Today we moved on from Victor and travelled to our third national park of the trip…Yellowstone. This is such a vast park that it spans 3 states, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho (although it’s mostly in Wyoming) so I’m not sure we will be seeing it all, but we will do our best over the next 4 days.

The route was just over 2 hours so not too bad and after we packed up the car we stopped off at a breakfast place in a nearby town for some hearty bacon and eggs, at a café called Provisions.

It was a pretty straight forward drive to Yellowstone, no highways involved and just long country roads and wide open plains. We did make one stop on the way which was Mesa Falls, so here are a few pics from there. The upper part of the falls was shut sadly, but we saw the lower falls.

When we arrived in Yellowstone we had a few hours to put in before we could check in so we wandered around the town which was pretty touristy and full of souvenir shops mainly.

Our apartment is in the heart of the town, a really great location and you can walk to all the bars and restaurants which will be handy. It’s a lot smaller than our previous Airbnb’s but very modern, clean and comfortable.

We then went out for a few happy hour pints (one of which was only $2!) at the Yellowstone brewery which was in town.

Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone is the world’s first national park and it sits on top of a dormant volcano which feeds the many hot springs and geysers within. There are 4 main areas to hit in this NP as it is so spread out which include Old Faithful, Mammoth Hot Springs, Canyon Village and Tower Roosevelt. We opted to go to the Old Faithful area on our first day as this is the most popular area but we were told at the visitor centre that some of the car parks get full really early so we set the alarm for 6am…we literally were heading out in the dark but we thought it would be worth the extra effort. Not only was it dark but it was raining too which wasn’t a good sign.

The first stop on our route was ‘Fountain Paint Pot’ which features a short boardwalk loop where you can see all four of the main types of hydrothermal features that feature in the park – geysers, hot springs, mud pots and steam vents. Si’s geology degree proved useful as it felt like I had my own personal expert on hand for any questions…

We then moved onto the Midway Geyser Basin which is another area which features geysers but it also features the colourful Grand Prismatic Spring, which is Yellowstone’s largest hot spring. Again there was a convenient boardwalk which you allowed you to walk around the area and see them all.

It’s a really unusual park, not like any others that we’ve been too before, but really different and interesting.

Old Faithful

We then moved further into the park to see ‘Old Faithful’ which is Yellowstone’s most famous geyser and is named ‘Old Faithful’ due to the frequent and regular eruptions. Apparently it is one of the world’s most famous geysers and is a symbol for Yellowstone NP which is often depicted on souvenirs.

You are able to download the eruption forecast on your phone so you knew when to head out to the viewing platform so here is what we saw…not sure the pictures do it justice, and the visibility wasn’t the best because it was an overcast day but it was still cool to see. Apparently this geyser can reach as high as 140ft…

Fairy Falls

We then decided to do a hike to Fairy Falls, which was a fairly easy 5-mile hike to a 200-ft waterfall. The first part of the trail actually took you to a viewing platform where you could get a birds eye view of the Grand Prismatic Spring which we’d seen earlier…

…the trail then moved on through a pine forest to the falls, but annoyingly, about a few minutes after we arrived at the falls it started hammering down with rain, therefore we didn’t stay too long, but long enough that we got pretty soaked.

We then headed back to the Old Faithful area to grab a coffee (and dry off!) in one of the lodges, named ‘The Old Faithful Inn’ owing to its proximity to the geyser…literally next door! It was a really old fashioned style lodge and had these really comfortable rocking chairs to sit in along an upper balcony, and there was even a pianist playing in the lobby too which we enjoyed as we had our coffees. It’s funny as when it’s near to a geyser eruption time, the lobby gets deserted as everyone rushes out to see it. We’d already seen it earlier so remained in our comfy and warm seats.

West Thumb Geyser Basin

We wanted to do one further thing before we headed home so we opted to head to the West Thumb Geyser basin which is the largest geyser basin located on the shores of Yellowstone Lake. There are a number of hot springs, one of which drops to a depth of around 53ft, and steam vents in this area, and again you can access them all via a boardwalk.

The pools actually looked very inviting, clear, blue and warm – but way too hot to get in, scolding 80 C at best, many of them bubbling and boiling!

That’s about it from our first full day in Yellowstone. It was a shame the weather was slightly damp, but it’s the first rain we have had on this trip so can’t complain too much. Think we may have to contend with more rain during our stay in this park but hopefully it won’t stop us from doing anything.

More from us soon.

Lucy