Bubble, bubble toil and trouble…

August 23, 2020 by Amy Welborn

On to Yellowstone.

Which is…amazing. At least the geyser areas. To me, the experience has been a bit like seeing the Grand Canyon was.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. I’ve seen pictures. It’s big. Got it.”

And then you go and…well..it’s grand.

Same here in Yellowstone. I’ve seen pictures. I’ve seen hot springs here and in other countries (Italy, Honduras). I’ve seen bubbling mud (Sicily). Old Faithful? Sure. Iconic. Got it.

And then you go and…well…

I’ll just start by saying that once we got into the park, we headed for the West Thumb area, on the way to our first couple of nights near Old Faithful. Saw our first little tiny (relatively) bubbling pile of mud and I immediately thought…Okay, when is this whole damn thing going to just blow and take us all out?

Because the energy in just that small hole was…astonishing. And I tried to imagine all of that happening times infinity in this caldera and there’s one more reason to get right with God.

Also, after a day of wandering these features, you immediately understand the mythological associations of the underworld, death and satan with steaming, sulfurous cracks and holes in the ground. Of course harmful things dwell down there.

Shall I trace the day? I’ll try although the wi-fi here is terrible. And my T-Mobile doesn’t work at all. Wifi is far worse than it was in Grand Teton NP (neither had wi-fi in cabins, of course, but the Grand Teton NP – Colter Bay – wifi, where they had it (offices, laundry, outside of stores) was fast and not annoying. This is annoying. At least it was tonight, but perhaps that’s because everyone on the property was trying to access it.

(And don’t say…oh, just get away from it all….Guys…I’m a single parent with many irons in the fire, a kid just restarting college in a time during which every day various schools are “pivoting”….so yeah, I want to stay in touch.)

So, quickly:

Leave Grand Teton. Get into Yellowstone. Stop at Moose Falls. Tell some guy that the berry he was wondering about was huckleberry, then praying I was right as he popped it in his mouth. Stop at Lewis Canyon overlook, marvel at the devastation of the 1988 fire, still evident 32 years later. Wonder how much 3 big Yeti coolers being trailered by a family ahead of us could possibly cost.

Get to West Thumb, marvel at our first geysers and springs and such.

Stop at the Kepler Cascades.

On to Old Faithful which, at 3 in the afternoon my son kept saying, “This reminds me of Disney World.” Yes, it was crowded. But it thinned out mightily after five, and our early evening visits to features outside the Old Faithful area were quite pleasant. No, we weren’t alone, but they weren’t packed, and everyone just seemed so….happy. Really. Just content to be out and about and seeing beautiful, strange and wonderous things with family and friends.

The negative here is that services are greatly reduced. I don’t mind no daily housekeeping at all– stay out of my room! – but the stores on the property – which are the only stores around for people, you know, staying here – closed at six. SIX! Even the Grand Teton shops stayed open until 8. But I understand they are understaffed. It seems it is a combination of not really being able to plan staffing, considering no one knew how the summer was going to pan out, as well as restrictions on the normal dormitory- type accommodations for the seasonal workers. What I read is that they can’t share rooms, so that cuts possible staffing by half. That may or may not be true, but not only are those services reduced, many of the hotels are closed and, sadly some of those fantastic NPS visitors’ centers (like the one here at Old Faithful – closed) and there are no ranger programs.

But anyway, on to the water bubbling, erupting and surging from the earth around here.

It’s so very strange. The Old Faithful area is desolate and dry except for the geysers and ……We arrived just as Old Faithful was to erupt, and it did not disappoint. We then (since the room wasn’t ready) took a hike up a nearby hill from which one could watch the eruption from above. Just as impressive from up there. We then wandered around the other geysers and ….in the area (180 of the 200/250 in Yellowstone are around here), finally got into our room (and I say finally because it took two sets of keys and a security person to figure out what was wrong with the lock), chilled for just a few minutes, then hit the road for some geyser areas that are in easy driving distance. First the Black Sand area.

Which, as I walked up to it, brought to mind some sort of hellscape. Sulferous odor, bubbling liquids everywhere that would kill you instantly if you tumbled in them, steam rising from the ground, dead trees standing in dark, still pools. Beautiful, fascinating, but still an interesting reminder as to why “sulfur” and underground are associated with evil and death.

Up the road to the Grand Prismatic Spring and the associated Excelsior Geyser. Gorgeous. Warm steam rising from Excelsior like a spa. From ground the level, the Grand Prismatic is impressive, but we think it will be even more so above, so we’ll try that today or tomorrow.

It was, by that time, getting dark. So we returned to the Old Faithful area, found food – halfway decent noodle bowl from the cafeteria that wasn’t a burger, at least. Successful re-entry into room.

Not many photos because of the wi-fi. I wanted to artfully distributed them throughout the post, but to heck with that. And not too many right now. Come back in a week and perhaps I’ll update with more photos. This has taken too long, time to get back to the room, awaken the traveling companion and rent some bikes.