We spent two and a half days on this side of the Park and managed to see everything we wanted to see. I will just present here some of the highlights instead of providing a journalistic record of everything we saw. You can quickly see which are the highlights - the Grand Prismatic Spring which we visited twice from different perspectives; the Excelsior Pool in the Midway Geyser Basin; the Grand Geyser, the Riverside Geyser, and the Morning Glory Pool on the Old Faithful Trail; the Sapphire Pool in the Biscuit Basin and the Emerald Pool in the Black Sand Basin. Everything else, even Old Faithful, seemed to pale in comparison to these spectacles!
PRACTICAL TIPS:
1. The Grand Prismatic Spring and the Morning Glory Pool should be seen at midday - they require the sun right above them to bring out all the colours - this actually applies to all the coloured springs.
2. The park has developed a new trail to take people to the Grand Prismatic Spring lookout. This is a side trail from the Fairy Falls trail. Again overlook should be visited at midday. Too early in the day, the steam mist from the spring would obscure the view. Too late in the day, and the colours pale.
3. The times for eruption of the various geysers are posted at the Visitor Centre and Lodges. One could spend hours waiting for a geyser to erupt or take one's chances and if it happens to be erupting near the time you're in the area, then consider yourself lucky.
4. Old Faithful is best photographed in the morning. Sunset does not work here.
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| Grand Prismatic Spring at ground level - the runofffs are spectacular. |
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| Excelsior Geyser |
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| Run off from the Excelsior Geyser |
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| We did the short hike up to the overlook to see the Grand Prismatic Spring - definitely worth the climb although the spring is just as spectacular from the ground. |
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| Old Faithful in the morning |
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| Chromatic Pool |
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| Liberty Pool - you can almost see right to the bottom! |
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| Castle Geyser |
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| Grotto Geyser |
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| Thermophile runoffs into the Firehole River |
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| At the end of the Old Faithful trail, the Morning Glory Pool was a stunning finale |
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| We only had to wait 15 minutes for the Riverside Geyser to erupt and it was quite spectacular. What luck! |
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| The Grand Geyser is more spectacular than Old Faithful. Earlier in the day, we had walked by and seeing that the predicted eruption time was just half an hour away, we decided to wait. But after an hour, nothing happened (apparently eruption times can be off plus or minus 2 hours), we decided to move on. We were quite astonished that after two hours on the trail, we saw the geyser getting ready to erupt on our way back. So while we walked the entire trail, some people actually sat there faithfully waiting for more than 2 hours! We considered ourselves extremely lucky to witness this magnificent eruption. |
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| Thermophile runoffs from Anemone Pool - we almost missed this as it was at the end of a big loop and we were tired and ready for lunch! |
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| Twin Pools |
We visited the Biscuit Basin and Black Sand Basin at the end of the day. The colours would have been more brilliant in midday, but then one could only see so many things at midday!
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| Sapphire Pool, true to its name |
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| Cliff Geyser on the edge of Iron Spring Creek |
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| Opalescent Pool |
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| Emerald Pool - I'm sure it would be emerald coloured in midday! |
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| Great Fountain Geyser, another one of those that people wait hours for. When it's not erupting, it's not much of a sight, but then the sky and the clouds pitched in... |
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| Gibbon Falls |
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| Firehole Falls |
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| The Old Faithful Inn was a marvel in itself with its all wood pillars and interior. |
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| The ceiling and the staircase |
This wraps up our trip to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. It was one of the more photogenic trips we've been on. Hope you've enjoyed coming along with us.
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