This posting contains information which might be useful
to people who are interested in going to Yellowstone National Park.
The first concern which many people have is the number of
other people they are likely to run into. A national park is no fun
if you are continually surrounded by a press of people usually found
only at a World Series game. Certainly there are areas of Yellowstone
which are like this. However, it's easy to get off by yourself.
Yellowstone is quite large, and most of it is not accessible
by road. There are entire areas of the park which are not visited by
anybody more often than once a decade or so. These areas obviously
require a week of backpacking to get to, but they ARE there!
However, the secret of Yellowstone is that 99% of the park visitors
never get more than a mile off the road. The downside of this is
that most of the park's more spectacular features are not more than
a mile from the road, either: the roads were built to get to them.
However, it is also true that by far the majority of the traffic
in the park doesn't get more than a few FEET from the road. Busses
and cars pull into the Old Faithful area starting at six AM and
running till dark. Most of these people get out, watch Old Faithful,
go into the Visitor Center to buy postcards, and disappear. That's
not what this posting is about.
There are no more than six or seven hundred active geysers
in the world. Four hundred of these are in Yellowstone National Park.
If you watch Old Faithful, you only have 399 to go! Two hundred of
those are in the Upper Geyser Basin, which is easily accessible by
boardwalk. You will run into people on the boardwalk, but you will
not see the crowds that you see at Old Faithful.
Many people believe that if they've seen one geyser, they've
seen them all. I don't understand this viewpoint, but I can
sympathize with it. If you belong to this school, then watch Old
Faithful: it's certainly one of the best of the breed, and not at
all hard to find!
If, on the other hand, you are suceptible to being convinced
that geysers are very different, one from the other, and can be
endlessly intriguing and entertaining, then you are in luck. There
are a lot more to be seen.
Stop in at the Visitor Center and buy a copy of 'The Geysers
of Yellowstone', by T. Scott Bryan. This lists just about every geyser
in the park, active or not, with maps. Talk to the ranger staff for
updates. Look for people out on the boardwalk who are wearing
backpacks and carrying CB radios. These are the members of GOSA,
the Geyser Observation and Study Association, and they can also tell
you what's going on. Geysers change not only from year to year, but
from month to month and even from day to day. Current information is
important! Don't be surprised if you hear contradictory stories:
geysers change faster than the geyser-gazers can keep up with.
Cultivate patience. Sitting on the edge of the boardwalk
waiting for an eruption will slow you down a lot. That's what you
came here for, isn't it?
Some pointers: Old Faithful is the most frequently erupting
large geyser in the park. While it averages around 75 minutes between
eruptions, it varies between about 40 and 120 minutes. The 'Faithful'
part of its name has never been due to its regularity. Instead,
the wait till the next eruption can be determined by timing the
duration of the current eruption: the longer the eruption the
longer the wait. Old Faithful is VERY faithful in this regard and
will generally erupt within minutes of the predicted time.
Other geysers, such as Grand, may be larger than Old Faithful
(Grand is the largest regular geyser in the park), but intervals of
eight to twelve hours are more common for these geysers. Plan your
day around the predicted eruption times and you won't be disappointed:
these times are posted in the Old Faithful Visitor Center.
Cultivate favorites. One of my own favorites is Artemisia.
It is a tremendous show, but is on a trail out past the end of the
boardwalk in the Old Faithful area. Since nothing obvious is down
that trail, most visitors ignore the sign, and I have most eruptions
of Artemisia all to myself. I guarantee it, folks, watching a major
geyser with no other people around is a near-mystical experience.
I will never forget the eruption of Grand which I saw by moonlight
one midnight.
Moving away from Old Faithful, Grand Prismatic Spring in the
Midway Geyser Basin is a gorgeous sight, as the colored bacteria
in this spring (which is several acres in extent) color the rising
steam clouds as if a stage magician were working wonders.
In the Norris Geyser Basin, the acid pools have their own
milky pastels, resulting in a lunar landscape like no other on earth.
Down trails and up canyons, back-country geysers and mudpots
invite the day-hiker to stop for a while and see what might happen.
Don't be fooled! This area was not designed by Disney, and killing
yourself is as easy as slipping. The rule of thumb is to approach
hot springs and geysers cautiously, checking for overhangs (which
are very common). Since you can only see an overhang on the opposite
side of a pool, a slow circling approach is best. Never come closer
than your own height, so that if you do fall, you won't fall in.
Don't go near mudpots at all, unless you're on a ranger walk or have
been taught the safe portions of each area explicitly, and carry a
walking stick. It's very common for a new mudpot to announce its
presence by swallowing a tourist's leg, and the burns you get from
boiling mud are unbelievable. Balance fascination with paranoia,
and you'll probably be fine.
Lodging is the difficult part. Most campground space in the
park is run by the park service directly and is first come, first
served. This means that the more desirable campgrounds (usually those
near the thermal areas) fill as early as 8:00 AM. Yes, that's AM
as in morning. Stays are limited to ten days, then you have to find
a new campground. Who'd want to camp more than ten days, even if
there are showers? But see below for three important campgrounds.
All non-campground lodging is handled by TW Recreation Services,
the Park concessionaire. Their prices are held down to what comparable
out-of-park lodging would be, which means that you can stay in the Old
Faithful Inn, double bed, bathroom down the hall, in a 100-year-old
resort hotel, the world's largest free-standing log structure and one
of the prizes of American architecture, for $39 a night.
The downside? You bet you need reservations: months in advance.
That's true throughout the park. The main form of crowd control in
Yellowstone is the enforced scarcity of lodgings. The sheer size of
the park makes it just barely possible to stay in West Yellowstone,
Jackson, or Cody, and see the park by day trip, but you'd better be
ready for a LOT of driving.
There are three campgrounds - Grant, Canyon, and
Madison - which are run (on an experimental basis, in 1995) by
the park concessionaire, TWR. Camping is $12 per night. The problem
with the system as it is currently being run is that while only one
night's deposit is needed for any of the non-camping TWR-run
lodging (Old Faithful Inn, cabins, Snow Lodge, etc.), the full amount
of the money for a stay in one of these campgrounds is required within
15 days of making the reservation. The maximum stay being ten days,
this means it would cost $120 to reserve a full stay in a campground,
but only about $22 to hold a 'pioneer cabin' for twice that long.
And Madison is the closest campground to the Old Faithful area.
What's that? You'd like to hear about the Grand Canyon of the
Yellowstone, the elk, the bison, the mountains, the Grand Tetons, the
forests, the hiking? You bet. It's all there and it's gorgeous. Me,
I'm a thermal fan. I'll see you on the boardwalk. Just look for the
guy with the radio.
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