Great place to visit. Terrible place to boil eggs.
In a last minute decision, my dad and I decided to visit Yellowstone, NP. This required me to drive from Illinois to pick him up from Minnesota, drop my son off in Colorado with his Oma for his annual summer visit, and then up to Yellowstone. It was a long drive to say the least, but Yellowstone has been a bucket list location for me since I first read about it in National Geographic as a kid. So we loaded up on gas station hot dogs and black coffee and off we went.
While Yellowstone has lived rent free in my head for around 30 years as a pristine, beautiful wilderness where people can enjoy the solitude of nature, it didn’t quite play out that way in reality. This was a valuable lesson in tampering expectations from childhood. Arrival morning, the line at the gate to get in took around 40 minutes, which isn’t too bad really. But once we arrived at the campground, we learned that Yellowstone is not last minute adventure friendly. We very luckily snagged the last campsite, and all we had to sacrifice was quiet. And a view. And privacy. But we were within smelling distance of the restroom, so that was something.
En route to camp, several cars worth of folks were pulled over in a pull off. We popped over as well to see what we were all looking at. “What do you see?” I asked the closest human as I shut my door. “A wolf!” they replied excitedly. My dad and I looked around, and then at each other, because all we saw was a coyote. Once we realized what was happening we got back in the car and continued on our way. I wasn’t in the mood to burst any bubbles.
That’s what their internet friends are for.
Given how crowded everything had been up to this point, we woke up early to get a jump start on checking out the geothermal features. But “early” wasn’t enough. It wasn’t terribly crowded, but it seemed many people had the same thought we did and it quickly got busy. We priortized the Grand Prismatic Spring and Excelsior Geyser Crater as we were getting nervous that it may wind up the only thing we saw.
The beautiful colors around the Grand Prismatic Spring are the result of thermophylic bacteria - that is, bacteria that thrive in hot temperatures. These bacteria clump together to form the famous bacterial mats. Hot springs are a whole ecosystem of incredibly adapted and delicate organisms. A single stick or footprint can undo decades of growth. Unlike geysers which constrict circulation of superheated water and cause dramatic eruptions, hot springs are a bit more chill. Water is not constricted, so hot water rising to the surface constantly cools and sinks, where the water is reheated and pushed back to the surface. While hot springs are the most common geothermal feature at Yellowstone, there are over 10,000 total features which also includes fumeroles (features with so little water that it boils off and turns to steam before reaching the surface) and mudpots (hot springs or fumeroles that are highly acidic and have limited water).
So while you may not get to see all the hotspot hot spots, you are sure to see some pretty awesome geothermal action. Overall, Yellowstone was a beautiful place and well worth the visit. Just make sure you plan ahead for the best time.
