We arrived at the Yellowstone Grizzly RV park on Saturday, July 9, 2022 for a fifteen night stay.
The RV park is a mere one mile to the western entrance of Yellowstone. The beautiful scenery starts as soon as you enter and the park is vast with 2.2 million acres to explore.
The west entrance to:
The Grand Prismatic boardwalk: 24 miles
Old Faithful Village: 31 mile
The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone: 40 miles
The Mammoth Hot Springs Area: 47 miles
From NPS.GOV ~ "At the heart of Yellowstone's past, present and future lies a SUPERVOLCANO. Huge volcanic eruptions occurred here, the latest around 631,000 years ago. The center of what is now the park collapsed, forming a 30 by 45 mile caldera, or basin. The heat powering those eruptions still fuels the park's geysers, hot springs, fumaroles and mud pots."
The park was established in 1872 and is the world's first national park. This National Park preserves the most extraordinary collection of hydrothermal features on earth.
THE FLOODS ~ In the second week of June, 2022 record setting rain fell across the park. This rainfall along with the melting snowpack swelled rivers and streams and caused major damage to roads and bridges in the very northern section of the park. The North Entrance and the Northeast entrances remain closed along with the roads leading to them from the top of the North Loop. On June 22nd the West, East and South Entrances along with the North and South Loop roads reopened along with most of the major attractions. Interestingly, the Yellowstone River flows NORTHEAST to empty into the Missouri River in North Dakota.
Due to the flood the "recreation visits" to the park in July, 2022 were 45% less than the visits in July, 2021(which was a record) and 36% less than in July, 2020.
Our Adventure on July 11, 2022 ~ The Fairy Falls Trail to the Imperial Geyser
We drove the Jeep 25 miles to the parking lot for the trailhead for Fairy Falls. A half mile from the trailhead there is a spur that takes you to an elevated viewpoint for the Grand Prismatic Hot Springs, the largest hot springs in the park.
We continued 2.4 miles on the trail to the Fairy Falls. A group of guys that graduated together from Miami University of Ohio were there and had their photo taken in the chilly water.
We continued another mile on the trail to the Imperial Geyser. This Geyser is continually active and very entertaining. There are other hot springs around the area and also bubbling mud pots. We had the geyser and the mud pots to ourselves for the half hour we spent enjoying the show.
From the Imperial Geyser we hiked 3.2 miles back to the Fairy Falls Trail parking lot.
We then drove south 3 miles and visited the Biscuit Basin area that has the Turquoise Pool and many other hot springs and geysers.
Next, we traveled 2.5 miles south to Old Faithful Village, home of the Old Faithful Inn, the Old Faithful Lodge, a general store and the Park Education Center. We watched Old Faithful erupt at 7:08 PM.
We left the park at 8PM and saw bison moms and their babies near the road.
Our first day in Yellowstone was amazing. With all of the steam, bubbles, crazy colors and spray its like being in another world.