Old Faithful Basin, Yellowstone National Park, WY, USA
Yellowstone National Park was our primary destination for our summer vacation. Grand Teton National Park, Glacier National Park - all of those were added onto the trip to the Yellowstone National Park. The out-of-this-world colors of the ponds, the erupting geysers - I wanted to see all of those with my own eyes!
Lion Geyser
So the first thing we did upon arriving to the park was to go to the Old Faithful Basin, where we could see the famous Old Faithful geyser that erupts on schedule. You see, geysers are usually quite unpredictable, erupting once a day, a week, or even once every couple of years! So it is very likely that on your short visit you are not going to see the geyser erupt. Extremely luckily for us, the Old Faithful erupts every 30 minutes to 1.5 hours - a time that I was very willing to spend waiting to see this wonder of the world!
Upon arriving to the basin, I went to the info center to find out what the schedule was like for the Old Faithful that day. "Oh, it's about to erupt any minute now", - nonchalantly replied the ranger. I ran back to the car, my arms flailing, in a state of huge agitation: "It's about to erupt, come, now!" We managed to arrive to the viewing point mere minutes before the eruption started: first, there was just narrow column of steam...
and then Old Faithful showed all of its glory:
The eruption only lasted 5-10 minutes, but I came away dazed from that experience. "What else can this place offer me that is going to beat that?!" - wondered I. Oh, I really shouldn't have...
Old Faithful has a number of boardwalks that take you close to the amazing features of the valley. Very soon, I was absolutely enthralled by the ponds of all colors that we were passing:
The color of the pond is actually the indicator of the water temperature in it. None of those are suitable for even touching. I really wonder what it was like for early settlers and Native Americans to see this place for the first time. To experience the still water being so hot...
There is a legend that such boiling ponds were used for cooking fish. But from what I read, it's just that - a legend. The ground would have been too unstable to support doing something like that on a regular basis...
I love having pretty pictures of me taken:
Photographer, unfortunately, is of the opinion that pictures need to be funny, not pretty :)
The further we walked along the boardwalk, the more incredible the colors became:
Somebody, please, pinch me: are we really still on Earth?
No amount of physics explanation is going to take away from the beauty of the Morning Glory :)
And then, in addition to the colorful ponds, there were geysers:
Our favorite one was the Castle Geyser. It erupted for almost an hour and the peculiar shape of its base was an absolute delight to look at:
Grotto Geyser is another example of the geyser with an unusual base: geologists believe that hundreds of thousands of years ago Grotto Geyser started erupting near the bunk of a tree and over time deposited layers of silica over the stumps and branches.
The water system underground is all interconnected: when one of the bigger geysers starts erupting - it's very likely there is going to be another small one erupting nearby. Actually, usually the smaller ones are indicators that the bigger ones are about to erupt!
Our final ambition for the day was to see the Grand Geyser - the world's tallest predictable geyser. During eruption, it can reach heights of 180 feet (60 meters) or more! By the time we arrived to it, it was already an hour late. We sat there for another hour and a half, but of course, it just had to erupt as soon as we decided to scout a little... Those people standing right next to it looking up should have been us :(
By the time we came back, there was only steam coming out...
It's funny how in the course of a couple of hours my ambitions have changed from seeing a geyser erupt to seeing the tallest predictable geyser erupt and being disappointed that I did not stand right next to it when it did! Talk about the insatiable human nature :-)
Lion Geyser
So the first thing we did upon arriving to the park was to go to the Old Faithful Basin, where we could see the famous Old Faithful geyser that erupts on schedule. You see, geysers are usually quite unpredictable, erupting once a day, a week, or even once every couple of years! So it is very likely that on your short visit you are not going to see the geyser erupt. Extremely luckily for us, the Old Faithful erupts every 30 minutes to 1.5 hours - a time that I was very willing to spend waiting to see this wonder of the world!
Upon arriving to the basin, I went to the info center to find out what the schedule was like for the Old Faithful that day. "Oh, it's about to erupt any minute now", - nonchalantly replied the ranger. I ran back to the car, my arms flailing, in a state of huge agitation: "It's about to erupt, come, now!" We managed to arrive to the viewing point mere minutes before the eruption started: first, there was just narrow column of steam...
and then Old Faithful showed all of its glory:
The eruption only lasted 5-10 minutes, but I came away dazed from that experience. "What else can this place offer me that is going to beat that?!" - wondered I. Oh, I really shouldn't have...
Old Faithful has a number of boardwalks that take you close to the amazing features of the valley. Very soon, I was absolutely enthralled by the ponds of all colors that we were passing:
The color of the pond is actually the indicator of the water temperature in it. None of those are suitable for even touching. I really wonder what it was like for early settlers and Native Americans to see this place for the first time. To experience the still water being so hot...
There is a legend that such boiling ponds were used for cooking fish. But from what I read, it's just that - a legend. The ground would have been too unstable to support doing something like that on a regular basis...
I love having pretty pictures of me taken:
Photographer, unfortunately, is of the opinion that pictures need to be funny, not pretty :)
The further we walked along the boardwalk, the more incredible the colors became:
Somebody, please, pinch me: are we really still on Earth?
No amount of physics explanation is going to take away from the beauty of the Morning Glory :)
And then, in addition to the colorful ponds, there were geysers:
Our favorite one was the Castle Geyser. It erupted for almost an hour and the peculiar shape of its base was an absolute delight to look at:
Grotto Geyser is another example of the geyser with an unusual base: geologists believe that hundreds of thousands of years ago Grotto Geyser started erupting near the bunk of a tree and over time deposited layers of silica over the stumps and branches.
The water system underground is all interconnected: when one of the bigger geysers starts erupting - it's very likely there is going to be another small one erupting nearby. Actually, usually the smaller ones are indicators that the bigger ones are about to erupt!
Our final ambition for the day was to see the Grand Geyser - the world's tallest predictable geyser. During eruption, it can reach heights of 180 feet (60 meters) or more! By the time we arrived to it, it was already an hour late. We sat there for another hour and a half, but of course, it just had to erupt as soon as we decided to scout a little... Those people standing right next to it looking up should have been us :(
By the time we came back, there was only steam coming out...
It's funny how in the course of a couple of hours my ambitions have changed from seeing a geyser erupt to seeing the tallest predictable geyser erupt and being disappointed that I did not stand right next to it when it did! Talk about the insatiable human nature :-)