Having spent the prior day at Yellowstone Canyon, we opted to spend the next day exploring thermal features. We started at the Grant Village visitor center - near our campground - where the visitor's center focused on the 1988 Yellowstone fires and how fires function in the park. Sean did a Junior ranger program and we waded along the shore of yellowstone lake.
Remember the vast numbers of people at Artist's point the previous day, we got some good tips from a ranger on places that wouldn't be too crowded - and they were good tips. Firehole lake road goes past many good large geysers. The biggest - great fountain geyser - only goes about once every day or two and so we didn't plan on sticking around for it - but the rest of the basin is really active. We lucked out as White Dome geyser erupted just as we were driving past. We stopped at Firehole lake, which has a number of small geysers - such as Young hopeful Geyser, and Artesia Geyser.
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| White Dome Geyser and features around Firehole Lake |
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| Enjoying the Firehole lake boardwalk |
The ranger tipped us off for our second spot - Black Sand basin. This was a good tip from the ranger - not too crowded and also not so big to take little kids around. The had great examples of the colorful springs and nearby geysers. Cliff Geyser erupted regularly while we were there. Pools with color included Emerald pool, Rainbow pool, and Sunset lake. Near the entrance, opal pool almost looked like a pale Blue. Sean liked tracing his fingers in the signs while we read out the names to him. He also figured out how to drink from Ben's drink bladder like a hamster.
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| Cliff Geyser |
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| Sean and the colorful pools |
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| Opal Pool and Spouter Geyser |
Since we were nearby, we caught a classic - Old Faithful. We stepped back from the crowds. The visitor center here is the newest and dedicated to explaining geysers. It also had a great kids' section - which was perfect to let Robbie crawl and Sean burn off some energy.
We were about to head back to camp when a storm rolled in :-(. We decided to eat out, but were treated to some amazing rainbows over the area.
We were not able to reserve all three nights in the same campground, so we did have to move that moving to another campsite a more primitive site called Lewis Lake. We had another storm come over and were treated to another rainbow display that was equally spectacular.
While Erin read to Sean in the tent, Robbie and Ben took a relaxing walk around to the south end of the lake, where you could see hot springs across the water.
