Yellowstone is Closed for the 2016 Summer Season
So grateful to be able to spend the last three days of the Summer 2016 season in Yellowstone. Other than the northern part of the park (from Mammoth to Cooke City), the rest is now closed to the public.
I have to say these three days – especially Sunday – were fabulous. Sunday was one of the best geyser gazing days I’ve had in a few months. Walk up to a geyser, chat a bit with people and then watch it erupt. Move to the next one and the same thing happened. Part of it was watching the geysers, but some of the deepest joy I get from this type of a day is introducing others to this magic.
Two groups stand out to me. Two couples who were on a trip “out west” (and overwhelmingly stunned by the vastness of it all) – who I grabbed when a geyser gazer called out on the FRS radio that there were waves on Grand. That meant it was very likely to erupt in the next few minutes.
They were headed to catch Old Faithful and I convinced them that Grand is much better – and while Old Faithful erupts about every hour and a half, Grand only erupts every 6-8 hours right now. They got a 2 burst Grand with a hard try at a third burst. Nice for your first Grand Geyser eruption.
And there were a couple of ladies from Belgrade, MT who had never been to the park. Another geyser gazer invited them to join him to watch other eruptions. Love seeing that. While waiting for Riverside Geyser to erupt, they got the treat of three Rocket Geyser eruptions. That was a first for me as well, but wow – what a great treat for your first trip to the park!
This is where my joy is quadrupled when I head into the park. I love talking with visitors and making their trip just a tiny bit better if I can. But if nobody is around (which was the case for me quite a few times this weekend), I end up in my happy zone of taking notes of changes seen, behavior observed, or just random thoughts and things to ponder as well as photos.
It may be a bit before I can share, but I’m actually glad to have the park closed as now I can work on sorting through all the moments from this summer and sharing some of those here.
Lots of good stuff to come.
