Yellowstone – Day 1

Last night I drove back in to West Yellowstone for dinner. I had decided on one of two places to eat: Bear Tooth BBQ or Bullwinkle’s. I decide on BBQ since I didn’t want a big meal and went in and ordered a BBQ sandwich. While waiting, I noticed an OU pendant hanging above the bar and then noticed and OU football team poster. I asked the waitress about them and she told me the owner was from Oklahoma.

This morning I got up around 6:30 am, showered, dressed and went down the hall for breakfast. I left the hotel a little after 8 am and decided to drive back up to the Old Faithful area, stopping along the way at the geyser basins I had passed yesterday. The weather forecast was for temps to reach into the high 40s with 80% chance of rain/snow. It had rained last night and was in the high 30s and overcast and pretty dreary looking when I headed out. I noticed the KOA campground I originally planned on camping in was pretty empty and I saw no tents yesterday on my way back from dinner, so my decision to “camp” at the Super 8 was a good one.

Samantha seems to have “issues” with the park entrances. This morning I said let’s go back to the Old Faithful complex, so she wanted me to turn left in West Yellowstone heading north, instead of right where the park west entrance was just a few blocks away. I said, take me to the park west entrance and she was OK with that until we approached it and she demanded I make an immediate U-turn. I said Stop, I’m going in. Once in I again asked for Old Faithful and she was OK getting there on the park roads.

 On the way I saw some bison in a field and further up the road there was a bull bison loping along the side of the road. Last night on the way into town there was a bull bison loping along the side of the highway. As I got closer to Madison, where the road splits, one going to Old Faithful, the sun started to burn away the overcast.

I stopped at the different geyser basin along the road and walked the boardwalks around the geysers and springs. At Biscuit Basin there was a trailhead to Mystic Falls. A couple returning said it was worth the trip, but a bear sighting there in the last two days had temporarily closed the trail, but it was open today. Another man was at the trailhead and I said if you want to go, I will go so we don’t hike it alone. So off we went. On the way I found out his name was Demarco and he was from Genoa, Italy where he was an engineering professor at the university. At one point on the trail there was a sign that indicated Mystic Falls: 1.7 miles, Overlook: 0.7 miles. So, assuming the overlook overlooked the falls, we set off on that trail. It was up the mountain, sometimes over mushy snowpack and muddy trails. Unfortunately it ended at an overlook of the basin and not the falls. So we returned down the trail, the whole adventure taking over an hour. I apologized to Demarco for leading him on a “wild goose chase” said good bye and returned to my car, fairly exhausted from the workout.

 Overlooking Biscuit Basin –  Nice But No Mystic Falls

I drove on to the Old Faithful complex, arriving a little after 11 am, went to the store and bought some bear spray, a coke and a Yellowstone T-shirt. I went back to the car, drove over to the Visitor Center and sat in the car and had a trail mix bar, and some beef jerky. After I ate, I went in to Visitor Center to see about the hiking opportunities around Old Faithful, and picked up some trail guides for Old Faithful and Canyon Village, one of the other park areas I will visit the next two days.

Old Faithful was scheduled to erupt around 1 pm and it was now 12:30 pm. They announced on the PA system that the Beehive Geyser, which erupts once a day, would probably be erupting in the next 15-20 minutes, since a secondary geyser next to it was erupting and it is an indicator that the Beehive Geyser was getting ready to erupt. I returned to my car, got my backpack and headed to an area on the boardwalk between Old Faithful and Beehive. They both erupted within a minute or so of each other and I was able to get pictures and movies of both. It was a clearer day than yesterday so the main fount of Old Faithful was easier to see today.

 Beehive Geyser

Old Faithful

After that I hiked up to observation point which overlooks the Old Faithful complex. On the way up I met some folks from Cleburne, Texas. At the overlook I met a couple from Atlanta, as we were watching a couple of marmots sunning themselves on a log. I then hiked on over to the Solitary Geyser which supposedly erupts every 5-7 minutes about 4 foot high. While there it erupted, but if it went 18 inches, that was a stretch. It was a disappointment. I even waited for a second eruption, with the same result. Maybe it was an off day for it. I walked down the return trail to the boardwalk and walked out on the boardwalk down to several of the geysers along the walkway path. I ended up at the Riverside Geyser, but it had already erupted, so I returned to the Old Faithful complex via the hike/bike trail. I returned to the Visitor Center to get some trail guides for a couple of more of the areas I will visit the next two days. By this time my dogs were barking and my hips were aching, so I headed back to West Yellowstone around 3:45 pm. I saw some Elk and Bison along the way back, but no bears. Apparently they have had more bear issues this spring since the berry crop was not very good last fall and the bears woke up hungrier than normal.

 View from the Overlook Lower Viewpoint

 Marmot Sunning Himself

 Overlook from Upper Viewpoint

 A chromatic pool or spring

Castle Geyser

I arrived back in West Yellowstone around 4:30 and went to Bullwinkle’s for dinner since my tank was running pretty low by now. I had the chicken fried steak, mash potatoes and white sausage gravy. I sat at the bar area, since I didn’t know if I sat down in a chair or booth, how stiff I would be trying to get up. I chatted with the waitress, who was originally from Wisconsin. She and her husband had run a Texas BBQ restaurant in Illinois and her mom has a best friend in Spring, Texas, so she was familiar with the Houston area. The chicken fried steak was pretty good, and I was full when I finished eating.

I headed toward the hotel 7 miles outside of town and on the way I noticed two tents at the KOA campground. Still glad I changed my accommodation to the Super 8 though. I returned to the hotel around 6 pm and the hotel manager, Mike, said the internet service provider would be out tomorrow to check on his hardware, which seems to be having problems, So currently there is no internet service and this is being typed up on my word processor and will be pasted in to the blog, once the internet service is back up.

Tonight I will look over the trail guides I picked up and decide what areas to go explore tomorrow, weather permitting. The weather turned out to be pretty good today, once the sun burned off the overcast. The temps got into the 50s with a mix of sun and overcast and an occasional light rain, but no downpours. Hopefully tomorrow will turn out as well.

See you down the road!