Adjusted Adventure in an Accord
Today’s adventure was all about geyser bathing.
We’ve done lots of forest bathing, glacier bathing, and mountain and hot springs bathing, but this geyser bathing was out of this world. Maybe because we felt the hot moisture mist from an eruption or smelled the sulfur coming from the recesses of the earth right to our noses. But I’ve got to hand it to John Muir, who said, “In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.” I couldn’t agree more. I think Linda and I felt this way all day long!
Our check-in-guy at our hotel near the Western Entrance gave us the suggestion, as I mentioned yesterday, that arriving at the park by 5 or 5:30 am would be the best way to beat the crowds.
We thanked him this afternoon once back to the hotel that he was definitely correct about that suggestion. We were bright eyed and bushy tailed to hit the road by 5:30 am. Thirty minutes later we had the first parking spot near Old Faithful for our first experience in geyser bathing, at 7:02 am, with very few people taking it in.
Before we found our way to Old Faithful, we saw many geysers showing off their spouts and eruptions - most around 199 degrees Fahrenheit with water and steam reaching toward the big blue sky hundreds of feet high.
Since Yellowstone has more than 10,000 hydrothermal features including more than 500 geysers in all shapes and sizes, we were blessed to see many showing off: Beehive; Beauty, Heart Spring; Castle; Basin, Spledid and Comet; Grotto and fan favorites when they blow; Fan, Moltan and Spiteful.
Old Faithful is just that, faithful. It erupts about every two hours or so without fail. But the granddaddy of them all, and the show winner for today, was Grand Geyser!
We had just walked up to it after hiking about 5 miles to the observation points and met Jenny and her geyser loving dad, Alan. He’s a retired elementary school teacher from Northern Califonria that is a geyser afectionado. For the last 40+ years, he and his family have had been going to Yellowstone to report on the geysers along with a whole host of others from around the country. Both Jenny and her dad were welcoming and instrumental in teaching Linda and I the spectacular points about geysers.
When I asked about the allure to come a great distance to check on the geysers, Alan shared that is was “fun.” Nothing in nature is predictable, and the same goes for most of the 10,000 in Yellowstone and a few others around the world.
Grand geyser erupted for 10 minutes straight (9:47 am to 9:57 am). The whole thing was like fireworks on the Fouth of July except with thundering water spouts and the power of all that hot water and steam that rose close to the few clouds in the sky. Unvelieveable! Fantasitc!
If you have seen what I am writing about, you know about all that power and “magic” of any geyser on Earth.
Not only are the geysers a key element of Yellowstone, so are the animals. If you have read along with me, we have an average of almost zero in sightings until today! Now, I can’t get too excited since we have not seen a grizzly or black bear, but we now have a few “exciting sightings.”
Today, we’ve seen: (3) chipmunks, (1) squirrel; (1) hawk (maybe an eagle but probably not); (1) herd of elk in both the am and pm; (1) deer that dashed across the road behind us; (1) bison alone, (1) bunny and then the bonanza of a whole herd of bison at sunset.
That’s all folks. We have one more day in the Park, and Linda is confident we will see a bear! Fingers crossed we do…from across a huge field or stream.
BSoleille!
Terri
All this WiFi could muster was one photo! I originally had 12! I’ll add when I can (in a couple of days).
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