It’s been a long stretch without wifi! We entered Yellowstone several days after leaving Dubois. Due to backcountry permit logistics, we spent a lovely afternoon relaxing on the shore of Shoshone Lake.
The following day, we headed toward Old Faithful Village. Walking through Geyser Basin felt like we’d stumbled suddenly into an otherworldly landscape. The ground steamed with a boiled-egg scent, and from all around us rose the hisses and bubbling gurgles of hot water. The water itself formed pools of deep sapphire, the edges a rust orange color streaking out onto chalky white ground.
As we headed into Old Faithful Village, I turned off my phone. “I’m not going to try to get any pictures of Old Faithful,” I told Britta.
“Really?” she asked, surprise tinging her voice.
“We’ll probably just see it once, and I want to enjoy it. Not see it through the screen of my phone.”
Britta nodded in understanding. We reached Old Faithful just in time to catch it. The geyser rumbled a few times in the minutes before, sending small splashes of water up and eliciting a collective and premature “Here it comes!” from the gathered crowd. When it finally blew, the water shot perhaps a hundred feet into the air. It was cool, but a bit underwhelming. Maybe it was the crowds, or the hype, or the distance making it seem smaller, or a hundred other factors, but I found the other geysers and springs much more fascinating than Old Faithful. We walked past a bunch more on the way out, and the Great and Grotto Geysers were my favorite. Side by side, they formed what looked a bit like an out-of-control fountain, constantly overwashing its confines in great splashes of wild, steaming water.
Britta sighed with great sadness as we headed out of the park. “We didn’t even get to see a Grizzly!”
“Maybe in Glacier National Park,” I replied. While Britta has her heart set on seeing a Grizzly bear on the trail, I’ll be content if that particular hope never materializes. If it does, it had better keep its distance!
Leaving Yellowstone marked the end of Wyoming for us. We’re now hopping back and forth across the Idaho-Montana border for awhile before we’ll head deep into Montana. We’re currently enjoying a day in Lima, MT, and I’ll try to get a second blog post up before we head back to the trail!
Sounds like you are really seeing some wonderful sights. Thanks for sharing!
We definitely are! The trail has some amazingly beautiful spots.
Okay, so maybe Old Faithful waz not that impressive just shooting water about 100 feet in the air, but Petra and I spent part of our honey moon in Yellowstone Park in 1975 and it was faithfully going off every hour when we were there 42 years ago! That means it has gone off 8,760 times on the hour each year for a total of about 367,920 times just so that Nikita and Britta coud see it when they arrived there this summer in 2017. So it might not look all that impressive but that’s pretty “faithful” if yu ask me. 🙂
Ha ha, glad you saw it. Have a great trip thru Montana and if you see a Grizzly, I hope it is far away, cuz they can be pretty IMPRESSIVE
You know, when you put it that way, Old Faithful does sound a bit more impressive! That is a LOT of times it’s gone off over the years.
I hope any Grizzly sightings will be from a distance as well. I’d rather celebrate finishing our hike by eating a delicious dinner, and not by becoming a dinner.
This whole adventure sounds amazing. I love the shots of the steaming ground. It’s other-worldly.
It certainly felt like we were on a different planet. Definitely a highlight of the hike for me.
“We’ll probably just see it once, and I want to enjoy it. Not see it through the screen of my phone.” This is the exact reason I don’t have many photos and videos haha. All the best to you both!
I love photos for the memories they capture, but occasionally it’s just nicer to not bother. And thanks! We’re getting closer to Canada and finishing, which is quite exciting.