Yellowstone: Days Three and Four

Yellowstone is a huge, ancient and active supervolcano where magma isn't that far from the surface. There are cracks and crevices throughout the rock strata that allow water to seep down towards that magma, become superheated, and then come back to the surface. Sometimes they erupt with force, sometimes they just bubble, and sometimes it's just steam that comes up.

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These hotspots are everywhere in the park, even under Lake Yellowstone. There are more of them in Yellowstone than any other place in the world. Day Three of our visit in the park was mostly spent exploring these wonders.

We took a six-hour, small bus tour called Circle of Fire, which hit many of those hotspots, including the most famous of them, the Old Faithful geyser. We were able to see the falls of the river again, lots more bison, and the small part of the actual caldera wall which still exists above ground.

The falls of the Gibbon River cut through the caldera rim.

The amphiteater where park rangers used to hold Ranger Talks at the Madison Visitor Center. That stopped during the Covid pandemic and they have not restarted them. The forest is reclaiming the land.

We also walked around the Old Faithful Lodge, which is essentially one big log cabin. A fire came close to the lodge in 1988. If it had not been stopped, the place would have gone up in a flash. It remains a wonderful example of National Park construction style that one can see in parks all over the country.

Inside the Old Faithful Lodge.

The lodgepole pines used to create the roof of the Lodge came from the forests in the park.

The Old Faithful geyser itself is in a basin with several other geysers, some of which erupt on a regular schedule and some which do not. There are rows of benches in a semi-circle around Old Faithful. We took a seat on one and along with hundreds of others waited for the eruption.

And erupt it did, right on time.

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The full eruption of the Old Faithful geyser.

After the eruption, we headed back to the Grant Village area, where our tour had started. We had dinner in the Grant Village Dining Room overlooking the West Thumb of Lake Yellowstone. It was a pretty good meal with a gorgeous view but we were a bit surprised that the menu was kind of ordinary.

It was an hour and a half drive back to Canyon Village, so we didn't linger. But we did manage to see two majestic bull elk on either side of the road on the way.

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Velvet still on the elk's antlers.

The next day we didn't have any tours scheduled in the morning. We made our way to the Norris Geyser Basin, which has dozens of smaller geysers, fumaroles, mud pots and hot springs. It is a really fascinating place with boardwalks that take you out in the basin.

Different algae thrive in the hot springs, the color varies according the the water temperature.

The Norris Basin.

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Several small geysers next to each other in the Norris Basin.

We then drove north to Mammoth Hot Springs, which are also a sight to behold. The boardwalk from the top of the springs takes one down about 100 steps to view several active areas of this very large natural wonder. Like the Norris Basin, it lies outside the caldera.

The water in Mammoth comes from Norris, traveling along an ancient fault line and picking up calcium carbonate from the limestone it goes through. Mammoth has been active for thousands of years, building up the largest travertine formation in the world. It truly a natural wonder of the world.

Mammoth Hot Springs from the bottom. It rises more than 200 feet.

There is a large village built around the Mammoth Hot Springs Lodge which includes the site of Fort Yellowstone. The next time we come back to the park, we will stay for a day or two in each area of the park, moving around to the areas we really want to explore more deeply.

We went back to Canyon and caught our last tour of our Yellowstone trip, the Evening Wildlife Excursion. We headed north and then turned on the Northeast entrance road. Our goal was the Lamar Valley, where a large herd of bison resides along with elk and bear.

However, we never made it. A bison-jam before we got to Lamar Valley stopped vehicles entirely. We waited in the traffic for about 15 minutes, but as the light was beginning to fade we had to turn around. We did see bison elsewhere on this tour and a very cool osprey nest with two fledglings in it. We also saw pronghorn antelope, which are the fastest land animals in North America.

Pronghorn antelope.

A female elk with her calf.

Bison calves resting with the herd.

Tower Falls.

We made it back to Canyon and packed our stuff up to be ready to head out to the Grand Tetons the next day. Yellowstone is amazing, and we will most definitely be back! Highly recommend!