Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks
Sunday, June 24: Taking it Easy
Old Faithful is without doubt the most famous geo-thermal feature in the world, and if you’ve read the other pages in this little memoir, you might think it’s strange that I have mentioned it only in passing. Nor have I said anything about the Old Faithful Inn, other than to say our rooms were there. In large part that was because we were really tired after our long days out and about in the park, so we didn’t have a lot of time to just wander around and take in the place. This was our planned day for a change in all of that. We didn’t even get in the car, we didn’t get up early and stay out late, and we didn’t even spend a lot of time doing things together. We just acted like it was an off day at home and wandered around at will.
Now that I’ve set the scene, so to speak, it’s time to back up a little and explain how we all got to this place at this time. Jan Cordell of Earth Journeys Travel made all our travel and lodging arrangements, as she has for us so many times before, and that’s how we got to stay in the historic Old Faithful Inn. It’s just in my background; if I can get to a historic building I’d rather be there than in a modern building–most of the time, anyway. Jan knows us, and when I told her we (OK, “I”) really wanted to be in this building, she made it happen! The Old Faithful Inn is one of the great old log lodges from more than a century ago, built almost at the beginning of the whole national parks idea. To me, it’s super cool to be staying here rather than in one of the more modern lodges around Old Faithful, “the” geyser.
Not that I mean to put down “the” geyser. It’s not only the most well-known geyser in the world, it’s one of the biggest, it’s been more-or-less predictable in its eruptions since the park was established, and it was the sole reason the first lodge was built where it was. I mean–really? It’s steaming all the time, no matter what time of year, or what the weather happens to be? It keeps erupting, over and over again, every day!? And it has done that for how many years!!? It’s real, part of the natural order of things, not at all under human control!? No CGI involved? It has its own web cam? Really!?? Yep. It’s not the tallest geyser around, it’s not the biggest one around, there are others more constant nowadays, and all of that, but this little blowhole has a history none of the others possess. That’s cool.
Of course, you know that, but I get excited about things like that, so I sometimes just let go with too many words. I really like the place, the Inn, the whole idea of national parks in the US, and the fact that we got to be there for a few days. What an amazing planet we live on!
Now, back to my travel memoir.
After three really intense days of being roving tourists, we all wanted a day off, just to recuperate a little bit in body and spirit. In my case, however, the body woke up when it normally did, so I slipped out of the room and took off for a little exploration. Not that I went out and about right away. I grabbed a coffee and spent some time just checking out the interior of the lodge, spending a while just looking at the place. The lobby is amazing. Huge stone fireplace and logs everywhere, all the way up for seven stories. It’s a little funny in one way, because there aren’t any windows above the main floor level. You just see logs, logs, logs, all the way up. On the front side, though, there are private rooms up on the third level, and those at least have little dormer windows.
Soon enough I checked the board in the lobby to see when Old Faithful was due to erupt next and walked out toward the observation boardwalk, crunching through frost on my way out. Yep. Frost in late June. What fun.
The good thing about my early morning walk was that the day was really clear, with a wonderful blue sky and almost no clouds. I reached a place along the boardwalk where I could see almost no manmade obstructions or background when I looked at the steaming geyser. There were very few other people up and about at that hour, so I wasn’t fighting the crowds at all; the only thing disturbing the peace was a raven that kept hopping around and making a lot of squawks. Looking back it’s a little strange that I didn’t manage to get a video of the eruption I watched then or the one I photographed later. At least a got a nice series of shots when I went back out later.
After Judy and I sampled the breakfast buffet, I went back out and walked straight out the of Inn, through the parking lot, took the walkway in front of me, and right away I was in the middle of more geo-thermal features than I could count. Some of them are really close to the parking lot, while others are beyond the Firehole River, which flows into this area from the beautiful forest where we saw the cascades the day before. The river separates Old Faithful from a hillside covered with more of those things on the other side. Here’s a photo of one of the really clear springs that is right next to the boardwalk, on the side of the river where the Inn, two other lodges, cabins, and the official Visitors Center are located. It’s really pretty amazing, and the depth makes it a little scary to think that the pool could extend underground to right below where the boardwalk lies.
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t’s even more amazing to see the contrast when you follow the walkway and cross the river on a footbridge. Look to your right and you see a beautiful sylvan scene. Trees, grass, the river, dappled shade, birds flying around and ground squirrels running around doing whatever they do. It’s beautiful, and that scenery continues off into the distance.
To the left the same peaceful scene is there, too, but only for a short distance, It quickly degrades into a scene out of someone’s nightmare, with no grass, no trees, no visible living things, with only geysers, fumaroles, and other smelly features all around. There’s a spot in one of the photos below that shows the place where runoff from Old Faithful, discolored by the minerals in the rock, flows into the river. And the barren hillside of the geyser basin is up ahead, beyond the last trees along the river. There’s also a video that pans along the river from the Inn side, looking at the geysers on the other side. It’s pretty much worthwhile to take a look at those.
Soon after lunch, K.C., Christy and I crossed that bridge again, just to continue uphill and watch Old Faithful’s next eruption from the wooded hilltop. I have to admit I didn’t quite make it all the way to the summit, though the girls did. We were at a real good viewing spot when the geyser did blow, so I got a real good look at the whole site, with Old Faithful duly sending a plume high in the air–just not as high as we were.
There was only one further bit of excitement in the day. We packed for the next day’s trip to Big Sky, we played a little bridge, and at one point I decided to walk down to the store to buy a couple of things for the morning’s drive. I went out the side door and started walking along the sidewalk, noticing a group of people talking to a ranger on the other side of the driveway. Then the ranger started shouting, “Sir! Sir, you need to move over here.” I just stopped and stared, confused for a minute. As it turned out, there was a bull bison between me and the building I had just left. He was just sitting there, probably chewing his cud, if bison’s do that, and not interested in me at all. But safety rules around wild animals being what they are, the ranger realized I needed to move away–soon. I duly moved across the drive and went on my way at a distance. By the time I walked back from the store, Mr. Bison had gotten up and started walking around, causing everyone around to back up and whip out their cameras and phones for a few quick photos. Of course, I joined them.
After that, we all managed to take life easy, meeting up for dinner in the Snow Lodge for our last evening in Yellowstone. The next day we would be off on the next and final leg of our vacation.
