Back Through Yellowstone and onto West Yellowstone, MT

Back Through Yellowstone

If you view a map of Yellowstone, you can essentially divide the park into two parts splitting it in half vertically with the east side of the park containing the parts most known for wildlife, the Lamar and Hayden valleys, and the west side of the park encompassing the more active and well-known geologic features, including the geyser basins and Old Faithful and Mammoth Hot Springs, etc.  It is not as if the east side does not have geological sites or the west side does not have any wildlife, but in general this is how it works out.


We planned the trip coming down the east side of the park before the dude ranch and going back up through the west side of the park after we left there.  That would essentially be one pass through to see the wildlife and another pass through to see the geothermal sites.

We stopped at the Visitors' Center / Ranger Station but didn't stay too long because most of the exhibits were dedicated to fires which happened in 1998.  So we pushed on to see Old Faithful and the other geysers in the Upper Geyser Basin.

One of the geysers in the Upper Geyser Basin

We arrived just in time to see Old Faithful do its thing and then spent about 90 minutes walking around a good portion of the rest of the basin taking in some of the other geysers, some of which were active as we passed by.

The kids really did not like the sulphuric smell of the pools and mud.  According to Campbell, it smelled like rotten eggs.

One of the stops later in the day was at the Midway Geyser Basin, where the impressive Grand Prismatic Spring lies along with a number of other hot springs.  When you look online at pictures of this hot spring, it looks very colorful; however, those pictures are always taken at a height and angle that you can't see from the ground.  From our vantage point on the boardwalk surrounding the spring, it was hard to see into the Grand Prismatic Spring because of both the viewing angle and the weather which created a cool ambiance and interesting lighting.

The kids at Grand Prismatic Spring

After touring the west side of the park in a relatively hurried fashion, we finished up at West Yellowstone, MT.  This town is a busy little crossroads into Yellowstone from the west, but is essentially a small town full of over-priced hotels rooms and mediocre, over-priced restaurants.

First impressions: 1. Lots and lots of Chinese people in Yellowstone.  Saw more Chinese people in Yellowstone than we have in all other places combined -- and that includes Hawaii since I am crafting this almost two weeks after the fact.  2. Geologic sites are like churches in Europe -- after a few mud volcanos or geysers they all begin to blend together in your mind and unless they are significantly different from one another, it is hard to remember their actual names.  3. Very little of interest in West Yellowstone.  Bad food, expensive hotels, and not much else.  Whereas it might be interesting to spend some time in Cody, West Yellowstone is a way-station, not a destination.