Tonelli's Travels

On this August day, we woke up to temperatures in the 40s accompanied by rain and wind. Summer in Wyoming is certainly interesting! The high elevation, coupled with the mountain landscape makes for some not so pleasant days. This was one of them.

Still eager to explore, I though we’d check out the nearby West Thumb Geyser Basin. Being good sports, my parents accompanied me bundled in their winter hats and puffy jackets. We drove the short few miles to the parking lot and started up the Lake Overlook Trail.

It had sounded really exciting to me – walk through backcountry geothermal features to a view of Yellowstone Lake. Cool right? And it was, minus the frigid, damp weather. We did make it to the overlook and were greeted by a few steaming pools on the sides of the trail. The lake was beautiful, just waking up as the day began, but we didn’t stay long to admire it. It was cold!

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My dad began racing down the trail to get back to the warm, dry van. We couldn’t walk fast enough to keep up! Not too far from the parking lot, he did have to stop though and let us catch up. A few elk were grazing in the forest ahead of us on the trail. It was clear they were familiar with humans as they didn’t spook and let us take a plethora of pictures. My mom and I could have admired them for a while, despite the cold, but my dad was itching to get back. And I couldn’t really blame him.

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We warmed up in the car with the heat cranked up, and then braved the weather once again to walk the boardwalk of West Thumb Geyser Basin. It was a speedy trip around, but the special thing about this geyser basin was that it extended out to the shores of Yellowstone Lake. The steaming water from the geysers and hot springs trickled under the boardwalk out into the vast expanse of the deep blue lake. The waterfowl really enjoyed this as they swam close to shore, huddled together. Small geysers also rested atop cliff outcroppings, bubbling and spouting with the calm lake as a backdrop.

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The colors of the thermal pools popped against the gray, dreary skies, giving us a little warmth as we hustled along. Each is named, some according to their shape, some for the person who discovered them, other by park rangers or visitors with interesting ideas. There are so many though, I think at some point they started to run out of ideas. Names like “collapsing pool” and “ledge pool” were some that lacked originality here. Haha

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After our tour, we drove back to the campground and parked ourselves inside our motorhomes for the rest of the day. I had a lovely nap, journaled, and cooked dinner. Thank goodness we weren’t tenting! I felt extremely grateful to home my van this day. 😉