Yellowstone Inn

Mon, 6/30/08

Yellowstone NP, WY: Another pretty day. Decided to drive up to the Old Faithful area. Went over Craig pass and on the other side it was really warm—well, comparatively warm. It was in the low 80s when we got to Old Faithful. I wasn’t looking forward to this because I figured it would be mobbed with people—and it was. But we walked over to the veranda of the beautiful, rustic Old Faithful Lodge and got ourselves a couple of chairs and pulled them up to the railing for a beautiful view of the geyser. I went inside and bought a couple of sandwiches, some drinks, and some cookies, and we settled in to watch the eruption. The sky was getting threatening but we were under cover at least. And it went off pretty much on schedule. Thankfully we ate before the eruption because after everyone headed into the lodge for something to eat. It was packed and the lines were endless. So we walked over to the older and more historic Old Faithful Inn and explored this fantastic lobby. We were going to walk the trail through the geyser basin, but it was looking iffy weatherwise, so we headed back to where we were parked and on the way saw Old Faithful go off again. Drove back making many stops along the way. The Firehole River and Firehole Lake are pretty spectacular. We saw an elk carcass on the way to Firehole Lake. Stopped at another hot spring and walked around for a while and drove down Firehole River Canyon road. This canyon is spectacular with vertical cliffs of about 1000 ft. and this cascading river at the bottom. Also took the Virginia Rapids side road which was really scary—no guard rails and a straight drop into the canyon. Beautiful though. And we stopped at Gibbon Falls. There are so many beautiful streams, falls, and river valleys in this park. On the way back along the Yellowstone River we saw a beaver. Great day.