Grandma Su's Great Adventure: Geysers and Canyons

Tues, Aug 9

Yellowstone National Park, the world’s largest park of 2.2 million acres, was established in 1872. It sits astride the Continental Divide, and is centered by a 45 by 30 mile Caldera, a smoldering collapsed crater of a major volcano. Geothermal curiosities, such as geysers, hot springs, hissing fumaroles and bubbling mud pools, act as pressure valves for what brews beneath the earth’s crust. Seventy-five percent of the world’s geysers are in Yellowstone.

But the park’s boundaries also enclose craggy peaks, pristine lakes and rivers with thundering waterfalls, deep canyons, grassy plateaus and vast forests. It is home to a variety of wildlife, including bison, elk, deer, bear, coyote, and wolves, to name a few.

Starting out north on the Grand Loop Rd, on a chilly morning, we first came across geysers at Mud Volcano.

Here we also peered into the Dragon’s Breath!

Across the road is Sulphur Caldron, and like most here, these geysers reek of rotten eggs, and many tourists can be seen holding their noses.

Next we crossed Hayden Valley, along the Yellowstone River, where Buffalo roam, causing traffic jams daily!

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone begins at the Upper and Lower Falls, is 24 miles long and up to 1,200 feet deep.

We travelled all the way up to the Roosevelt Lodge, built for a visit by President Teddy Roosevelt, who first decided that this land should be preserved as a National Park.

Old Faithful is the most famous of Yellowstone’s geysers. When it erupts, about every 68 to 98 minutes, it spouts 3,700 to 8,400 gallons of boiling water up to 184 feet high.

Beside it sits the Old Faithful Inn, built in 1903. The 100 year old Inn, a giant log building, set the precedence for the great lodges of the national park system.