The Ben Vacation 2015 – Yellowstone: The 2015 Version

Yellowstone Campsite

When Ben chose Yellowstone as the final national park for our vacation, I wasn’t surprised by the choice because we have visited Yellowstone Park practically every time we’ve visited my parents, but I was also intrigued because our approach to the park would be entirely different.  Our usual approach, coming from Cokeville, is north through Jackson Hole, the Tetons and the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway.  This makes for a long drive because the speed limit drops to 45 mph from the Tetons on through.  When I’ve ended up traveling behind a RV (a very common occurrence), the speed drops even more until the RV pulls over to let people pass. L  Once we’ve entered the park through the South Entrance, it’s at least another hour’s drive to reach the Upper Geyser Basin where Old Faithful is located.  Last year, we stayed at the Jackson Hole KOA and left at a fairly decent time in the morning and still didn’t reach the geyser until about 11:30.  By staying in West Yellowstone, we were only 7 miles (or so) from the park’s West Entrance and then not too far away from the geyser basins.  My hope, as I planned our visit beforehand, was to reach Old Faithful in 35 to 45 minutes.

Deer crossing the Firehole River

Old Faithful

After showering (while Crescent City had the best campground, this KOA has the best shower/bathrooms; separate rooms that can be shut and locked for privacy—it’s great), we went to the camp’s general store to see if there was anything we wanted to eat for dinner.  The plan was that this would be our final campfire dinner of the trip.  We found some soups that were the “heat water, let sit for 5 minutes and eat” variety.  By this time, I don’t think we were too terribly picky about what we were going to eat for dinner (although Isaac wasn’t particularly thrilled with the choice).  After making our selections, we hopped in the car, drove toward the West Entrance … and ran smack into a traffic jam!  Ugh! L  Not the type of start I was looking for!  As I assessed the situation, I saw that the problem seemed to stem from a sign claiming to be an “express lane.”  Here's a lesson from me to always remember: Express lanes aren't!  Rare are the times when I find myself actually moving quickly in an express lane.  I'm convinced they're designed to give people the impression that they are moving quickly (like Disneyland lines), but the truth is they are slower than all the other lanes.  I must admit, the sign almost caught me because its wording made it seem that everyone with a National Parks Pass (which I purchased at Sequoia) or a receipt had to go into the "express lane."  Deciding not to fall for the hook, I moved into the shortest line I could find.  When I pulled up to the gate, handed the ranger my pass and showed her my driver's license, she let me go right through—express lane my eye.  Just as I had hoped, we made it to the Old Faithful parking lot in 40 minutes even after stopping to watch 3 deer cross the Firehole River and scamper up a hillside (very cool).

Lion Group Geyser

Castle Geyser

Ben & Isaac 2007

I don't know if the geysers are more active in the morning, but based on our last two visits it seems that way.  Last year and this year we reached the Upper Geyser Basin while it was still morning and we've seen activity from geysers other than Old Faithful.  Last year we saw Grand, Beehive, Fountain, Jet, and Clepsydra Geysers erupting during our tour through the park.  This morning, after watching Old Faithful show off, we then saw one of the geysers in the Lion Group erupt (there are four geysers in this group: Lion, Lioness, Big Cub and Little Cub; I'm not sure which one of the four was roaring J).  Later when we walked to Castle Geyser, we found it shooting out water (usually we only see steam).  Opportunities to see more geysers erupt than just Old Faithful is one of the reasons we like to come to Yellowstone; it makes the familiar appear new.  From Castle, we walked along the boardwalk and viewed the various pools and geysers.  We made a stop at Grand Geyser; described as one of the largest, predictable geysers in the world.  The problem is that the predictions are basically a rough, 3 hour guesstimate—today it was 12:45 to 3:15.  If we'd had more time, I suppose we could have waited patiently to see it erupt, but we needed to keep moving.  As we walked back to the Old Faithful area, we crossed a bridge spanning the Firehole River and I was reminded of a favorite picture I took of Ben and Isaac during a visit to Yellowstone in 2007.  They’re holding Gatorade bottles and someone said something funny right before I snapped the picture and Ben cracked up.  The boys actually suggested we try to recreate that picture (after a fashion) as we crossed the bridge.  I told them a spontaneous picture like that can't be recreated—it would look posed and fake.  Some pictures just can't be duplicated, and that is probably for the better. J

Sawmill Geyser

Over the years we have developed a certain routine of frequented stops: Old Faithful, Fountain Paint Pots, Upper and Lower Falls and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.  This year we wanted to mix in some places that we hadn't seen before, or that we hadn't seen in a long time.  The first new place we wanted to try was Black Sand Basin.  It is very close to the Old Faithful area—one of those places that can be easily missed if one’s focus is solely on Old Faithful.  The parking lot, however, was not very large and it was packed to the gills!  I tried two passes to see if a spot would open up, but no joy.  Ben wants to come back and see Old Faithful one more time before we start our push toward Cokeville.  If we have time, we'll give this place another try.  Biscuit Basin didn't look Ben-friendly (a few steep ascents to get to where the action is) and the Midway Geyser Basin was closed for parking lot repaving, so we went with the familiar and stopped at the Fountain Paint Pot.

Fountain Paint Pot

"Hot Chocolate Geyser"

One of the things I like about this particular area is the pinkish hue of the paint pot.  Even though its bubbling mud, this paint pot (more than the others I’ve seen) gives me an actual impression of paint—that I could just reach down with a couple of paint buckets and slap it against the side of my house. J  There was also a new little area that I didn't remember from last year that had become active in the geyser area.  I don’t know how long it had been churning, but the water was still quite muddy (not as thick as the paint pot area, but not so long established that it was clear either.  In fact, the more we watched it bubble and steam, I decided it should be named the “Hot Chocolate Geyser.”  I thought the name was clever; but I may have been the only one. J  The Fountain Paint Pot geysers weren’t as active today as they were when we visited a year ago, but it was nice to walk along the boardwalk and watch the splashing of the Spasm Geyser.  At one point as we returned to the car, Ben needed me to help him out as “human cane” and I found myself reminiscing about last year when we visited this area and how much Ben has improved physically in the year that has passed.

Porcelain Basin

Back in the car, we confronted the question, where do we go next?  Out came the park map.  There is another paint pot area (Artists Paintpots) north of Madison Junction, but it was rejected when we pulled into the parking lot and I remembered the steep ascent needed to get up to where the pots are located—not Ben friendly.  Up the road from those paint pots, Jennifer pointed out an area called the Norris Geyser Basin.  Here was a place we had not visited.  Intrigued by this new prospect, we drove to the entrance of the basin ... and got stuck in a pile up of cars that would have rivaled the 405 freeway on a Friday night! L  Okay, I'm exaggerating, but once I was stuck in this mess there was no way to escape.  It took us about 10 to 15 minutes to inch our way into the actual parking lot.  I was very worried we would have another Black Sand situation.  Suddenly, like an oasis in the desert, an open parking space appeared as I turned the car around the corner (cue the heavenly choir)!  Quickly, before the spot became a mirage, I pulled into the space and parked.

Emerald Spring

Steamboat Geyser

Once we got out of the car however, we were next confronted with the task of figuring out whether this new area was Ben-friendly or not.  There were two divisions to the Norris Geyser Basin: Porcelain Basin and Back Basin.  Porcelain was the shorter route, Back the longer.  To reach the head of both trails a short walk to a museum was required.  When we first saw this pathway, we began to wonder if our joy at arriving would be short-lived because it looked a bit sketchy and the “helpful” map made it appear quite long.  I decided to scout ahead and found that once it made a turn (which caused us to not see the end of the trail), I quickly came up the museum—problem one solved.  Once there, we realized that Porcelain Basin required some major descents and ascents, but Back Basin seemed fairly level.  We decided to give the second basin a try and I'm glad we did because we saw some fun new sights.  Two highlights: Emerald Spring — so named because the yellow sulfur deposits lining the pool turns the blue water green; and Steamboat Geyser — the world's tallest active geyser (so the sign said) with eruptions up to 300 feet high (only it's unpredictable; the last major eruption occurred last year)—it was spitting some water, but no huge blow-out.  When we returned to the museum, I took an overview recording of Porcelain Basin.

Mammoth Hot Springs

Our final stop for the day was Mammoth Hot Springs.  I first visited this area as a young boy, several years before we moved to Wyoming.  As I recall, my parents borrowed a truck and a camper shell from someone and we spent several days in Yellowstone in the mid-70s (funny thing, we moved to Wyoming and were only 2 1/2 hours from Yellowstone, but I didn't go back until 1994).  I remember that Mammoth Hot Springs enthralled me.  At the time, the calcium rich water flowed over a series of terraces that were very white.  They seemed to sparkle like diamonds in the sunlight and I thought they were very beautiful.  In the years that followed, however, the water flowing over these particular terraces dried up either because of earthquake activity or a shift in the water flow.  When I returned to Mammoth with my family when the boys were young (Ben 5 and Isaac 2), the white and wonderful terraces I remembered were dry and crumbling while the active areas were brown, yellow and orange with algae and didn't jibe with my memory. L  My disappointment reflects in the fact that it’s taken me 13 years to want to return.  The terrace area of my youth is still inactive, dry and disintegrating, but what we saw in the Palette Spring area was different than before because of the new deposits that had occurred in the intervening years.  Also, my “eye” had changed over the years because I found the different colors striking and quite fascinating.  The rest of the area required steep hikes to reach.  Ben considered climbing them, but finally opted against it.

We had considered visiting the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, but it was getting late.  With Ben spent and all of us happy with the places we'd visited, we decided to call it a day and return to the KOA.  As we were driving back to camp, however, none of us were too terribly interested in eating the food we'd purchased earlier in the day.  For me, the thought of building a campfire wasn't all that entertaining either.  Suddenly, Jennifer said, "What about the pizza place in the general store?"  Earlier, we had noticed a pizza restaurant in the building.  "Sounds good to me," I replied and there was much rejoicing. J  We purchased a 16" pizza with four toppings of our choice (pepperoni, Canadian bacon, sausage and olives) for a reasonable price; it was also topped with lots of cheese.  Yummy!  As we were getting ready for bed, Isaac asked if he could sleep in the car.  He was tired of ending up on the ground each morning.  I set him up in the passenger seat and we went to bed.