Road Trip, Part IX

Sunday, May 29: Broke camp at Bridge Bay in the morning and drove south and west towards West Thumb, stopping at various geysers that served as an opening act for the main show of the day – Old Faithful.

Unlike the majority of geysers Old Faithful, as its name implies, erupts at surprisingly regular intervals about seventy-four minutes apart. It is also one of the largest geysers at Yellowstone, blowing steam and vapour to a height of more than a hundred and forty feet over several minutes.

There was already a large crowd gathered around the geyser before I arrived and I found it faintly amusing that so many people (including me) were waiting patiently for what was essentially a hole in the ground to blow off some steam. (I counted licence plates from no less than twelve states in just one section of the parking lot.)

When the geyser erupted though it was certainly a spectacular sight. Great billowing clouds of steam accompanied a hissing sound that a knot of very annoyed king cobras would have been proud of. And before I knew it, a plume of warm, moist air and fine spray of water fogged up my sunglasses, my camera and camcorder lenses and made further viewing impossible.

What is most fascinating about geysers is the subterranean mechanism that causes them. Three components need to be present for geysers to exist: an abundant water supply, an intense heat source and some ingenious plumbing. While the first two are fairly common, geyser-capable underground plumbing needs to be both water-tight and able to withstand high pressure. This is far rarer, but does make for a great show when present.

The rest of the day was not as much fun as the previous day, primarily due to several large groups of tourists that swarmed all over the park and made peace and quiet hard to come by. But I still enjoyed watching a young elk graze, gradually shedding his thick winter coat, his new antlers still covered with life-giving velvet as they grew in preparation for the battles of the summer mating season.

Bear tracks in a patch of cement. The peaceful solitude of a man fly-fishing in the Gibbon River. The discovery that many of vibrant hues that make geothermal features so beautiful are temperature-dependent and come from minute bacteria and algae that live in the warm, mineral-rich waters. Of such small pleasures is life made.

That evening, after I set up camp at Madison and had dinner, I went for an excellent ranger program that dealt with what the ranger called “Yellowstone University.” The phrase was literal as well as figurative, referring to actual credit courses that are offered over the summer and the incredible amount of learning that a few days in the park imparts to any visitor.