So enthralled in our geyser walk that we took the wrong path placing us further from some of the geyser viewpoints. Turned out O.K. though since we stopped at Old Faithful Inn for an early potty break
and found the Inn to be inspiring. Tomorrow night we’ll be staying there. Continued on the path passing many geysers and pools.
Made our way to Grand Geyser (video at bottom) which is the largest predictable geyser in the world shooting 200’ in the air. It was scheduled for 11a but the window is 2 hours before or after that time. Decided this one was worth waiting for and we were right! Got in some people watching and this journal. Cute redheads Andrew Adam and Joseph Michael Nelson made me reminisce about my sons’ younger days at their age, 3 and 5. Loved listening to them singing their ABCs and doing rock, paper, scissors with their mother. Warmed my heart to listen to Joseph’s good language skills and his kind way with his little brother.
Arrived at Grand Geyser at 10:30a for the 11a eruption. While sitting and waiting, we discovered that Grand doesn’t go off unless Turban Geyser was going too. Turban starts and Grand shoots immediately after if at all. Turban erupts every 15-22 minutes. If Grand doesn’t start right away (because it’s irregular with its timing) with Turban, then you’re in for another 20-minute wait for the next Turban eruption. So we ready ourselves with each Turban eruption and then settle back to our journal or book to wait another 20. Finally at 12:55 Grand went off and boy did it ever! If you had put music in the background, it would have rivaled a Disney animated dancing waters show!
It wasn’t even in the spot we were watching. The big gurgling pool was actually Turban and NOT Grand. The calm, quiet pool in front of Turban was the REAL Grand in its hidden location. Once it finishes erupting, the entire pool is completely drained with just rocks remaining.
Pool before eruption.
Continued our Geyser Basin day to the end of the bike trail at Morning Glory Pool. Vandalism and the throwing of objects into the pool have lessened its past “glory”. People are encouraged to report or stop others from throwing anything into any geyser or pool.
Water temperature determines the color of the water.
Laws have been established with hefty $5K fines!
Saw moose tracks around some of the pools but no animal sightings except the human animal variety and there are plenty of those!
We sat at Riverside Geyser from 2:20 until it erupted at 3:50p with 75’ water plumes over the Firehole River.
Took our time hiking back and reached Old Faithful Lodge at 5:30p.
That’s 9 hours on the trails with 5.5 hours of that spent walking. Downloaded our photos and movies, gathered our computers and headed to the cafeteria for a turkey and dressing dinner and journaling to ready ourselves for our blog in the morning.
Hopefully the gang outside our window will stop their "party" by 10p so we can get some sleep...good...they did.
Hopefully we’ll stop at Snow Lodge tomorrow to use their WiFi and update our blog.
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