the trail so it requires a bit of a hike, or you could rent bikes if you’d like and make the trip easier. Grand Geyser is not too far from Old Faithful and is actually larger than Old Faithful and it’s eruptions last longer. It goes off pretty frequently, giving viewers the chance to see it erupt at almost any time of the day.
After a 3-mile trip around the Geyser Basin trail, we started our way up towards the west entrance to the little tourist town of West Yellowstone. We were staying at the Holiday Inn there - a nice treat from Liz’s mom. The town had a bunch of great shops and restaurants of which our favorite (we actually ate there twice!) was the Buffalo Bar. We would highly recommend this place! It has a bunch of stuffed moose and elk heads adorning the wall so if that is not your cup of tea, this might not be a place for you.
The two geyser basins we stopped at were the perfect amount of sights to see for one day. You could probably spend a whole day just at Old Faithful exploring the lodge (unfortunately it was closed) and the trails so make sure to plan your trip accordingly!
