Yellowstone National Park, WY (Part 1 of 3)

How many geysers are too many geysers?

Since we were in Livingston, Montana, the drive to Yellowstone National Park was not an long one: mostly a winding road through a broad valley full of farms and ranches with cattle who seemed to be enjoying clear air, good fields, great mountain views.

Soon enough, we were passing through businesses whose names were a variation on a theme: Yellowstone RV Park, Yellowstone Water Sports, Yellowstone Research Center. Then, we saw the sign for the Yellowstone National Park.

As if on cue, as soon as we showed our I.D. and annual pass, and were pulling into the park’s boundaries, a pair of pronghorns appeared out of nowhere, running at top speed, a male pursuing a female. After a few minutes, the male seemed to give up, breathing heavily and trying to get his second wind. N. was tsk-tsk-ing the level of effort on his part.

We drove through the first part of the road — steep and winding — to eventually reach what looked like an absolutely massive high-altitude valley. Although we could see smoke and platforms and hordes of people along the Mammoth Hot Springs area, we drove through — we had a campground to get to.

We drove on, through rocky outcroppings and valleys dotted with lakes. The landscape began to look new to our eyes when we started to see active geyser lakes letting off steam, dry cream-colored spots on the ground, devoid of any brush or trees, creeks full of what looked like moss and algae. We stopped by Roaring Mountain, looking like an active chimney on the side of a mountain.

Soon, the scenery changed again. We were now in the Hayden Valley, a wide open expanse within the boundaries of the caldera of the latest explosion of the Yellowstone volcano, approximately 600,000 years ago. Here was where we got stuck in our first Yellowstone traffic jam: cars and vans and RV’s parked on either side of the road, with people crossing from one side to the other, with moving cars forced to slow down both for safety and curiosity. What was here that was attracting all these people?

As we drove slowly to avoid hitting cars and people, we saw them — bison. Waaaay out in the plains, a large enough herd, each one looking like a raisin in the distance. People were stopped, pointing in the direction of the bison, many with telescopes and cameras with lenses the size of a small elephant’s trunk. Despite the novelty and the desire to take a peek, there was no place to park; we would be here for 10 days, so there was plenty of time. We drove on.

That’s when the gods rewarded our practicality and common sense: just another mile down the road led to a pull-out stop and another herd of bison, this one closer to us. There was only one other car here, so we got to stop, walk up a small ridge, and see these magnificent animals. Some looked busy with lunch, others looked to be taking their siesta; quite a few had thick tufts of fur stuck to their hide in random patches; a few calves could be seen hanging close to their mothers.

When we reached Yellowstone Lake, we stopped for a quick lunch and some pictures.

To N.’s eternal vexation, our campground by Grant Village was thick with mosquitoes when we arrived late afternoon. We tried to set up quickly, but before we brought down the netting around the doors, many had taken residence inside the van. N. would not rest until he smashed each and every one. He claimed that they looked “mean,” which made no sense to me.

I ended up taking a nap after the drive, but N. could not: he said that as soon as he lay down and closed his eyes, he got bitten on his hands, his face, and his feet — through his socks. No rest for the poor Mosquito Meal.

***

We made a beeline for the most famous attraction at Yellowstone National Park, traffic be damned: Old Faithful. We had been warned by the ranger at the visitor’s center that there would be construction traffic and bison-traffic and traffic-traffic, so we were bracing ourselves to get some reminders of rush-hour traffic from our working days. Hope for the best; expect the worst. Today, in our quest for a precious parking spot — the holy grail at Yellowstone, we would find in the days ahead — our hopes were fulfilled.

First we hiked the short trail to the viewpoint in the mountainside. A small crowd had gathered to get a zoomed-out view of the famous geyser; people exchanged friendly banter about a Denver baseball game loss 25-1, about the grossness of caterpillars, and the weapons-grade mosquitoes in YNP.

After a few false starts — short bursts of steam and water — Old Faithful performed exactly on schedule (1:30 pm as helpfully predicted by the park service): huge sprays of water into the sky, white clouds of steam evaporating as they rose. I wondered about the energy and heat under our feet that would cause such an outburst at such regular intervals. I was reminded not only that Yellowstone NP was sitting on top of a caldera but also that Yellowstone was a volcano with a Volcano Explosivity Index of 8 (highest level). No one knew when it might erupt again, but it certainly demonstrated the power to do so again.

***

We walked through the Upper Geyser Basin, looking at more geysers, hot springs, thermal pools than we had ever seen before in our lives — quite appropriate, I suppose, since Yellowstone had more than half of the geysers in the world. Quite a few seemed to magically awaken when we walked by, gurgling and hissing in energetic bursts of water and steam.

Late in the afternoon, we gathered with the hordes by the visitor’s center to watch Old Faithful go off one more time. It seemed like an appropriate cap to our day. We were geysered out.

***

Signs along the road near Old Faithful indicated that some trailheads would be closed to the public beginning on July 5. Using our deductive skills, we understood that message to be: road repair and construction would begin July 5, meaning that certain sections would be down to one-way, single-lane traffic, meaning that we would be sitting ducks for, well, sitting in traffic for perhaps hours at a time, at the whim of the construction crews. Our humble plan today was the stop by most, if not all, attractions in the area, so that we wouldn’t have to return after July 5.

Ready… Set… Go!

Going through the Grand Loop Road, cars, vans and RV’s made for a friendly caravan; some pulled off at the pullouts for the Continental Divide at Craig Pass or for the Kepler Cascades, but most were focused on THE attraction of the park: Old Faithful. As for us, we forged on — been there, done that — past the upper Geyser Basin, Black Sand Basin, Biscuit Basin.

As we got closer to the Midway Geyser Basin, vehicles slowed down as a very large — and very full — parking lot. From the road, there were no clear signs to indicate what the attraction was; N. and I drove on, but a tickling feeling in a corner of my brain led me to direct him to pull over at a pullout spot. I asked a fellow traveler what people were stopping to see in the area, and she pointed, “Well, that’s the Grand Prismatic Spring…” Well, she had me at “Grand”.

We turned around, pulled into the lot, and with just a bit of patience we were able to pull into a spot. For one of the biggest attractions of Yellowstone, we couldn’t figure out why we’d heard so much grumbling about parking woes. Firmly resigned to crowds, given the summer season, we joined the marauding hikers to the viewpoint.

On the way was a small, unnamed, icy blue spring, in the shape of — if incepted with the idea, you would agree — a heart. A group of four adults ahead of us noticed it first; one in the group proceeded to pick up rocks from the ground and thrown them into the spring.

There were signs in most trailheads: it was illegal to throw rocks, coins, branches or any other objects into these springs. Such objects clogged the spring’s underground passages and disturbed the delicate balance achieved by water, temperature, and microorganisms that led to the beautiful colors in such springs.

It was not my place to educate this individual. Still, it was not easy to bite my tongue and keep quiet while the ignoramus threw rock after rock into the pool. A generous and forgiving take of the situation would lead to the interpretation that he was a good person who, ignorant of facts, did not mean any harm; a less generous and forgiving interpretation had infinite and unpleasant variations. In our travels, we have been witness to plenty of examples of questionable behavior, and each time it happened, it made me lose a bit of hope in humanity.

***

The “Grand Prismatic Spring” was an awesome name that did not begin to capture the almost unbelievable qualities of this geological feature: it was the largest such hot spring in Yellowstone, with a deep turquoise color at its center and a lighter and greener ring around the edges; beyond the green — perhaps in the comparatively cooler “exurbs” were deep orange rings, signs of the thermophiles, micro-organisms that thrived in the warm waters. (If there was one word that was hammered in the educational plaques of YNP again and again was “thermophiles”.) And above the water, the gentle clouds of steam rose and picked up — reflected — the colors of the lake itself, and the steam then echoed the blue, green and orange colors. It was, literally and figuratively, breathtaking.

From high above, we could also see a boardwalk around the edges of the spring; huge crowds of people meandered through. We found, though, that there was no connection between the viewpoint and the boardwalk. So we hopped into our van and drove on.

Just a few miles beyond our stop, we saw the traffic jam of all traffic jams — and a sign that announced, “Grand Prismatic Spring”; this was the lot for the boardwalk. For a few minutes, the main road looked like a parking lot, with cars unable to move. On either side of the road were cars parked deep into the shoulders, some looking as if they would need some help getting over a four-to-five inch tall lip. As we inched closer to the entrance of the parking lot, a harried-looking National Parks Service worker was getting his upper body workout of the day: he kept motioning for vehicles to move on since no parking was available. Here was the notorious parking crunch for the Prismatic Spring. We obeyed his frantic waves and drove on.

***

Our plan was now to drive to the farthest point for the day and then drive back while stopping at the notable attractions.

Gibbons Falls was notable for the grueling work required to build the road around the mountain and the geological point in which the falls, well, fell, at the lip of the Yellowstone Caldera. We spoke to a friendly and knowledgeable ranger who shared the following facts:

(1) bison have no nerve endings on their hooves, so they often hang out around the hot springs, especially in winter, since the warmer temps give them access to green food…

(2) … but because bison hang around hot springs (we’d seen plenty of bison poop around the geysers and hot springs), they sometimes fall in: scientists have found the skeleton of a bison calf in the deeper layers around them.

(3) bison drink from some water sources that come from these acidic hot springs, and scientists have found that bison close to these springs have worn-down teeth — likely from the acidic water — and that they die earlier on average from the same effect.

(4) trees in the area with white marks knee-high (“bobby sock trees”) are indications of a change or disturbance in the area (an earthquake, for example) that brought acidic water under the tree roots, which then caused their death.

By the time we got to the parking lot at Artists Paintpots, the skies grew ominous and raindrops began to fall. Their power to clear a parking lot full of cars was amazing (where were they when we needed them to clear Grand Prismatic’s?). From inside the van, we did see a few hardy souls don their raincoats and head to the hike; heck, we saw hardier souls don their cotton sweatshirts and head to the hike. N. took a little convincing, but I was able to make a hardy man out of him: we had raincoats, after all. As soon as we started on the short hike, the rain stopped and the clouds began to clear and the sun began to shine on one geological wonder after another: a mud pool here, a brilliant pool there, a hot river beyond that. And we also saw a couple of stands of those bobby sock trees that the ranger had mentioned. N. later said that these formations were one of his favorites so far. Our least favorite thing about this location were the aggressive mosquitoes who acted as if they had been starving for a whole season. I had worn knee-length pants and flip-flops (I had expected rain and didn’t want to get my tennis shoes wet), so I was practically their all-you-can-eat buffet.

We drove through the scenic Firehole Canyon Falls Drive, but by now N. had become difficult to please, so because he was not too impressed, he took the picture of the falls from the car.

The Fountain Paint Pot area was my favorite. The sun appeared, and again we were treated to a veritable smorgasbord of geological wonders: a beautifully hued cream-and-pink mud pot, a bubbling red mud geyser that looked like a miniature wave machine, hot springs of clear icy colors, bacteria mats with thin layers of spring water that, when photographed, looked like brilliant sheets of marble.

By the time we drove through the parking lot by the Grand Prismatic Spring, the vehicles in the shoulders were gone. We made our way to the short line of cars and came to understand the cause of the previous chaos: for such a massive attraction, the parking lot was laughably small, fewer than 80 by our count. And perhaps it was the darkening skies, but we were less impressed by the Prismatic up close. These area also had a geyser and bacteria mats, but the Prismatic was steaming a lot more than it had in the morning and it was hard to see all its brilliant colors from eye level. We walked through the boardwalk along its edge — comically littered by hats that people had lots to the wind — and felt fortunately to have seen it from the viewpoint this morning, in all its glory.

We stopped by Biscuit Basin and Black Sand Basin, but by this time — close to 8 pm — we were, to be honest, checking off boxes. It was late, we were hungry… and so were the mosquitoes!