Yellowstone National Park Part 1

In honor of national park week, I'm doing a series of posts on national parks I have visited. Today's post will be on Yellowstone National Park. As an extreme lover of all things nature and scenery, national parks hold a special place in my life. Yellowstone National Park has been my favorite park so far (though I've only visited a very small portion of parks).



Yellowstone National Park has much to offer during your visit and a lot can be seen in the first few days if you visit the figure eight road (The Grand Loop ) through the park. As you go through the park and take everything in, you can definitely see why this was the named the first national park in the US.



Through this road, you can visit Roaring Mountain, Norris Geyser, Mammoth Hot Springs, Canyon Village (where you can see the lower and upper falls), Sulphur Caldron, mud volcano, Old Faithful, Grand Prismatic Spring, Morning glory pool and so much more.

On our way, we made a stay over in Salt Lake City since we were driving in from Las Vegas. Lucky for us, we ran into a group of folks that had just come from the park and told us the south entrance (where we were headed) was still closed due to the amount of snow build up. I came to visit in May and I'm from the south which makes the concept of snow is hard to grasp, so to hear that there was still so much snow was kind of a shock. Plans were rearranged and we decided to go to the west entrance.

This turned out to be a perfect choice because we ended up staying at this awesomely cute hotel called the Stagecoach Inn. The lobby is full of the animals that walk the park and the rooms are spacious and comfortable. It was by far the coolest hotel I've stayed in before.



After checking-in, we immediately took off to the entrance of the park. I was so excited and couldn't wait to see what the road ahead held. Within minutes of driving, I had already seen my first elk and buffalo. It was mind blowing to just think how these animals rule the area and go about as they please.



I'm not too sure what I was thinking at this moment, seeing as how there are more injuries per year due to bison attacks than any other wild animal in Yellowstone. People tend to loose their cautious nature when it comes to these animals because it looks like they won't hurt you and that their slow. Bison can run up to 30 mph and reach up to 2,000 pounds. But you have to admit, it's a pretty cool picture. Buffalo are also the number one reason for traffic jams in the park, which we experienced several times throughout our few days there.



Our first stop on our Yellowstone adventure was Old Faithful. We pulled into the parking lot just as one of the eruptions began and couldn't make it over fast enough to see the whole. We got to wait around until the next eruption, which gave us time to learn about Old Faithful and exactly what it is. Old Faithful is a geyser and was the first to receive its name in the park. General Washburn gave it the name because of its predictable nature. The geyser erupts every 60-90 minutes depending on the duration of the eruption. The height of the eruption averages at about 130 feet and can release anywhere from 3,700 to 8,400 gallons of water.



Next stop was Midway Geyser Basin. This is where the Grand Prismatic Spring is located among other beautiful geysers.





It was difficult to see the spring because the weather was still a bit chilly and the water is very hot, so there was a lot of steam. There were so many different colors in the water due to the bacteria. The ground was covered in colors of reds, yellows and oranges.



We spent the rest of the day walking around some of the trails we happened to come across and watching the geysers going off.