Yellowstone National Park: Canyon Village and Old Faithful
Monday, August 29th, 2011August 9th-August 10th
We woke up to some grey, rainy weather on Tuesday morning. We decided to continue with our plan and drive down towards the Canyon Village. We spent the morning indoors, first at the Park Ranger Museum, which told about the changing roles of the park ranger, and then at the Canyon Visitor Education Center which had some great exhibits about the geology of Yellowstone (how geysers, hot springs and mud pots work, etc.) After lunch, the weather had cleared up and we drove down to visit the mud volcanoes. We ran into a traffic jam caused by bison. There was a herd of bison grazing around the road with some pretty aggressive bulls charging each other. We pulled into a parking area and spent some time (from the safety of the car) watching these impressive animals. They were wading in the water, rolling in the dirt, and butting heads. When we decided to continue the drive, it took us a while to get through the traffic. Bison were running back and forth across the road. We finally arrived at the Sulphur Cauldron and then the Mud Volcanoes, the smelliest part of the park (it smelled like sulphur.) The mudpots are created from a combination of water, dirt and sulfur dioxide which causes them to make a bloop-bloop sound that is entertaining for everyone. From here, we made our way back towards the canyon rim drives. On the south rim, we did a small hike to see the upper and lower falls (and got a little rainstorm.) On the north side, we shot some pictures from the lookout and then hiked down to the river. It was getting late in the day, so we drove back to the campground and got to bed early. We’d had a couple of intense days.
On Wednesday morning, we packed up our campsite at Mammoth Springs and headed for the most famous section of the park: the geysers. Our first stop was at Norris Geyser Basin. The landscape was surreal, like from another world. There were pool of water of every color of the rainbow (due to the different types of bacteria living inside), bubbling geysers, and the trees that had inhabited the area where the water wasn’t flowing. We continued our visit of the basins, each one unique and inspiring. Finally at the end of the day, we arrived at Old Faithful, the most famous geyser in the park. The rangers are able to predict the eruption (within 10 minutes) based on the previous eruption. We arrived at the end of an eruption, so we spent some time exploring the informative displays in the visitor center waiting for the next one. Finally, we staked out our spots to witness an amazing eruption 70 feet in the air. After this spectacle, we continue to Grant Village where we had reserved a campsite for the evening.
Posted from Manitou Springs, CO
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