June 11, 2011

Spent our first full day off touring the Old Faithful Inn and OF geyser basin both just a five minute walk from
our dorm. Interior pics are of the Inn's lobby and it's fun to sit around the 2nd and 3rd floor balconies and watch visitor's
reactions to the architecture when they first walk in and gaze upwards. The hotel tour was interesting with many stories going back to its opening in 1904. One was of a bear that wandered in the front door in 1932 and climbed to the top only to be shot and killed by rangers!

The exterior pics are of the 3-1/2 mile Old Faithful geyser basin boardwalk with dozens of geysers, fumarole (gas vents with no water), and hot springs some of which have temperatures over 700F. In many places one has to stop because the eruptions ares so close to the walkway. The vivid water colors and mineral deposits are due the various oxides and heat tolerant bacteria. The river is the Firehole and we're told a few short sections are open for swimming a few miles away....only after being warmed by a few warm springs that empty into it.

During our walk the rangers closed a section of the walkway and set up warning signs after a grizzly decided to
take a stroll through the area. A tourist took some film of it and put in on YouTube. You can find it by looking up Yellowstone grizzlies. We were also held up by a group of bison that crossed the basin and spent some time pausing on the boardwalk. Most park injuries are due to bison encounters so we're constantly reminded to give them a wide birth. The bulls can weight up to 2000 lbs.


The crowd pics are of the many tourists that gather around Old Faithful every 92 minutes (+/- 10 minutes).
After these eruptions many of these folks find their way into our gift shops and restaurants where we work.
We call them "Geyser Rushes". Not sure where they all come from but last year there were 3.6 million visitors
that came into the park and most if not all of course have to see Old Faithful.

After our Geyser basin walk, we latched onto a guided bus tour (free to employees) to Grand Prismatic Spring which is about 10 miles from Old Faithful. Our guide talked our group into a climbing a small mountain that
overlooks the spring which gave us a much better perspective of the spring and some great pictures. The spring
itself is over 400 feet across and is the third largest in the world. It is the last picture on the screen and if you expand it you can see
tourist on the boardwalk that get an eye level view that is less dramatic than the one we had.

More to come on day two of our exploration so stay tuned. Hope all is well with everyone and we'll be in touch.
Ann & Jim