Norris Basin and Upper Geyser Basin

This morning we started off at the Norris Basin. This has a lower portion called the porcelain basin and an upper portion called the back basin. There is quite an elevation difference between the two. There are a lot of geysers and springs in this big basin area. Here are just a few.

Porcelain Basin overlook

sampling of colors from the over wash of one of the porcelain basin geysers

Emerald Spring in the back basin

Steamboat Geyser…everyone was waiting for this to go off…this was just some small spurts. It goes off less than once a week, so we didn’t wait around.

Vixen Geyser: in the back basin. We stopped to take pictures of this one because it was unique looking and then it erupted. It kept going for a good 5 minutes and went 15-20 feet up, which was surprising for such a small geyser.

Scenery from the back basin.

We took a side road to Firehole Falls. This was couple-mile, one-way drive with nice scenery. We took a quick stop to take pictures of the falls.

Silex Spring

We tried going to see the Grand Prismatic Geyser, but it was packed out, so we headed over to Old Faithful. We encountered a bit of a traffic jam as people were stopping to take pictures of a solitary bison by the side of the road, but we eventually got there.

We managed to literally walk up right as Old Faithful was erupting. Managed to pull out the camera just in time and get a few quick pictures, but we weren’t actually positioned well. We did manage to get the predicted times for some of the nearby geysers and set out along the trails around Old Faithful.

We decided to walk back to Daisy Geyser and try to catch it. The predicted times are all +/- various timeframes. Daisy was +/- 30 minutes. We waited out the +30…all of it, but we were there. While we waited, we could see, in the distance, Old Faithful, Grand, and, we think, Beehive. Grand was amazing and Beehive was impressive, too.

We then went to wait for Castle Geyser. Both Daisy and Castle came recommended by an app we have been using, hence our choices. We waited quite a while for Castle, but it was worth the wait. I recommend waiting on the side with Tortoiseshell Spring. While waiting for Castle, there were 3-4 small, active small geysers behind Tortoiseshell Spring to watch from time-to-time.

Castle Geyser

After dinner, we decided to try Grand Prismatic again, figuring the crowds would be thinner. They were. I was excited because I distinctly remember seeing this as a kid and was looking forward to seeing it again. We made it out on the boardwalk and the entire spring was covered in steam. We couldn’t see any of it. It was reminiscent of trying to see Denali in Alaska, but Denali did clear for us to see for a few minutes. No go here. I did take some pictures of the area around Grand Prismatic, but to see what the actual spring looks like, Google is your friend. There is an overlook (1 mile hike up, and then back again), but there still would be the steam covering the spring, so it didn’t seem worth the climb.