Day 11

 Yellowstone National Park

Weather: 50’s in the morning, warmed to low 80’s this afternoon, sunny and VERY windy

Our campsite here in Gardiner, MT in the morning. The sky is magnificent in the mornings.

A bull elk hanging out at the entrance area of the park.

Today we explored the geyser basins of Yellowstone. We started out by packing breakfast and lunch so that we could get an early start. Everyone was up early and so we were able to move quickly to get in the car and on the road-we had 51 miles to travel throughout the Yellowstone loop roads to get to Old Faithful-our goal for the day.

We started out at a couple of geyser areas on the way-first Norris Geyser Basin. We followed a trail around and saw several small geysers, as well as where Steamboat Geyser is; however it does not erupt except maybe a couple of times a year. We took lots of pictures, and also took pictures of the placards naming the geysers for fear that I would not remember one from the other by the time we were done with the day. This turned out to be a good idea. We stopped in the Madison Area and saw some more small geysers and pools of hot springs-the variety in color and shape of the geyser area was really neat. 

 Eric in front of one of the geysers in Norris Basin area.

 You know what those marks mean! Don't worry, we carry bear spray just in case!

 Some falls we stopped at along the way. Not sure what they were called, but they were impressive

By the time we got to the Old Faithful area, it was close to lunch. When we arrived, we caught the last 20 seconds or so of Old Faithful’s eruption, so we decided to hike around the basin to see all of the other things until the next scheduled eruption, about every 88 minutes. The entire basin area was full of thermals-with boardwalks taking you along between and beside different geysers and pools. Only a few were actually erupting when we were there-most erupt about once a day, and we were not there when it was predicted that they would blow. But we did enjoy walking the network of trails to see all of them. We did come upon one geyser called Sawmill Geyser that was in the middle of erupting-about 15-20 feet in the air, and it would do so in spurts. It was really windy today (as in 30 mph winds and gusts even stronger) and so the steam and spray was covering the boardwalk. We had to try to time it right to pass by the geyser without getting soaked when it sprayed! Leah was a little afraid of going by, so Dennis had to carry her past. I think she was afraid of getting scalded. I wasn’t sure exactly how it would be, since the steam from all of the springs and geysers was very warm. It ended up that the spray, by the time it hit the air, cooled enough to not be hot at all. 

The wind was so strong that at one point on the boardwalk, it suddenly swept Eric’s hat off his head and right into the thermal areas. He was totally bummed-he had just bought that nice hat at the Harley store in Sturgis. We just stood there, looking at it about 100 feet away. Suddenly, Dennis steps off the boardwalk and gingerly walked over to the hat to retrieve it. I grabbed the camera and took a picture-really hoping that he would be ok and not break through an area where the earth’s crust was deceptively thin, but ready to capture on camera whatever might happen just in case! Thankfully he was ok, he got Eric’s hat, and subsequently all hats went into the backpack to prevent such a thing from happening again. We saw many other hats that landed in much more unfortunate places throughout the day-even a ranger hat had flown off and into a pool!

 Dennis rescuing the hat-brave or dumb? Not sure, but all's well that ends well :)

Sawmill Geyser-this is the first geyser we saw that was more than a squirt. We were awed by this for awhile! 

As we were traversing the trails, we noticed a very tall geyser erupting a little ways off-it was erupting at least 100 feet in the air-we were taking lots of pictures, and walking over towards it. We found out that it was called Beehive Geyser, and it erupts very rarely. So we were very fortunate to have been there and seen it blow! That was super exciting, and by far the best geyser of the day!

Leah with Beehive Geyser in the background. We had time to take this and many other pictures as we walked right up to the geyser-it erupted for several minutes 

We continued on around and found a trail leading up a mountain about 250-feet climb to an observation point for Old Faithful. We hiked up almost to the top to witness it right on time. It was actually not as wonderful as we expected, but we suspected that was because we were so high up and far away. We continued all the way up the trail (both Bay and Leah tripped on a rock and fell at some point on the trail-no major injuries, just a little scrape and bruise) to the top where the wind was just whipping and blowing. We hung out at the top for awhile and enjoyed the views and took some time to rehydrate. Then we continued on another trail that took us to Solitary Geyser. Not anything spectacular, but the trail was lovely-it wound around the mountain, through tall lodgepole pine forests, and over to a small geyser. We saw several bear scratch marks on trees, but no other signs of bears. We heard from a park ranger that the bears usually do not come down in the fall until it gets too cold for them in the upper mountains.

 Waiting at the observation spot for Old Faithful to blow-that rock right next to Leah is the one that Bay fell off of as he was trying to get back on the trail

 Old Faithful from a distance

 At the very top of the mountain someone had built a little fort out of logs, so we hung out for awhile and just chilled

 This is my favorite shot of the trip so far-pure happiness!

 At the end of our little hike down the mountain to Solitary Geyser

 Heather and the boys in front of Solitary Geyser. Eric is giving Bay a piggyback, not because Bay is tired, but because Eric wants to work a little harder and get more exercise!

This was our favorite pool of the day. The white areas are very shallow, and the blue areas are where it goes way deep down into the earth. The water is a clear as can be. 

By the time we reached the bottom of the geyser basin area, it was time for Old Faithful to erupt again, so we parked ourselves right at the perimeter of the viewing area and got to see it from the ground level.  It was much more impressive being right next to it, and because we were downwind of it, we got a nice spray from the steam and water as the wind blew it our way.

 Old Faithful from the ground-

And of course our favorite tourist! Behind Eric on that mound is Old Faithful's cone-it just lightly steams for the hour and a half before it erupts. We spent about 5 hours at the Old Faithful Geyser basin area-it was hands down our favorite part of the trip so far!

We drove back to the town where we are camping and stopped in at a Western Saddle shop that Bay had wanted to check out. He has been looking for a genuine western belt with a cool buckle, and found one in this shop. Everything in there was authentic and  most of it was made in Montana. We stopped to pick up some burgers to go for dinner from a place that had good reviews-The Corral Drive-In-and got one each of a regular cheeseburger, a bison burger, and an elk burger-for us all to split and compare. They were all very good, but the bison burger was voted the best of them all! All of the meat was local, which was pretty cool.

We all had showers tonight to get the grit and dirt out of our hair from all of the wind today, and then played a few more games of mini golf. The kids had a great time, and I think even enjoyed writing in their geography journals, which is a change from normal!

Tomorrow we are heading down to the Grand Teton National Park. We have no camping reservations or definite plans except to show up in the area and find somewhere that looks nice. I do not know what our wifi availability will be for the next few days, but if I can connect, I will update the blog. If I can’t, it will get updated as soon as I can get to it! Please enjoy the pictures by clicking on the slideshow in the sidebar.