After the waterfall and canyon views of yesterday, today was very different. We spent the entire day visiting the Geysers and other geothermal activity in Yellowstone. One docent told us the geothermal activity at Yellowstone alone is larger than the sum of all the geothermal activity in all the other places in the world, by a good margin.
We saw our first geysers of the day up close at West Thumb Geyser Basin. We particularly wanted to see the Fishing Cone Geyser. Apparently there used to be an activity at Yellowstone called “Hook and Cook”. Visitors would catch fish from the Lake and then cook them in a geyser that was right there on the shoreline. There was an old picture of someone in a cook’s hat and apron standing on the edge of a geyser with a fishing pole, so he could dip the fish in the geyser immediately after he caught it. The water in the deepest point of a geyser pool can exceed 199 degrees Fahrenheit! Sandy loves the blue of the pools at the geysers – this is where the water is the hottest. At this same location, we saw a bunch of geese in and around one of the pools. One of them was even drinking from it. Many animals frequent the geyser areas in the winter. We saw lots of animal prints in the very soft ground around many of the geysers. Also, the lake freezes over in the winter, but because there are hot springs in the lake, there are holes in the ice. In the winter, otters jump in and out of the holes, catching fish from hole to hole.
On our way to Old Faithful, the most well-known geyser of the park, we stopped at the beautiful Kepler Cascades. It was so pretty – we were very glad we stopped. Old Faithful was scheduled to erupt shortly after we got there, so we sat and waited for it. Grant took more than 50 pictures of it! Then, we toured the other geysers around Old Faithful. We got to several of them within minutes of their only eruption of the day. A couple of them regularly reach heights taller than Old Faithful’s 106 – 184 feet. However, Old Faithful is still the most predictable and frequent of the big geysers in Yellowstone. We got to Grand Geyser just as it was starting to erupt. It erupted steadily for more than 12 minutes and can sometimes reach 200 feet. There seemed to be almost one large and 2 little geysers erupting as part of Grand. After Grand, we raced to Daisy because it was predicted to erupt in the next half hour. It erupted right on time. The Grotto Geyser, which only averages a height of 15 feet, was probably our favorite for shape. It was interesting even when it was not erupting. When it erupts, the eruption lasts for 1 ½ to 15 hours!!! While Janine was still taking pictures at Grotto, everyone else noticed that the little Sawmill Geyser was erupting. When she got there, she probably took 20 pictures, trying to catch the eruption on film – the geyser had decided to be camera-shy! On our way back, we noticed two tall geysers erupting at the same time, Old Faithful and Beehive Geyser, which erupts only once or twice daily to about 150 to 200 feet. It looked like Beehive was taller than Old Faithful.
Next we went to Old Faithful Inn. This is one of Sandy’s favorite Inns. We watched Old Faithful erupt while sitting on the upper deck. Then, we were just in time to take a tour of the Inn. Most of the early visitors to the park were very wealthy people. They paid about $40 for a 5 day all inclusive tour of the park. This was at a time when $2.50 was an average day’s wage. They would travel by train to the northern, most accessible entrance of the park, then ride a stage all around the park. When they would get to the Old Faithful area, they could only stay there about half a day because there was no lodging available in the area. They complained about that, so the railroad (who arranged the tours) arranged to have an Inn built in the area. The architect designed the Inn to look as much as possible like it grew there. Much of the exposed wood inside and out was lodgepole pine cut about 5 miles from where the Inn was built. There is even what looks like a treehouse way up in the top – they call it the crow’s nest. We all loved the use of tree limbs in their natural form all over the inside and outside of the inn. The architect came back in later years, even, and designed 2 additions to expand the lodging capabilities of the inn. You can stay in one of the original 90 room, for about $96 per night. The price is that low because the rooms do not have bathrooms in them.
When we left the Old Faithful area, it was very late, so we raced to see a couple more geyser areas before it got dark and also found another beautiful waterfall in the park. Today was again a very long day, but we pushed to see everything we could because it was our last day in Yellowstone.
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