Geysers at Yellowstone

I only got photographs of two geysers of significant height going off at Yellowstone. One, of course, was Old Faithful. Betty and I joined the throngs of tourists patiently waiting for it to erupt. While we waited we ate sandwiches we had packed which worked out perfectly.

Crowd gathered to watch Old Faithful geyser to erupt

Old Faithful geyser erupting

The park service predicts when Old Faithful will erupt with a plus or minus 10 minute window which is why it is a popular geyser to watch. While we were in the visitor's center before going to see Old Faithful, one of the rangers was going around letting people know that the beehive geyser was getting ready to erupt. This geyser erupts irregularly with intervals ranging from 22-36 hours to over two weeks, but the rangers can tell when it is close to erupting by how it is behaving. This one actually blows higher than Old Faithful, so we were fortunate to be there for the event.

Beehive geyser erupting

Close up of Beehive geyser

I did almost catch a third geyser erupting, but it was going off while I was at Firehole Spring, so I only saw the tail end of the event and from a distance.

White Dome Geyser

There was one geyser called Grand Geyser that sounded like it would be spectacular to see. It shoots much higher than Old Faithful, and the blast lasts 8 to 10 minutes, but unlike the plus or minus 10 minute window of Old Faithful, this one has a window of plus or minus 75 minutes. One has to have a lot of time and patience to wait that long.

I was in New Zealand in 2014, and it has some geothermal areas similar to those in Yellowstone. The one geyser I saw there may not have shot water as high as the ones in Yellowstone, but the eruption seemed to go on for tens of minutes and with very little time between eruptions.