Going West with Ann and Fern: Yellowstone National Park

Old Faithful

We arrived at West Yellowstone, Saturday, September 10, 2011 and spent the night there before heading into the Park for three nights at our cabin in Lake village.

Sunday we traveled the Northern Loop of the Park. The Highway is configured in a numeral eight. The scenery was overwhelming as the smell of sulfur filled the air. The formations included rushing waterfalls, burbling mud pots, spouting geysers, steaming fumaroles, boiling hot springs and pools.

Our second morning we headed to the Old Faithful area and happened upon this famous geyser just as the crowd was forming to witness its next presentation. The Park Rangers only predict the timing of several geysers in this area and Old Faithful is the most reliable. We walked on boardwalks throughout the Old Faithful geyser basin long enough to witness two events at Old Faithful and numerous other sights at the surrounding geysers.

Then we headed to the Fountain Paint Pot area a hydrothermal area featuring geysers, hot springs, mud pots and fumaroles. It was in this area scientists discovered “thermas aquaticus”, the thermophile organism that revolutionized DNA processes.

The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone was spectacular with rock formations and waterfalls that must be photographed millions of times each day. We did our best to help keep that number high. While we were there with throngs of tourists including three bus tours, a thunderstorm rumbled in and suddenly hail was bouncing off our heads.

Our final day in Yellowstone we drove through the Eastern entrance and on to Cody, Wyoming where the Buffalo Bill Historical Center is located. The Center contains five separate museums that include Western Art, The life of Buffalo Bill Cody, the Plains Indians, and a Natural History Museum. The facility is stunning as well as informative and is not to be missed if you ever travel to this area.

From our Lodge we could see across Yellowstone Lake a small forest fire probably started by lightning in progress. The National Park Service monitors the fire but does not attempt to put them out unless buildings and people are endangered. They established this policy after the 1989 fires when they realized the fires help the forests regenerate. The main tree in this area is the Lodge Pole Pine that has two types of cones. One only releases it seeds when it reaches temperatures of 115 degrees.

Yellowstone is a magical national treasure; an area so alive that is hard not to believe that all could change there in an instant with an earthquake or active volcano.