Geysers

On Tuesday, June 4th, we slept in a little, then had breakfast again at the Mural Room.  Instead of the buffet, Mary Joy had an eggwhite-spinach frittata, which she liked very much (maybe the best meal of the whole trip, she later said).  I had oatmeal with strawberries and brown sugar.  We checked out a little after 10 a.m. and finally got on the road north.  Just north of the Lodge, they were resurfacing the road, and in some places it was down to one lane, with a flagman (or, more likely, flagwoman) stopping traffic with his (or her) red "STOP" sign until all the cars allowed through heading south were past.  Then he (or, more likely, she) would twirl the sign around so that it was now orange and said "SLOW," and wave us on through.

We got through this, eventually, and left Grand Teton National Park and the Teton range, transitioning immediately to the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Memorial Parkway.  This ended seven miles later, at the South Entrance to Yellowstone National Park.  We started going up, first along the Snake River, then along the deep, deep canyon of the Lewis River, walled with black volcanic rock.  We passed Lewis Falls and Lewis Lake and came up to and over the Continental Divide.  In the woods alongside the road, there were still occasional patches of snow.  The snow that melted just before the Divide would, theoretically, end up in the Pacific, by way of the Lewis,Snake and Columbia Rivers, while the water from snow along the way from the Divide to Yellowstone Lake would go through the lake to the Yellowstone River, then down to the Missouri, the Mississippi and the Gulf Of Mexico.

We arrived at West Thumb Junction (more about West Thumb and Yellowstone Lake in a later post), turned left and drove on, crossing the Continental Divide twice more, before we came down and caught sight of the multiple steam plumes from the Upper Geyser Basin, then arrived at Old Faithful Village.

On the way, our car had been sleeted on a little and rained on a little, but now, while the sky was overcast, it felt a little warmer here than it had the day before in Jackson Hole, the valley that contains Grand Teton National Park ("hole" being the term the early nineteenth-century beaver-hunting mountain men had used for a valley surrounded by mountains).  The crowds here were substantially larger than in Grand Teton.  We wondered what sort of madhouse it would be in full season, in July and August.  As it was, we had to park fairly far away from our destination, the visitor center.  When we got there, there was a sign saying that the next expected eruption of Old Faithful would be at 12:15, give or take ten minutes.  It was now 12:10, and we saw through the big picture windows that the crowds were congregating around Old Faithful, so we rushed out and joined them.

Old Faithful erupted for several minutes, then subsided.  Well.  Exciting?  Well, something different.  You don't see any geysers in Minnesota--half the world's geysers are in Yellowstone Park.  This is because Yellowstone is actually a huge volcano.  Its last major eruption, 640,000 years ago, was an explosion much more powerful than the Mount St. Helens eruption.  A similar eruption today would devastate much of the central United States.  Two previous, similar eruptions were 700,000 years apart, so the next one could happen any time now, give or take 60,000 years.

After listening to Ranger Leah give a short talk, interrupted by her scolding some children for dipping their hands in runoff water from Old Faithful, we decided to have lunch at the Old Faithful Inn.  

The Inn has a huge stone fireplace in the lobby, going up the tall central atrium, past four stories of dark, wood balconies.  According to Wikipedia, this is the largest log hotel in the world, perhaps the largest log building in the world.  It began the fashion for rustic lodges in the National Parks, where previous hotels (such as the Lake Yellowstone Hotel), had followed the more neoclassical style of resort hotels in the eastern U.S.  

The Inn's dining room is large and in the same style as the lobby.  Mary Joy followed the  host's suggestion and had the Cajun bison burger special.  I forget what I had, but it was much less adventuresome--Mary Joy is a lot less cautious about trying exotic foods than I am.  I did have a taste of her burger and liked it--it was like very good beef, no gamy taste.

After lunch we wandered around on Geyser Hill.  Nothing much was going on except that Anemone Geyser would erupt every eight or so minutes, not very high above the ground.  When it was done, the water would flow back into the hole with a gurgling sound.

We drove north to the Midway Geyser Basin.  From the parking lot you cross the Firehole River and go up a boardwalk to a natural terrace where hot water flows down from the Excelsior Geyser Crater into the river.  

The Excelsior is a large pool, covered with steam.  In the nineteenth century, it was the largest geyser in the world, with eruptions shooting up to 300 feet.  However, these eruptions apparently damaged the geyser's plumbing system, so now it is just a huge hot spring.  According to Wikipedia, it discharges 4,000 to 4,500 gallons of water per minute.  Further along the boardwalk is the Grand Prismatic Spring, the largest hot spring in the United States and third-largest in the world.  Photos from above show a very colorful pool, surrounded by yellow and orange bacterial mats.  From the edge of the spring, however, it is hard to see much of it, due to the haze of steam.  

Mary Joy heard some tourists speaking French, and addressed them in that language.  They were enjoying the park very much, and spoke good English, though when one woman asked us if we had "[something] beer," it took us a while to figure out that she was asking us if we had seen any bear.

We took a slight detour out Firehole Lake Drive,  stopping for such geothermal attractions as Firehole Spring and Surprise Pool, and driving around Firehole Lake, a small lake surrounded by spouting springs.  The most interesting thing we saw on this road was an eruption of White Dome Geyser.  

White Dome is a big, dirty-white lump, with a reddish streak down one side.  While we were there, it suddenly started giving off steam, shooting a plume up high into the sky.  We quickly backed away to watch for the few minutes that this lasted.

Firehole Lake Drive, which is one-way, from south to north, comes out at the entrance to the Lower Geyser Basin.  We went up to Fountain Paint Pot, a big, bubbling mudhole.

 There we overheard a guide point out bison turds inside the fence.  We had seen the same thing at the Grand Prismatic Spring.  He said that bison, in spite of weighing a full ton, had no trouble jumping the fences!  While we were there, we noticed a very high geyser eruption nearby, probably Fountain Geyser, but by the time we got over there, it was finished.

 I liked Red Spouter, a small, red mudhole that was constantly bubbling, rumbling and steaming.

 Back on the road, we saw our first bison herd, which backed up traffic as people stopped to take pictures.

 We stopped to see Gibbon Falls, but by now it was getting late in the afternoon and we were geysered out, so we didn't stop at the Norris Geyser Basin.  Somehow, we went past Roaring Mountain without noticing it, but we stopped at Obsidian Cliff, where we talked with some fellow Minnesotans.  We noticed cars stopped at Swan Lake Flat, so we got out and asked the people what they were seeing through their binoculars.  Bear.  However, I wasn't able to find anything with my own binoculars.  

We drove into Mammoth Hot Springs and stopped briefly at the visitor center, before going on to Gardiner, Montana.  Gardiner is only five miles from Mammoth Hot Springs, but is a thousand feet lower in altitude.  What that means is that the drive down is through the canyon of the Gardiner River, and not for the faint of heart.

But Mary Joy has driven Highway 1 in Marin County, and down Boulder Canyon from Nederland to Boulder, both at night, so, since there was still plenty of daylight, this was a piece of cake.

In Gardiner, after driving through the Roosevelt Arch and out of Yellowstone National Park, we found our way to our B&B, the Gardiner Guest House.  

We received a warm welcome from the owner, Nancy, a transplant from Maine.  There are three rooms in the house itself, but our "room" was a cabin down the hill in back.  The ground floor was a living area with sofa and kitchenette.  Upstairs was a comfortable bedroom with a bathroom and separate shower.  Nice.

For dinner, Nancy had suggested Cowboy's Grill, across the street.  Unlike Jackson, Gardiner is not known as a fine dining destination.  Cowboy's was what you would expect from the name, but what it had wasn't bad.  Mary Joy liked the stew.  I think I had  a barbecued pork sandwich (pretty good) along with Moose Drool (!), a good Montana brown ale.

Then back to the Guest House, where we had cookies (wonderful!) and tea and met a young couple from the east coast, who had just graduated from college and were seeing the country before she started work and he found a job.  Then around the corner and down the hill to our little cabin, and to bed.

So ended our day in Geyser Country.  Mary Joy was unimpressed, while I would have to say that having seen it once, I have no need to see it again.