Yellowstone Day 2 Old Faithful to Artist Point

 9.11.2023

West Yellowstone, MT

Mileage:  Just the truck

Yellowstone is big, like really big, and today it was full of people.  We were a bit late leaving the RV which meant we were behind the crowds and the road construction.  Our plan was to start our day where we left off yesterday in The Old Faithful area.  What should have taken us 35 minutes took nearly 3 hours.  We did make one stop on the way and ended up in the middle of many bison.

Just the driving of this loop is 3 and 1/2 hours.  We made it back to the RV just before dark.

We finally made it to Old Faithful Village and the Upper Geyser Basin.

With the huge crowds near the Visitor's Center we decided to walk on some of the boardwalks behind Old Faithful.  We saw lots of thermal activity and watched Old Faithful with only a few people instead of huge crowds.

The highlight of the area was seeing Old Faithful erupt.

One bison was hanging out in the area.

We then struck out on the remainder of the lower loop road.  We crossed the Continental Divide.

And encountered more construction.

West Thumb is a part of Yellowstone Lake that has thermal activity right on the edge of the lake.  You might have seen pictures of early visitors catching fish and cooking them while the fish was on the same line.

We stopped briefly at Pumas Point.  These two birds were very interested in me taking a picture.  It is hard to tell, but they are staring directly at me.

Fishing Bridge was our next stop and the first time we saw The Yellowstone River.

Stinky, stinky, stinky.  Our next stop that included Dragons Mouth Spring and The Mud Volcano.  This area had the most concentrated Sulphur smell so far.

The drive to our next stop was through beautiful meadows.

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone was our last stop of the day.  Upper Falls Viewpoint was beautiful.

But nothing like Artist Point with all of its colors, view of the Upper Falls, and Yellowstone River.

Much like yesterday we didn't finish this area so we will be back here before we leave.

The sky and mountains were framed beautifully as we drove back to West Yellowstone.

Comet rides in a box on the console between us.  Such a good boy!