Like No Place Else on Earth – Yellowstone’s Hydrothermal Features

In 1872, when Yellowstone was made our first National Park, there were other places with scenery as beautiful, and there were certainly other places with abundant wildlife, but there was nowhere else with the numbers of geysers, hot springs and boiling mud pots.

The first place we visited when we came to Yellowstone was Old Faithful. Old Faithful is just one of 500 geysers in the park. It is neither the largest nor the most frequent geyser, but it is the largest regular geyser and has become the symbol of Yellowstone. It erupts every 90 minutes or so and can be predicted within 10 minutes. The National Park Service puts the upcoming predictions online. The morning we drove in there was no posted prediction until we were in the park. When I got phone service back and could access the prediction it was 9:29 AM +/- 10 minutes. Our ETA after a two and a half hour drive was about 9:15. We were right on time and so was Old Faithful. This photo, at the height of the eruption (over 100 feet) was taken at 9:33 AM.

After Old Faithful’s eruption we walked the trail through the upper geyser basin.

There are a number of boiling springs,

small geysers,

and thermal pools along a boardwalk that takes you safely up close.

We took the boardwalk and trail north and passed Giant Geyser, which erupts irregularly to 250 feet and steams and boils constantly. It hasn’t erupted yet in 2022, but was fascinating even in its “cooler” phase.

Our goal on this side trip was Morning Glory Pool, a beautiful hot spring about 20 feet in diameter. Adler captured this picture of the vibrantly beautiful pool.

We returned just in time to see Old Faithful erupt again in the distance.

The next morning we went first to see the Grand Prismatic Spring. The oranges surrounding its deep blue pool are from heat loving bacterial mats. It is the third largest hot spring in the world, at 370 feet in diameter and 160 feet deep.

There are other beautiful pools along side it,

and their discharge flows rather dramatically into the aptly named Firehole River.

From there we drove north to the Artists Paint Pot area, one of my favorite trails.

Not only do you get to look down on the multicolored pools and springs below,

but at the top of the ridge you get to see and hear a boiling mud pool!

Our last visit of the day was the Norris Geyser Basin, the hottest and oldest basin in Yellowstone. There we saw the Steamboat Geyser.

If you can’t read the date, we missed the last major eruption by 19 days.

We did get to hear the roar of the Black Growler Fumarole, a steam vent in the Porcelain Basin and one of the hottest thermal features in the park.

On our last day we visited Mammoth Hot Springs, the largest travertine terrace in the world. Parts are dry and others are still wet and growing, gradually changing this immense feature.

Seen up close the flowing springs are intricately beautiful.

With its stunning scenery, abundant wildlife and more than 10,000 hydrothermal features Yellowstone truly is like no place else on earth.