FIFTY STATES AWAYThe town of West Yellowstone Montana, is really neatly laid out little town and quite quaint. Its hard to imagine how packed it must be at peak times of the year. We felt lucky to have had the chance to stay here it’s like having a secret slice of the best pie ever before anyone else realises. After a comfortable nights sleep we were ready to undertake today’s adventures. Upon loading and starting the truck we were alerted to the fact that the truck has decided it needs an oil change, the very problem that we had with the Crysler. We are rather attached to the truck so we’ve decided to find a convenient point to pop it in somewhere rather than swap it out.
We only had a short 5 to 10 minute drive from our accommodation and it wasn’t long until we were entering Yellowstone National Park. I‘d been looking forward to this one and as we entered the gates I felt super excited we were mainly here to see the famous geysers but did end up getting more than we bargained for.
We first drove to the lower geyser basin, to view what’s known as the paint pots. This it turns out is a sensible name for what we saw. In each of the round crusts of rock was some very gloopy mud that was being bubbled and spat up into the air from the pressure below. We trundled on around past the paint pots, on what was essentially unrailed decking, it was slightly worrysome that you could just potentially fall off into the boiling bacteria filled water. We finally came to whats known as the great fountain geyser. This particular one was spilling out some rather thick and smelly clouds, that we were keen to get away from.
We got back to the car in order to visit the extremely famous and well photographed Grand Prismatic Spring. On the way to the spring we noticed a big commotion there were many people stood by the side of road all looking in the same direction, and a number of park rangers standing by, as we passed by we saw why! A fully grown black bear was foraging in the bushes ahead. Ben was very nifty and managed to pull up and park just across the road. We got out and made a run for it but unfortunately the bear had managed to slip off into the woods. It was still incredible to see even if I didn’t get a photo.
Bubbling with amazement we headed back to the car to continue round to the spring, it’s insane to think that we haven’t even made it there yet, but have encountered so much nature. Parking up we were in for another sort walk across a bridge where boiling water from the spring was pouring out of either side of the rock. Again it was another flat, non barriered deck to walk around on, with a lot of people passing us. It was interesting to learn that it’s actually the bacteria that gives the grand prismatic spring it’s vibrant colours and we’re excited to see the signature orange band around the spring through the billowing steam. The water inside the springs are always a stunning bright blue colour.
The day was far from over as we headed to the upper basin to glimpse the most regularly erupting geyser in the park, aptly named ‘The Old Faithful’. This spectacular geyser erupts roughly every 90 minutes and we were just in time. We patiently took our seats in between a group of Chinese to our left and Americans to our right. One guy in the Chinese group excitedly exclaimed to the rest of his group “Any minute now there will be a huge erection… Err eruption, I mean Eruption” this had the majority of us nearby snickering like school children, he then proceeded to make other jokes of this kind which were pretty entertaining. The geyser was late to erupt and the Americans not to be outdone came out with some of their own pretty funny jokes, including stating that someone must have forgotten to turn the pump on! We waited a short while longer and things got going! It was amazing to see the hot steam spew out of geyser. It was all going well until a slight shift in wind direction sent a large amount of steam our way soaking us all in the smelly rotten egg water! As you can imagine we all did a bit of a runner at this point.
It was an amazing day packed full with an amazing array of geothermal features and wild life. We constantly had to stop along the road for the wandering Buffalo and we’re treated to a glimpse of a small baby Buffalo running along with it’s mum.
