“Look deep into nature and
then you will
understand everything better”
Albert Einstein
I probably should have waited
to see how the second day in Yellowstone went before promising an equally
exciting part 2. Unfortunately mother
nature thwarted any attempts at hiking or exploring the park beyond its main
tourist attractions. Fortunately these
attractions are pretty spectacular even if they require no work to see.
The rain continued the night
before until 11, the car was warm but not a good place to sleep as I learned
from my stay in Sequoia. At night the temperature drops to the 30s. Thanks to my sleeping bag I stayed warm but
the morning was tough. With less than an
hour of sunlight it was still cold and my camp shower routine, which involves
dumping water from my Nalgene bottle onto my head and face, was better than
anything a cup of coffee could to do wake me up. Our plan for the day was to start early and
beat the crowds to Old Faithful.
Old Faithful is arguably the
most recognizable national park attraction and because of that gets an average
of 30,000 visitors a day. It reliably
spews up to 8,400 gallons of water per eruption over a 1 minute period,
reaching heights up to 180 feet. My
Secrets of the National Park Guidebook suggested getting there before
10:00. Our campground was an hour north,
and to give us enough time we had to wake up and leave by 8. Miraculously we stuck to our plan, eating yogurt and bananas
on the car ride down. On the way we
stopped at the Lower Basin, a collection of pools and geysers. We lucked out and happened upon that had just
started to go off, spewing steam a good 20 feet into the air. This was cool, but I found the bubbling pools
of perfectly clear water with red yellow and green colored floors due to
bacteria. As we were heading out the
first bus appeared, unloading a mob of Chinese tourists.
I have not talked much about
this yet, but the National Parks seem to be more frequented by foreigners than
by US citizens. The sites are world
famous and bring people from the far reaches to see them. It’s a privilege to have these in our
backyard, only a 3000 mile drive away, no passport needed. Anyway, back to the main attraction. We left the lower basin and made our way to
Old Faithful. Old Faithful is not the
biggest geyser in the park but as its name suggests it reliably goes off every
90 minutes plus or minus 10 minutes. I
did not pay enough attention to the Visitor Center movie to tell you many facts
about it, and without any reliable Internet, Wikipedia is out. We got to the Old Faithful with 20 minutes to
spare and stood amongst the 100s of visitors lined up around it. A storm in the distance provided an awesome backdrop
contrasting the white steam with a black sky with occasional streaks of
lightning. Fortunately the storm kept
its distance and blue skies opened up just in time to see it go off. I was worried this might be another Carlsbad bat
fly type of event, but it was worth the wait. After watching it go off we did a short 3 mile loop hike around the area to see more multicolored pools and geysers.
After doing our American duty
and seeing Old Faithful we headed east towards Yellowstone Lake. No lake can match Crater Lake’s beauty, so to
me this was just another lake. We
stopped at one of the overlooks and had the road trip special, PB&Js and
Doritos (not a sponsor). After lunch we
planned to do the hike to the peak of Mt Washburn, one of the most prominent
peaks in the park. This time we checked
the weather report prior to planning our hike, and it gave us exactly 3 hours
to hike this before the next storm would hit.
Well, on the drive up, our good friend Mr. Bison and company decided to
show off for all the visitors and create a stand still in the road. Most of the time when animals are sited,
people drive by slowly, that is only if the animals stay off the roads. With over a hundred bison grazing in the
meadows on either side it was inevitable some would cross the road and hang
out.
The delay was long enough for
the rain to come and with thunder in the distance and the majority of the
Washburn hike in the open we called it quits for the day. We put
up with another storm, but as a peace offering we got a nice rainbow over the
campsite and a clear night with all the stars on display. Though we did not get as much out of
Yellowstone, we were able to see a little bit of everything. I’ve been to 13 parks this trip and 4 others
prior to this trip and I must say there are few parks that you could spend an
entire week and see something different every day. The park, sitting 100 miles above a giant hot
pocket in the earth’s mantle, provides the stage for some pretty amazing sites. It’s too bad that one day it’ll all be
destroyed in an instant by a single volcanic eruption. We didn't plan to wait around for that and headed south to Grand Teton National Park.
 |
| What does it all mean? |
Stats:
Miles Driven: 6717
States: PA, MD, WV, VA, TN,
NC, AL, MS, LA, TX, NM, AZ, UT, NV, CA, OR, ID, MT, WY
National Parks: 13
Miles Hiked: 55
Animals Sited: Bison (107), Elk
(7), Moose (1) Coyote (1)
Number of Tourists seen: too many
PS. Yellowstone really likes to send home the message about its dangerous side, here's another warning, this time about geysers.
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