Yellowstone: geysers, bears by the road, and three hours at Old Faithful

In July 2017 we were driving to Yellowstone and passed through three states in one day: from Montana, through Wyoming, we made it to Idaho. We spent the night at a campground in Idaho, half an hour's drive from the park, and the next day we went to Yellowstone. When we left the park, we barely managed to find internet, and the next day we wrote briefly in our chat: it was really awesome. We didn't get to describe the park in detail until a week later.

Geysers

There are many waterfalls in the park.

And here is the first geyser on our way. There was also a hot spring with a funny name — Chocolate Pots.

After that came whole fields of geysers. They are colorful because of thermophilic bacteria.

There are a great many geysers and thermal lakes in the park.

Traffic jams and bears

Once we saw a gigantic traffic jam in the oncoming lane: it stretched all the way to a bridge in the distance and kept going beyond it. We were in the park on weekdays, and there were already a lot of people — it's scary to imagine what goes on there on weekends.

We also saw a petrified tree. According to the sign next to it, it turned to stone 50 million years ago.

And at last we met bears in this park. Not grizzlies, though, but black bears. Here's a rule of thumb: if you're driving through the park and there's a crowd of people standing on the road at a spot where the map shows nothing interesting, it means they've spotted a bear. Once we drove past a place like that where a grizzly had been spotted, but we were too late: it had run off.

The river and Old Faithful

Once, while driving through the park, we saw a great spot where you can swim in the river and jump into it. Pavel jumped several times — to get the jump just perfect.

The visitor center here is a typical one: there are big buildings like this in all the national parks we've been to. Usually you can pick up free maps there, ask the rangers questions, buy souvenirs, and fill up on drinking water. And at this visitor center we watched a film about poop.

The most famous geyser in the park is Old Faithful. It's famous for being the most predictable. Of course, we waited three hours for it to erupt.

We drank our morning coffee on the shore of Yellowstone Lake, and right in the lake we saw a small geyser.

We also came across a natural bridge, with a marmot on it.

Teton

If you look at the map, right below Yellowstone there's another small park — Teton. We took a quick drive through it too.

Every park we visited is unique in its own way and special in some way. But Yellowstone amazed us with the variety of these special features: it really is the coolest park in the States.