The Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone and a Buffalo Traffic Jam

This is part two of a travel series to Yellowstone and the Grand Teton National Parks.  If you'd like to start at the beginning, go HERE!

Grand Prismatic Spring

After visiting Old Faithful, we continued up the lower loop to the Midway Geyser Basin to see another feature Yellowstone is famous for:  The Grand Prismatic Spring.

As you can see in the map below, the next stop was not too far away; about 10 miles.  But now it was about 1:00 pm and the crowds caught up to us.  The roads were lined up with parked cars for quite a distance on both sides, the parking lot was full, and there was even a line just waiting to get into the parking lot!  I couldn't believe it was this busy during the off-season.  "What must it be like during the busy season?" I wondered.  We decided rather than park miles down the road and walk in, to just get in the parking lot line and wait for an opening.  It looked horribly long, but surprisingly, it wasn't that bad of a wait for an open space, maybe 20 minutes?  

Photo Credit

The Midway Geyser Basin

The Grand Prismatic Spring is located in an area called the Midway Geyser Basin which actually contains three other points of interest which I did not know about prior to visiting the park:   The Excelsior Geyser, the Turquoise Pool, and the Opal Pool.

But first we had to walk from the parking lot to the basin, and this was our view:  The Firehole River again!  This river keeps on giving scenic views!  We first saw it at the Kepler Cascades and Old Faithful, and now here!

We were amazed to see the hot water overflowing from the basin into the river.

The hot water from the hydrothermal features left such beautiful color on the rock surfaces from the minerals they precipitate. 

A cute boardwalk and bridge takes you right over the Firehole River, but hang on to your hat as it is breezy!

Here is a 25 second video showing the water flowing from the Excelsior Geyser into the Firehole River.  You also get a view from the bridge and can see a bit of the boardwalk.  It's interesting just to even hear the sound of the water pouring into the river. 

The Grand Prismatic Spring

Rather than me just repeating information all about the hot spring, you can just click on the photo above to enlarge it to read all about it.  

There are two ways to see the spring, one is a 0.8 mile boardwalk that takes you right on top of it where you can see it on eye level.  That is the viewpoint this post will focus on.  BUT there is also another view, where you can see the spring from above.   That trail offers the best view, but unfortunately due to traffic congestion because of a buffalo jam (which you will read about at the end of this post) we were unable to see it. 😢

If you'd like to see photos of what the Grand Prismatic Spring, Earth Trekkers has an excellent post on the trails, the parking lot issues, and times of day it is best to view the spring.

This next photo tells you all about the colors of this amazing hot spring. 

Even though we didn't get to see the Grand Prismatic Spring from above, it was still cool to be right on top of it.  If you have time, and you can find a parking spot, I would recommend doing both for the full experience. 

The color this spring produces is amazing!  It's impossible to take a bad picture!

I do have to mention that one of the reasons this spring was so crowded was because of the time of the day.  If you really want to see the brilliant colors you must see it around mid-day because in the morning it is too misty.

I will say I was a bit nervous walking on the boardwalk as there were so many people I was afraid I would lose my balance and get knocked off into the spring.  I think where the boardwalk is located in relation to the spring, the person wouldn't get hurt if they fell off the boardwalk, but microorganisms would certainly be affected.

We were surprised to see a buffalo on the other side of the hot spring.  They are everywhere in Yellowstone!

Fun fact:  Did you know the Grand Prismatic Spring can be seen from space?  It sure can!  Google it!

Excelsior Geyser

The second big attraction of the Midway Geyser Basin is Excelsior Geyser.  You can read all about this geyser in the photo above by clicking on it to enlarge it. 

I was awestruck by this geyser.  The turquoise water was absolutely beautiful!

There are viewing decks overlooking this geyser all connected by boardwalks as you can see in the photo below.

Turquoise Pool

And finally, two other smaller attractions in this area are the Turquoise and Opal Pool.  Both are much smaller, but still quite pretty.

Opal Pool

Now that we finished the lower view of the Grand Prismatic we wanted to go see the upper view, but there was a traffic jam just trying to get out of the parking lot due to a herd of buffalo clogging up the road.  There is a separate parking lot for the upper view and hubby felt it was too congested to try and make it over there, so he just made the decision to head out of the area.  I was extremely disappointed, but I understood.  Plus, I've seen so many photos and videos of the far away view of the springs, I knew what it looked like (but I know experiencing it person is different).  The close up view, I got on the lower viewing decks, I can't experience only through photos.

You can click on the video below to see the buffalo.

We were surprised to discover that they have a "Wildlife Traffic Control" system in Yellowstone.  When animals block the road, causing a significant traffic jam, a truck appears lights and sirens a blazing, to clear the animals off the road.  You can watch the video below to see it in action.

For more information on Yellowstone National Park, check out my Old Faithful post.

I hope you enjoyed this week's Yellowstone post.  Next week I will cover a pleasant unexpected surprise, and one of my favorite Yellowstone experiences:  Firehole Lake Drive.

Have A Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

Our Road Trip to Yellowstone: Old Faithful

I am so excited to start a new travel series with you!  Warning:  This trip was EPIC so this will be a long travel series.  I will cover all of the highlights of Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, plus some of the cute surrounding towns like Cody and Jackson Hole, and all the fun stops on the road trip!

For my very first post, I will share one of the spots Yellowstone is most famous for:  Old Faithful, plus the scenic drive on the way to the park.

                                                            Getting There: 

              Ten Sleeps/Big Horn National Forest

Yellowstone National Park is a 16 hour drive from our home.  We left on a Saturday and spent the night in Spearfish South Dakota.  The next day we drove five hours to Cody, Wyoming where we spent the night.  Since we arrived in Cody by lunch time, we spent the afternoon dining, shopping, and relaxing before we made the 50 mile drive to Yellowstone the next morning.

Before I get to talking about Yellowstone, I want to say that the drive to Yellowstone is almost as impressive as Yellowstone park itself.  From the east, there are two options to get to the park, one is more steeper than the other.  Obviously, we took the less steep one, yet as you can see pictured above, there were still runaway ramps for trucks.

The scenic, more gentle route we took was Scenic Hwy 16 west to Ten Sleep Worland.  It was so gorgeous, yet scary at the same time.  I couldn't believe this was considered the "less steep" highway, I would hate to see what the steeper version was.

This route takes you through the Big Horn National Forest where there are multiple stops to get out and hike.

We enjoyed this area so much, we thought we might just have to come back here someday and do some hiking!

If you enlarge the photo below you might be able to read all about Tensleep Canyon.

Here is a short video of us driving through this amazing canyon.

Yellowstone:  East Entrance

There are five entrances to Yellowstone park.  Since we were coming from the east, we entered through the East Entrance.  The beautiful Yellowstone Lake is located on the east side of the park, and that is where we spotted our first signs of wildlife:  Tundra Swans.

We did stop at the Fishing Bridge Visitor Center & Museum to use the bathroom.  It is a small, unimpressive Visitor Center so I didn't take photos, although there is a gorgeous view of the lake from behind the museum.

Yellowstone National Park is a large park encompassing  nearly a 3,500-sq.-mile wilderness recreation area atop a volcanic hot spot. It is mostly in Wyoming, but the park spreads into parts of Montana and Idaho too. It is so huge that it is impossible to see it all on one trip,  BUT with careful planning and moving from sun up to sun set, you can see most of the highlights on the 142 mile loop in three days;  we sure did!

Photo Credit

Looking at the map above you can see the figure 8 in the middle of the map;  that is where mostly all the main attractions are located in the park .  The entire figure 8 loop is 142 miles long.  As stated earlier, we came from Cody, Wyoming and entered through the east entrance (lower right in above photo).  Then we drove past Yellowstone Lake heading to the  Upper Geyser Basin.  On the way to the basin however we made a quick pit stop when we saw a little sign that read "Kepler Cascades".

Kepler Cascades

I was so happy we spotted this little sign and took the time to stop and check it out because it was so worth it!  

Just a short walk from the parking lot is a large viewing deck over the Firehole River.  The three-tiered cascades drop fifty feet into the river. 

The Kepler Cascades look so beautiful with the evergreens on either side of them.  They are located about two miles south of Old Faithful!  Don't miss it!

Upper Geyser Basin

 We knew Old Faithful was the most popular spot in Yellowstone and we wanted to see it before the crowds arrived.  Our timing was perfect!  We got there just in time to see it erupt with no crowds.  In fact, we actually saw it erupt twice:  once when we first got there, and then again later (with crowds) after our hike around the basin.

Old Faithful

Here is a video of Old Faithful erupting.  I can't even begin to express my feelings as I watched this geyser.  There seemed to be a holy hush in the crowd;  like everyone knew they were experiencing something special.  I heard about Old Faithful my entire life.  I couldn't believe I was finally here witnessing this!

The funniest part of watching Old Faithful was that there was a buffalo sitting right in front of the geyser just a few feet from the crowd.  It amazes me how of all the places in the park this guy could take a nap, he chooses one of the most populated places.  It makes me think maybe animals like to have people around after all.

That is the Old Faithful Inn in the distance.

Here is what the Old Faithful area looks like before the crowds arrive.  Get there early, if you want an unobstructed view like this, because by the second eruption of the day, this area was packed!

We were surprised to see all the hiking and other hydrothermal spots surrounding Old Faithful.  We walked around for a little while, and would have loved to have walked the entire boardwalk, but do to lack of time, we stayed always within view of the Old Faithful Inn

We were amazed to find this pretty river and green area so close to the hydrothermal features.  This is the Firehole River and you can find it just by walking a little past Old Faithful and over this cute bridge.

There were great views of Old Faithful Inn and the hydrothermal features from here.

The thing that surprised me the most about Yellowstone was the number of hydrothermal features there are in the park.  There are over 10,000 hydrothermal features, 500 of which are geysers.  It seemed they were everywhere in the park and it felt to us that the entire park was just about ready to explode!

The entire area around Old Faithful is boardwalks leading to more of these hydrothermal features and geysers.  The boardwalk seemed endless.  Because we wanted to do the entire figure 8 loop in three days we only had time to see a small portion of it.  But listed below are all the trails that you can take from this area if you had the time:

• Upper Geyser Basin Loop: A 3-mile loop with an elevation change of about 50 ft 
• Observation Point Trail: A 0.5-mile trail that takes 1–3 hours to complete and offers a commanding view of the Upper Geyser Basin
• Old Faithful to Biscuit Basin: A 5-mile hike with an elevation change of about 100 ft 
• Upper Geyser Basin Tour: A 3.8-mile hike from Old Faithful to Morning Glory that takes about 180 minutes 
• Full loop: A hike that takes more than half a day to complete and allows you to see all of the over 150 thermal features in the Upper Geyser Basin 

While planning for our trip to Yellowstone we watched videos of this area and saw some scenes where buffalo charged at people on the boardwalk.  I was a little nervous about this happening when we were there, especially after seeing the buffalo at Old Faithful, so I kept my eyes out for any buffalo in the distance.  There's just no place to go if a buffalo charges.  You certainly can't step off the boardwalks and into the hydrothermal features!

It is interesting to see that wherever there is a hydrothermal feature the vegetation is all dead, even the trees!  But then in the distance you can still see the beautiful forests.

The next two photos show the beautiful colorful streaks that result from the minerals that they precipitate or microscopic organisms. 

After viewing the right side of Firehole River, we crossed the bridge to check out the other side instead of walking all the 3.8 mile hike up to Morning Glory Pool.

The first hydrothermal we came across was "Crested Pool".

See all the dead trees in the background?  The earth must be getting to hot for the trees roots.

We both thought 'Castle Geyser' was very interesting; aptly named for its castle like shape.

After finishing the small loop around Old Faithful, we decided to walk in to the Old Faithful Inn.  We would have loved to have eaten here, but reservations fill up fast.  You are however, allowed to walk in and check out the place.  

Old Faithful Inn

The inn is absolutely gorgeous.  The fireplace is enormous and the lumber in this place is incredible.

This is a stairwell leading to the upstairs rooms.  Just look at all those logs and that interesting staircase!

If I could take this vacation all over again, I would spend one night in Old Faithful Inn, one night in the Roosevelt Lodge, and one night in Canyon Village. That way, you don't have to drive so much and you can easily see the entire park in three days.  We spent all our nights in one place:  Yellowstone Cabins.  It was very nice, but we were constantly driving miles back to our lodging which wasted a lot of time.  I knew this would be the issue when I booked our lodging, but all the hotels in the park were full except for the cabins.  You need to book one year in advance at least if you want to stay in any of the other hotels in the park, and I can't seem to ever plan that far ahead.  Heck, I don't even know when my husband can take a vacation that far in advance.

Old Faithful Visitor Education Center

After touring the Old Faithful Inn we headed over to the Old Faithful Visitor Educational Center.   The park has ten visitor centers and information stations.  That is incredible.  We only visited a couple:  Fishing Bridge Museum and this one.  Regrettably, we didn't have the time to spend as much time as we would have liked at the Old Faithful Visitor Center.  It seemed incredible!  There was so much information to digest.

We thought it was pretty cool that you could see Old Faithful erupt from inside the Visitor Center!

And now be sure to enjoy a short video or two of some of the hydrothermal features in the Upper Geyser Basin.  You really need to see at least one video to hear the gurgling, bubbling sounds and see the features in action.  Pictures alone do not do them justice.

  Videos of More Hydrothermal Features in the Upper Geyser Basin

                                  Ear Spring

Small Hydrothermal Feature

Another Small Hydrothermal Feature

Dump Geyser

I hope you enjoyed my first post in my travel series to Yellowstone.  There will be many more to come!  My posts will all be very detailed about each highlight in Yellowstone we visited, so that you have plenty of information to plan your own trip someday!

Next week, I will cover another spot Yellowstone is famous for:  The Grand Prismatic Spring!  What a special place that is.

Have A Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!