Things To Do in Yellowstone National Park's Upper Geyser Basin: Trip, Day 2

     Yellowstone National Park, the first national park in the world, is located mostly in Wyoming, though parts extend into Idaho and Montana. It is famous for both its geothermal activity and its natural beauty and animals.  It is home to 2/3's of the worlds geysers and the worlds most famous geyser, Old Faithful. It is a staggering 2,219,791 acres and home to 2,430 bison.

One of the most famous parts of Yellowstone is the Upper Geyser Basin.Upper Geyser Basin is the world's largest and most concentrated geyser basin.

Among the notable geysers In the Upper Basin:

Old Faithful: Old Faithful is, undoubtedly, the most famous geyser in the entire world. Its moniker was coined in 1870 because of its regularly occurring eruptions, one every 91 minutes.

Castle Geyser: Castle geyser is thousands of years old and rest upon the remains of even older geysers. It is named for its distinctly castle shaped cone.

Grotto Geyser: Grotto geyser is famous more for its cone then its eruptions. Grotto geyser has an extremely spooky shape due to the cone having swallowed up various tress during its younger years.

Riverside Geyser: Riverside Geyser is one of the most picturesque geysers. During its 20 minute eruptions, a 75 foot column of water arches gracefully over the river.

My Experience

     After hitting the sack at old Faithful Inn, a very rustic, charming place, we fell asleep immediately. The next day, though, we were up bright and early to walk about 20 steps and see Old Faithful erupt.

      Since, however, the next eruption was not for another hour, we had some delicious breakfast at the restaurant inside the Inn. Since we still had some time before the eruption, we decided to explore the nearby Upper Geyser basin.   After peering at various geothermal features, we hurried back to the boardwalk near Beehive Geyser to watch a magnificent eruption of  Old Faithful. 

     We got a lucky break after watching Old Faithful. We had front row seats for a much rarer eruption of Beehive Geyser,  which launched water 200 feet into the air, almost twice that of  Old Faithful. Try not to get wet! And unlike Old Faithful, Beehive's boardwalk lets you get much closer to the action.

     After getting drenched to the bone, we forayed much deeper into the Upper Geyser Basin, looking at interesting geothermal features like Morning Glory Pool, which was colored much like a sunrise. We stared openly at the incredibly weird Grotto Geyser, which, as a young geyser swallowed a couple trees. I looked wishfully at Castle Geyser, which looked much like 15th century castle.

     Inside Upper Geyser Basin, we watched an eruption of Riverside, a geyser on the far side of a river. This eruption lasts for 20 minutes, but we did not watch the whole thing. Word of advice, if you have under 10's traveling in your entourage, this would be a good place to turn back. They get tired just around here. 

I sent matching covers to myself and another 2 of my philatelic friends. Let me know if you are one of them.!!