I’ve been neglecting the project of writing about the rest of this trip, partly due to being busy with other things. Gotta get back to it, before I forget all the stuff that we did! I think day two of our four full days at Yellowstone was the one on which we took the time in the morning to make (and eat) a more elaborate breakfast (including those…well-done? cinnamon rolls that Emily had cooked the night before, plus more food that we cooked in the morning). Honestly, though, I’m a bit fuzzy on this already. Beyond that, the plan that we decided on for this day called for a visit to the Upper Geyser Basin (i.e., the Old Faithful area)—home (I don’t think I’ve ever actually mentioned this in previous accounts) to a larger number of both geysers, and geothermal features in general, than any other place on earth (with Yellowstone as a whole containing more than half of the world’s totals). We planned to spend only a somewhat limited amount of time in the area, though, because the weather forecast indicated that this day would probably be the hottest of our time at Yellowstone…so I also hoped to be able to go for a swim at the Firehole Canyon Drive swimming spot that I’ve written about in my accounts of previous trips (but had only ever actually gotten to swim it once, in 2018).
Not surprisingly, Old Faithful was the one thing in Yellowstone that Emily had seen on her brief previous visit, 19 years ago; also, of course, I’ve seen it many times at this point. Still, it’s famous for good reasons, so we for sure wanted to see it go off! When we got to the visitor center, a large crowd was already gathering outside in anticipation of the next predicted eruption, and we joined said crowd. In due course, it did its thing, which was just as awesome as it always is. (I may never entirely get over just how high Old Faithful fountains up; it just seems impossible, no matter how many times I read about the science behind it!) Somehow, though, it seems that we took no pictures or videos of it. (I mean, it’s fine; I’ve already got plenty. It does make for a somewhat less exciting blog entry this way, though.) In fact, we apparently didn’t take any pictures of anything in the Upper Geyser Basin! I’m not sure exactly why, and in retrospect, this is a little disappointing. The experience of being there, though, was not disappointing, except in the limited sense that there wasn’t time for everything that I might have liked to show Emily (and see again myself), unless we were to give up on the idea of still getting to do other fun stuff later. (Also, part of the boardwalk was closed, so that getting to certain areas would have required going around “the long way”—which contributed to us deciding to skip some things that I would have liked to get to. It was the right decision, I think, because we did end up having a lot of fun elsewhere later in the day…but alas, to have had enough time for all the things!) So we saw lots of awesome, beautiful hot springs (including Tortoise Shell, importantly), and I’m pretty sure we saw at least one other geyser erupt (I can’t remember which one(s), though; we waited a while with another crowd for an anticipated eruption of Grand (I think?), but I believe we moved on before it happened), and of course we admired the picturesque Firehole River as it winds among the thermal features. We did not, however, see Grotto (one of my favorites), or Morning Glory, or my beloved but seemingly unnamed beyond-the-end-of-the-boardwalk hot spring that I’ve written extensively about before. Again, though, it’s fine; each trip is supposed to be different, after all!
After chancing into a second eruption of Old Faithful as we made our way back to the visitor center, we hopped back in the car and drove up the main loop road to Firehole Canyon Drive. I really thought that the last week of July would be late enough in the season for the swimming spot to be open, but alas—it wasn’t! (Maybe you really do have to wait until August for that; to be sure, the one and only time that I have ever gotten to swim there, it was mid-August.) Of course, the scenery along Firehole Canyon Drive was still spectacular…and also, undaunted, we made our own fun. On my last trip out there, in 2021, I had similarly found the swimming spot closed, and I had dealt with it by finding a place along the main loop road some distance to the south where I could still swim in the Firehole River. That was cool, but the spot had kind of been nothing special. This time, Emily and I pulled off the main road just south of where Firehole Canyon Drive spits you back out onto the main road (meaning just upstream of Firehole Canyon), at a spot where the river is considerably wilder (rocky, with rapids and small waterfalls) than where I had swum in it four years ago. One couldn’t “swim” here, per se, but one could certainly “adventure” in the river! First, we found an awesome perch on some rocks up above the river and ate a picnic lunch; then, we carefully made our way into the water and started exploring!
I think we both really enjoyed playing around in the river here. When we eventually were ready to move on, there was still some time left in the day, so we decided to stop at Midway Geyser Basin (which was on the way back south along the main loop road toward “home”). This is a much smaller area than Upper Geyser Basin (it’s just one relatively short boardwalk loop around a handful of hot springs and one geyser), but it features Grand Prismatic Spring, which is the largest hot spring in the United States and the third-largest in the world. I hadn’t actually walked the boardwalk here since maybe my first trip to Yellowstone as an adult, back in 2009, although I’d been in the vicinity on other more recent trips (my big overnight-in-the-back-country hike on my 2021 trip had started near here, for instance. I’ll say a bit more about that in my next post.) Photos of Grand Prismatic from above adorn countless items that can be purchased in the park’s various stores (it’s one of a handful of the park’s most iconic images), but its fully beauty is actually kind of hard to take in from the ground. There is a scenic overlook trail that you can hike to get a better view, but we didn’t take the time this late in the day. Emily, who struck me as maybe even more awed by the sights here than she had been earlier in the day at Upper Geyser Basin, did take this cool video featuring steam rising from Grand Prismatic, though.
Also in the “unfortunately not photographed” category: runoff from the various hot springs here gushing down the rocky bank and into the Firehole River (a waterway that connects all of our doings from this day). I’ve always appreciated this, and Emily found it really cool, too; if only we’d bothered to take a picture! (Again, I do have pics from other trips…but still.)
That was about it for this day! After Midway Geyser Basin, we drove back to our campsite and I again cooked up a dinner over the fire. In a bit of departure from my usual camping dinner menu, tonight’s fare consisted of taco meat cooked in a cast iron skillet upon my campfire grill, then eaten nacho-style with chips, cheese, beans, & etc. Delicious!