Sept 17th: Yellowstone Old Faithful Inn to Grant Village 45km, 691m

Bison

Elk

‘twas a cosy night in our one bed. This was the first time we had not been able to get a twin bedded room. It is hard work sleeping on the edge of a mattress and trying not to move so we were up early. TimB went off to take pictures as the sun came up and I set off to do the laundry. Our Inn was too old to have a laundry so I had to walk to the more modern Snow Lodge on the other side of a humungous car park at the back of our Inn.    

Castle Geyser

TimB was finished before I was but we were still able to get packed and out before 10 o’clock. We watched Old Faithful erupt again at 10 and then went into the Visitor Education Centre to learn about fumaroles, mud pots, hot springs and, of course, geysers. Fully mentally equipped we set off to explore the Upper Geyser Basin, the Biscuit Basin and the Black Sand Basin. After seeing these three areas we were suffering from geyser overload and TimB had 200 pictures of steam and hot water so we did not ride up to see the Midway and Lower Geyser Basins. In any case, it was getting towards mid afternoon and we had to ride the 30km back over two passes to get to Grant Village. Two miles before G.V. we visited the West Thumb Geyser Basin (just to get some more pictures) and were treated to our first close up of some park wildlife.

Sapphire Pool

TimG after a big lunch