The scenery on the boardwalk at the Old Faithful visitor center was just as beautiful and inspiring as the main attraction itself. The trail goes past Castle Geyser, Beehive Geyser, Daisy Geyser, Grand Geyser, among others that erupt just as impressively as the big one although at many different intervals.
Remember our stop just yesterday at Thermopolis? (really, a couple of posts ago) Does any of this hot pot, natural spring landscape look familiar? Similar underground activity at work here.
There is a long boardwalk over delicate natural features. Some of the surfaces cannot support the weight of people. Some are gooey, some are deep holes!
Imagine this: my great Uncle Andy worked here around the time of the depression at what he called a “dude ranch.” He and my grandfather and the whole family grew up in the west (Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Arizona). They were very much cowboys. One summer Andy, who at the time was probably late teen or early twenty-something, got the job of bear wrangler. Back then everyone around, including the park service, would feed the bears in order to bring them in close for the ‘dudes’ and tourists. Can you imagine that being done now?
At that same time, early in the history of Yellowstone, visitors walked all over the hot spring and geyser areas. How many people burned themselves? Or drowned? Or how many uneducated ‘dudes’ drank the sulfur strong water? Can you imagine walking on these features today? Not really, although somewhere else on the earth someone probably has a feature like this on their property that they and the animals traverse without a second thought. I personally don’t think that would cause any damage on a private scale. However, reserving the broad landscape here considering the throngs that visit during the summer does make sense.
Sadly, we did not go to Mammoth on this trip. Just leaves a reason to stop in again on our way back to Kansas to retrieve more of our belongings.
Look closely at the main stream on this geyser, you can see the water swirl as it is ejected!
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