The geysers and springs around Old Faithful geyser

Today's travels were all done on foot within a mile of Old Faithful.  We started out the day watching Old Faithful erupt from a different viewpoint.

In the field soaked with the acid water of the geyser were these lovely  Rocky Mountain fringed gentians:

The 2.3 mile loop around Old Faithful led us by many pools of hot water starting with this one.

Firehole River runs though the area and is charming to see.

The water from the pools and geysers flows into this creek, and as the orange sediment in this photo indicates, the water contains lots of minerals.

Here follows several of the hot pools we saw.  

In the mostly dried out earth around the pools, you can find these lovely birds (mountain blue bird, a kill deer and a chipping sparrow).

I saw many kinds of flowers including Indian paintbrush, white phlox and rosecrown:

Here's a view across the field towards the inn and OF:

It's not a very inviting landscape.  We were surprised by how much buffalo scat we saw in this area.  How the buffalo walk here without breaking through the thin crust near the geysers and pools is hard to imagine!  Us humans had to stay on the boardwalks laid out around the pools and geysers.

There are many other geysers in this area including this one.  Most don't erupt very often (on the order of days).  

However, the Grand Geyser is actually larger than Old Faithful.  Unlike OF, it only erupts once every 6 hours give or take 2 hours, so being in the right place is a matter of luck (or unbelieveable determination).  We had luck on our side.  We we sat on benches set out in front of the geyser and waited for about 10 minutes near the time it was predicted to erupt.  The first photo shows it as it begins to simmer and bubble.  

The second photo shows it fully erupting and also off to the left of the photo another geyser stream that started after the main one.

When we returned to Old Faithful Inn, I took these photos of the inside of the inn.  The upper part of the main hall, which goes 5 stories up even though the rooms of the inn are only on the first 3 floors looks like something from an Escher painting!  The second photo shows the main floor.

Just before dinner, there was a thunderstorm.  I caught this rainbow just at the end of it.