Old Faithful:
Visitor Center is open year round.
from : http://www.trailguidesyellowstone.com/information/upper_geyser_basin_yellowstone.php
Old Faithful
| Facility | Opens | Closes |
| Snow Lodge Geyser Grill Fast Food | Apr. 18 | Nov. 2 |
| Snow Lodge, Cabins, Restaurant |
May 2
| Oct. 19 |
| OF Lower Service Station (credit card fueling available at the pump) | May 2 | Oct. 12 |
| OF Lower Store (Basin) General Store | May 23 | Sept. 29 |
| OF Upper General Store | May 2 | Oct. 13 |
| Wrecker Service | May 2 | Oct. 12 |
| Old Faithful Inn; Gift Shop, Dining Room, Bear Paw Deli | May 9 | Oct. 12 |
| Old Faithful Lodge | May 16 | Oct. 5 |
| Old Faithful Lodge Cafeteria | May 16 | Oct. 5 |
| Old Faithful Lodge Gift Shop, Bake Shop | May 16 |
Oct. 5
|
| Old Faithful Clinic | May 16 | Oct. 3 |
| Upper Service Station | May 16 | Sept. 15 |
| Repair Service | May 23 | Sept. 1 |
8:30a hit the road
9:30 Old Faithful area, hike and view for 2 hours
12:00 lunch
1:00 fairy falls trail
2:000 grand prismatic parking lot
3:15 firehole canyon
4:45 back at cabin to cook dinner
"Plan on at least two hours for Old Faithful." 32.2 mi from cabin, (50 min) elevation 7349ft. " Try to miss the lunch time crowd since a lot of people turn up to eat lunch at the restaurant." From a visitor in August "Be wary of the crowd. If you get there just before she goes off, you've missed it. People get there very very early and crowd around, packed in like sardines." "Well we had a great visit here in late September and the weather was unbelievable. About 1000 people and we arrived about 30 minutes before it gave us a show. " "Take time to walk over the Firehole river and up Geyser hill where you will see some spectacular sites and if you are really lucky as we were, you will witness Castle Geyser erupting which was more spectacular in my opinion and lasted 20 mins or so " " I suggest you do is do one of the tours with a Ranger that walks around the grounds and listen to the stories and the history." ". I would recommend getting there around 30-40 mins earlier than the time they guesstimate for the next eruption so you can get good seats or standing space." "Recommend viewing the geyser in an "up wind" position, since the spray of the geyser will obscure the view if viewing from downwind." "Hike to Grand or Riverside at the Old Faithful Loop and wait for fantastic displays!" "The nearby Beehive guyser did erupt nicely though"
Beehive Geyser: Beehive is a favorite of many because of its lovely narrow, tall jet of water. This geyser usually erupts only once during daylight hours, Lately, it has averaged about 12-15 hours between eruptions, with a few extra-long waits of 17 to 19 hours now and then. You can check at the Old Faithful Visitor Center to see if they know when it last erupted.
Doublet Pool: This gorgeous hot spring doesn’t erupt, but it does “thump.” About every half-hour or so, the water level rises to the top of the lacy, scalloped edge and then the thumps start. The thumps come from large gas bubbles that collapse below ground.
Grand Geyser is consistently the tallest and most spectacular of the predicted geysers. This excitement doesn’t come without a cost though. It has the largest prediction window of the predicted geysers. Even so, it is worth waiting to see. Grand erupts from a pool of water making it a fountain-type geyser as opposed to Old Faithful which is a cone-type geyser. Grand’s interval is usually around 8-12 hours, its height about 150-180 feet and its duration is about 10-12 minutes. It will often stop after about 9 minutes and then restart after a minute or so. This second “burst” and any subsequent bursts are often among the tallest if not the tallest of the eruption.
Castle Geyser is a very old geyser. Estimates put the age of its 12 foot high cone at 5,000 to 15,000 years. It would take that long to build such a large cone. Even more remarkable is that Castle’s cone sits on top of an even more massive sinter formation deposited by an even earlier spring. Castle is a cone-type geyser. Its interval is usually between 9 and 11 hours. Its maximum height is 60 to 90 feet. The 20 minute water phase of a major eruption is followed by a 40 minute steam phase.
I like this guy's photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lushaevans/3938331924/in/photostream/
Grand prismatic Spring is in the midway geyser basin, is the largest hot spring in the park:
200 ft across. 160F water. Best viewed from on top of the hill off of Fairy Falls Trail. There is also a boardwalk that starts from the middle geyser basin parking lot and passes very close to the GrPrSpr. The parking lot for the boardwalk is 38 min, 24.8 mi from cabin, 12 min, 7 mi from Old Faithful parking.
freeze frame walk through the Fairy Falls trail: http://naturevalleytrailview.com/yellow-stone/fairyfalls#/trail-436
The parking for the Fairy Falls trail is 1 mile South of the midway geyser basin parking lot at these coordinates: 44.5144700, -110.8319920
some more specific maps of the geysers around Old Faithful: http://www.geyserstudy.org/oldsite/ugb_sub_gmap.htm
Firehole canyon Drive to the hot springs in which people may swim 27 min, 16.2 mi from cabin:
There is a sign for the turn onto Firehole Canyon Drive, if you get to Madison Jcn, you went too far. 30 min, 17.9 mi from Grand Prismatic Spring parking. "We took this one-way road, and weren't disappointed. This drive is only 2 miles long but you get great views of the Firehole falls and there is a great swimming area" "There is also a place where you can park, go down a staircase and swim in the river." "Really unique wonder of nature . Beautiful canyon with rapids . The geological area very interesting to behold" "The firehold canyon drive is a picturesque and hilly (paved) road that leads to the swimming spot. There are a couple of basic toilets you can get changed in. A set of stairs leads you down to a small 'beach' area and some rocks where there is a natural pool of water you can swim in. If you are a strong swimmer (and/or willing to climb over the rocks) you can get upstream and then ride the current back, or go a little higher to jump in front of a small cascade which will similarly push you back down to the pool area. Would recommend sandals for the rocks. " "it was still cold at first. I took my six and eight year old up stream a hundred yards or so and floated down. It was a blast. My daughter couldn't get enough. We floated multiple times. It's great on a hot day " "Take the "Canyon Loop Drive", you'll need to go to the north end as it's One-Way, is the answer. drive slowly and keep a sharp watch on your right. You'll see parked cars pretty soon, where the Firehole widens out into a slow, flat run."
The one-way Firehole Lake drive
Firehole Canyon Drive:
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