Geyseriffic! (and) Close Encounters of the Buffalo Kind

I think I’ve hit my geothermal limit. We walked more than five miles today in and out of various geothermic phenomena. Geysers, bubbling mud, boiling pools and springs… we saw it all!!

grotto geyser


marmot pokes his head out to enjoy a geothermal facial in the steam


flowers and steam


In addition to all the steaming holes in the ground, we also saw two buffalo up close today. The first one strolled up to Old Faithful before it went off and stayed for another two hours until the next blast. The next one walked right past us as we were waiting for another geyser to erupt.


Buffalo grazing in front of Old Faithful (pre-eruption).



Buffalo passing across from Riverside Geyser.

We saw a lot of other free-roaming wildlife including elk, a coyote, yellow-bellied marmots, some funky green-winged swallow, and pica (there are some squeaking under our cabin right now). Tonight we arrived at Mammoth Hot Springs, so tomorrow morning we will enjoy yet another amazing geothermal experience, before heading over to the petrified forest walk we mistakenly thought was further south in the park.

Oh yeah: it was really windy and cold today. It even snowed on us a few times.

view out the car window as we waited for things to clear a bit

[There are videos from today too, but can't post now... stay tuned to future posts. ]