Yellowstone National Park - Part 1: Geysers

June 12, 2021

We spent three very full days in Yellowstone. Our first day was devoted to four of the Geyser Basins. West Thumb, Upper, Midway, and Lower geyser basins. Each geyser, paint pot, and spring is unique and otherworldly. Here are some examples.

West Thumb Geyser Basin

Upper Geyser Basin

 Old Faithful

Old Faithful is the one geyser that erupts on a fairly predictable timeframe throughout a day. We arrived at 10:20 AM and found a seat on one of the benches surrounding the geyser. It was predicted to erupt at about 10:57 give or take ten minutes. It's a waiting game. 

We waited along with about 1,000 of our closest friends.

This is how Old Faithful looks when it's not erupting.

We had occasional false starts that looked like this, but at 11:13 this was the real thing.

This was at its peak.

After about two minutes, the steam subsided and it was over until the next eruption in about 90 minutes.

Black Sand Basin and Biscuit Basin

Lower Geyser Basin

Firehole Lake Drive

Fountain Paint Pots

Red Spouter

Midway Geyser Basin

Grand Prismatic Spring

I saved the best for last. It's best to view this iconic spring from the overlook at the Fairy Falls trailhead to get a spectacular birds-eye view. 

When we came down from the overlook it was interesting to see the colorful steam rising from the spring.

Check back for Part II of Yellowstone in the next post. The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River and more.