The Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone and a Buffalo Traffic Jam

This is part two of a travel series to Yellowstone and the Grand Teton National Parks.  If you'd like to start at the beginning, go HERE!

Grand Prismatic Spring

After visiting Old Faithful, we continued up the lower loop to the Midway Geyser Basin to see another feature Yellowstone is famous for:  The Grand Prismatic Spring.

As you can see in the map below, the next stop was not too far away; about 10 miles.  But now it was about 1:00 pm and the crowds caught up to us.  The roads were lined up with parked cars for quite a distance on both sides, the parking lot was full, and there was even a line just waiting to get into the parking lot!  I couldn't believe it was this busy during the off-season.  "What must it be like during the busy season?" I wondered.  We decided rather than park miles down the road and walk in, to just get in the parking lot line and wait for an opening.  It looked horribly long, but surprisingly, it wasn't that bad of a wait for an open space, maybe 20 minutes?  

Photo Credit

The Midway Geyser Basin

The Grand Prismatic Spring is located in an area called the Midway Geyser Basin which actually contains three other points of interest which I did not know about prior to visiting the park:   The Excelsior Geyser, the Turquoise Pool, and the Opal Pool.

But first we had to walk from the parking lot to the basin, and this was our view:  The Firehole River again!  This river keeps on giving scenic views!  We first saw it at the Kepler Cascades and Old Faithful, and now here!

We were amazed to see the hot water overflowing from the basin into the river.

The hot water from the hydrothermal features left such beautiful color on the rock surfaces from the minerals they precipitate. 

A cute boardwalk and bridge takes you right over the Firehole River, but hang on to your hat as it is breezy!

Here is a 25 second video showing the water flowing from the Excelsior Geyser into the Firehole River.  You also get a view from the bridge and can see a bit of the boardwalk.  It's interesting just to even hear the sound of the water pouring into the river. 

The Grand Prismatic Spring

Rather than me just repeating information all about the hot spring, you can just click on the photo above to enlarge it to read all about it.  

There are two ways to see the spring, one is a 0.8 mile boardwalk that takes you right on top of it where you can see it on eye level.  That is the viewpoint this post will focus on.  BUT there is also another view, where you can see the spring from above.   That trail offers the best view, but unfortunately due to traffic congestion because of a buffalo jam (which you will read about at the end of this post) we were unable to see it. 😢

If you'd like to see photos of what the Grand Prismatic Spring, Earth Trekkers has an excellent post on the trails, the parking lot issues, and times of day it is best to view the spring.

This next photo tells you all about the colors of this amazing hot spring. 

Even though we didn't get to see the Grand Prismatic Spring from above, it was still cool to be right on top of it.  If you have time, and you can find a parking spot, I would recommend doing both for the full experience. 

The color this spring produces is amazing!  It's impossible to take a bad picture!

I do have to mention that one of the reasons this spring was so crowded was because of the time of the day.  If you really want to see the brilliant colors you must see it around mid-day because in the morning it is too misty.

I will say I was a bit nervous walking on the boardwalk as there were so many people I was afraid I would lose my balance and get knocked off into the spring.  I think where the boardwalk is located in relation to the spring, the person wouldn't get hurt if they fell off the boardwalk, but microorganisms would certainly be affected.

We were surprised to see a buffalo on the other side of the hot spring.  They are everywhere in Yellowstone!

Fun fact:  Did you know the Grand Prismatic Spring can be seen from space?  It sure can!  Google it!

Excelsior Geyser

The second big attraction of the Midway Geyser Basin is Excelsior Geyser.  You can read all about this geyser in the photo above by clicking on it to enlarge it. 

I was awestruck by this geyser.  The turquoise water was absolutely beautiful!

There are viewing decks overlooking this geyser all connected by boardwalks as you can see in the photo below.

Turquoise Pool

And finally, two other smaller attractions in this area are the Turquoise and Opal Pool.  Both are much smaller, but still quite pretty.

Opal Pool

Now that we finished the lower view of the Grand Prismatic we wanted to go see the upper view, but there was a traffic jam just trying to get out of the parking lot due to a herd of buffalo clogging up the road.  There is a separate parking lot for the upper view and hubby felt it was too congested to try and make it over there, so he just made the decision to head out of the area.  I was extremely disappointed, but I understood.  Plus, I've seen so many photos and videos of the far away view of the springs, I knew what it looked like (but I know experiencing it person is different).  The close up view, I got on the lower viewing decks, I can't experience only through photos.

You can click on the video below to see the buffalo.

We were surprised to discover that they have a "Wildlife Traffic Control" system in Yellowstone.  When animals block the road, causing a significant traffic jam, a truck appears lights and sirens a blazing, to clear the animals off the road.  You can watch the video below to see it in action.

For more information on Yellowstone National Park, check out my Old Faithful post.

I hope you enjoyed this week's Yellowstone post.  Next week I will cover a pleasant unexpected surprise, and one of my favorite Yellowstone experiences:  Firehole Lake Drive.

Have A Great Day!  Amy

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