Wednesday, May 31, 2003
My brother Richie and I flew to Salt Lake City on Monday, May 29. We stayed locally that night, then drove to Jackson, Wyoming the next day. We stayed that Tuesday night at Signal Mountain Lodge in Grand Teton National Park. We arrived in Yellowstone Wednesday morning, making our first stop at Old Faithful around 9:30 AM. Old Faithful is one of the many areas in the park.
There are many amazing natural features to see at Yellowstone National Park. For some size perspective, here is some data from the NPS website. Yellowstone has 3,472 square miles. North to South, it is 63 miles long, while East to West it is 54 miles wide. It is the second largest national park in the lower 48 states. Can you guess which park in the lower 48 is larger?
Yellowstone is a geological wonder. Details about the geology can be found on the NPS website. There are tall mountains and wide valleys. Many rivers cross the park. There are a number of waterfalls. And due to geothermal activity below the surface, there are a variety of geysers, steam vents, and hot pools and springs throughout the park.
We witnessed Old Faithful going off in all its glory close to 11AM. This was about 20 minutes later than the predicted time, which is not unusual. It is quite a spectacle, as there was quite a crowd there to take in the experience, probably hundreds of park visitors were present. After that, we did a long walk (3.5 miles) that took us through a very active geothermal area, the Upper Geyser Basin. The park map lists about 15 main geothermal features in this area, but there were many more that that. Some of these entities contain bacteria and/or minerals that give them amazing colors, such as Morning Glory pool.
The largest and most spectacular of the pools is Grand Prismatic Spring. It is located just up the road a short drive from Old Faithful. We did another walk there, then we went stopped at Gibbons Falls and Artist’s Paintpot, before our last hiking stop that day at Norris Geyser Basin. Overall for the day, we walked about 16 miles, according to my Garmin watch.
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