Old Faithful

A geologist I’m not, but even I can appreciate the boiling, roiling, geo thermal action that encompasses this part of the park. We started early on a crisp morning here. We hiked around small geysers, mud pots, and hot springs. The pictures won’t do it justice.

The landscape is lunar. You’re at almost 7000 feet and it feels like sea level. We are literally standing on a volcano that spits and boils all day and all night. The water in these crystal clear aqua blue pools is 180 degrees, and it’s boiling up and rolling down hillside leaving minerals and bacteria and killing everything in site. It looks like a barren wasteland with boiling pools that smell like sulphur. And then you go a mile down the road and it’s all pine trees and streams. It’s hard to wrap your head around it.

It was a full day of wandering around springs and geysers on boardwalks and trails. It really would be like visiting another planet if not for all of the tourists – that’s a whole story for another day.

This time of year the park attracts older people like us. Many of the international tours are finished for the season, so it’s just older Americans visiting the park for the most part. I’m not going to elaborate, but let’s just say that it’s an inelegant crowd.

Old Faithful is right behind our hotel and shoots boiling water high into the air every few hours day and night. It is the epicenter of the park. Because of it, the Old Faithful Inn was built in 1904 and it is the most beautiful structure.

This hotel is the model by which all National Park buildings are designed. It is rustic, fanciful, and wonderfully restored and maintained. Tax dollars to be proud of. It is built with lodgepole pine from the area, and the architect had crews hunting for interesting twists and burls of wood that were incorporated into the design. The original blacksmith work is still being used for door handles and room numbers, and the lighting fixtures have been replaced, but to the exact initial design.

The building was electrified by two DC generators that were driven by steam from wood furnaces. Only 15 of the original rooms have private baths, the rest share a bath down the hall. Two newer wings were added with a more modern design (and bathrooms).

Thinking about how this building was constructed (mostly by immigrant Chinese labor), who stayed here (only the very wealthy), and how it has remained through brutal winters, a large earthquake and a devastating wildfire makes it so much more than a hotel. It has a history and a personality and a determination to exist. It was almost more interesting than the geysers.

On another note, expectations for lodging and food should be modest. It’s a let down for me to have bad food and basic lodging and that is all there is here. I just see such an opportunity to show this vast swath of Americans and visitors how good and nutritious food can be, and how innovative American ingenuity can be with a small room. Instead, frozen French fries and crappy towels with spotty internet. It was better in Romania – truly. But alas, maybe this is American culture and it’s all part of the experience. I hate it to be so.

We are leaving Yellowstone tomorrow and off to the Tetons and Jackson. More adventures await.