Yellowstone

Aug. 18-19, 2002

After the Tetons, we headed north to Yellowstone so we could have dinner at the Old Faithful Inn. We wanted to add it to the list of national park inns and hotels that we have eaten in. Besides, we had not seen the interior of the building before, since it was always closed when we were in the Old Faithful area for cross-country skiing.

The Old Faithful building is very impressive; the lobby is open all the way to the top, so you see a massive superstructure of logs. The dinner was excellent and the prices were very reasonable; I had expected to pay more for the privilege of eating there.

This is the new Snow Lodge; the one used by the Bunch has been removed. The new lodge looks very nice. Is it getting to be time for another Bunch skiing trip to Yellowstone?

Old Faithful geyser going off on schedule. The hillside behind the geyser still shows the effects of the forest fires of 1988.

Castle geyser erupting. It goes off about every 10-12 hours. We were lucky to see it, especially since it went off an hour and a half late. We were just about to give up when it started. It was very impressive, with the water reaching 60-90 feet in the air. It is not as high as Old Faithful, but it seems to eject more water. Thirty minutes later it was still erupting with no decrease in the intensity, but we left at that point out of boredom, so we are not sure how long the eruption lasted.

Since we were in Yellowstone in 1988 during the forest fires, it was interesting to see how the burned areas have come back since then. Some of the burn areas have a good crop of new lodgepole pines about 6-8 feet high, while other burn areas, such as  the one shown here, are much slower in regenerating. We saw smoke from one forest fire this summer; it was in the south east corner of Yellowstone, which is a very remote area. It was started by lightning, so the rangers are letting it burn. Their philosophy is, "Nature started it, so let nature put it out." In this way they hope to maintain the natural cycle of forests, rather get into situation before 1988, when the forest became a tinder box because they had been repressing fire. We hiked through one area near Yellowstone lake that didn't burn in 1988, but it looks like it could easily do so. The lodgepole pines were so dense that nothing could grow underneath them and the forest floor was full of dead pine trees.