Old Faithful and Friends, Yellowstone National Park
Holes in the Ground
Growing up my folks didn’t have a ton of money to be flying every time we wanted to get away. This fortunately for us resulted in quite a few road trips to get out of town. Typically the end goal was to visit family or friends with several stops along the way. As the years went on we began to notice a trend to these stops… my father seemed to have a thing for holes in the ground.
Once this realization was made we began to tease him whenever we would get back to the car and he’d ask what we thought.
“It was a nice hole in the ground Papa, even better than the last one. “
Grand Canyon…hole in the ground, Carlsbad Caverns…hole in the ground….Meteor Crater, legit a really big hole in the ground. As much as we teased him, deep down we loved every second of those trips. Well, maybe not EVERY second but they were well worth the adventure as a family.
Motherland of holes in the ground
One trip that we have not been on together as of yet is Yellowstone National Park. I did however have the opportunity this past September to visit the park with my husband Mike. As a graduate of the Seebeck hole in the ground spotting program, let me tell you-this place has some pretty awesome holes in the ground and LOTS of them.
If you know even a little bit about the US national parks you probably know that Yellowstone is one of the heavy hitters on the list of 59. One of the top draws bringing people here is the bragging rights that come with seeing the Old Faithful geyser. This is something that a lot of us grew up learning about in school and have probably had a friend flash a photo at us from their family vacation. Naturally like so many before us, Mike and I aimed to become that friend during our visit here.
Old Faithful
Mike and I entered Yellowstone from Grand Teton National Park through the south gate. We made a point to catch Old Faithful on our first day due to proximity. We also had intended to meet some family members who happened to be visiting the park at the same time. The day we drove in we learned the hard way that cell service is nearly non-existent in Yellowstone. While disappointed by this, we weren’t too worried about finding them. We had said the day before we would meet at Old Faithful at 2:00 pm, which we figured seemed simple enough… until we arrived.
If you picture pulling off the standard national park road to a nice path leading to Old Faithful, I’m about to burst your bubble wide open. As we came around the turn to the parking lot, we were greeted by 3 hotels, a gas station, restaurants, shops and a very nice visitor center. The parking lot was packed with visitors ranging in age who had arrived by all forms of motor transportation, including several large charter buses. We quickly realized that finding these folks was going to be a challenge.
We popped into one of the shops to grab a hot chocolate and then made our way over to the Old Faithful visitor center. Here you have the opportunity to pick up information pamphlets, use clean restrooms and have a seat in front of a window looking at the famed geyser. An alternate option would be to play a solid game of 20 questions with park rangers, who know far more than you would have thought imaginable about the area.
After no sign of our crew, we eventually made our way outside with hopes that maybe they had opted to bare the cold and snag a good seat on the platform surrounding the famous geyser. With no luck in spotting them here either, we grabbed a seat on a bench and continued to keep an eye out. As the projected time of eruption drew closer the space around us filled with hundreds of onlookers and their camera phones. Just as quickly as the crowds arrived, they evacuated mostly back towards the parking lot following the eruption of Old Faithful.
We roamed around a bit looking for our people among the stragglers, alas…nothing. We made a run through hotel lobbies filled with comfortable seating areas, cafeterias, restaurants and gift shops with no luck in locating them. By 3:00 we gave up for the most part and decided to check out more of the geyser basin, with hopes that they had done the same. This was when things got awesome.
Bring in the friends
Old Faithful is cool and all, but the area surrounding it is what really caught our interest.
Yellowstone can seem like another planet at times. It’s landscape is surreal when compared to what most are accustomed to seeing on a daily basis. Hiking in the area can seem a lot like playing “the ground is lava”…because it almost is in a way. What a lot of people don’t realize, is that Old Faithful has a lot of other thermal friends in the park that are just as impressive, if not more so.
There are thermal features all over Yellowstone that will blow your mind (like a geyser). Believe it or not, Yellowstone holds more thermal features in one area than anywhere else in the world. You will see Geysers such as Old Faithful that shoot water into the air like a fire hose. Mud pots that churn like a witch’s cauldron. Hot springs that grace your eyes with colors which seem impossibly beautiful and fumaroles that let steam dance in the air. It feels almost as if all this is to remind you, that this earth is changing below you and around you with every second that passes.
It is very important that you stay on the designated paths when walking around this area. The ground could be unstable despite appearances and should you venture off, you could find yourself falling into highly acidic and ridiculously hot water.
Now. Considering this main rule, you have 3 options on your choose your own ending adventure with Old Faithful and Friends.
1. Turn around and go back to the first world mecca behind you
2. Turn Left and follow the path
3. Turn Right and follow the path
We personally opted to go with option 3. *For the record option 2 and 3 are pretty much the same just in reverse of each other.
The big discovery
As we made our way along the walkway we weaved between trees, over the river and past several hot springs and geysers. We learned about the microorganisms and minerals that create the surreal vibrancy of colors in each feature and found ourselves wondering what had happened to the animals whose tracks riddled the acidic ground in front of us. Then it happened: we fell upon an awesome insider secret.
As we stood checking out the petri dish looking Anemone Geyser, suddenly in the not too far distance we noticed a huge cloud of steam start to bellow. Once spotting the crowd in the background we quickly realized we were looking at Old Faithful from another angle…with only 6 other people. Just to make sure we are crystal clear here: if you follow the pathway to the Anemone Geyser, you get another view of Old Faithful. MINUS THE CROWD!
And with that our visit to the upper geyser basin was a success, aside from never finding our family. (Fear not we all made it out ok)
Read more about our visit to Yellowstone here
Learn more about the scary reason why you must stay on the pathways here