We got up, took our showers and packed our backpacks for a day in the geyser basin. Then we went to breakfast. There were even fewer people in the dining room than last night. We did not have to wait to be seated. After breakfast we gathered our gear and headed out towards the Visitor Center to see what their predictions were and to read “the book” to see when the other geysers last erupted. Riverside was predicted to erupt at 1:30 and Grand was predicted to erupt at 2:00. We decided to go to Riverside and then try to get to Grand after Riverside erupted. We always have to see a Riverside eruption when we come to Yellowstone. It is the law!

We left the Visitor Center and started down the bicycle path. It was a little nippy outside but the sky was clear and there was no wind. Unfortunately there was a ground fog over the geyser basin. That would burn off later in the morning. Giantess was still having bursts be they were few and far between. Beehive has gone south and has been very erratic, even for winter mode. When we got to the bottom of the hill past the Inn I saw my bison friend Sam eating near the path. I called to him and he came across the trail. Deb saw her bison friend George and called him. He just looked at her and turned his back and left. Must have been something he ate!

There were a lot of bison in the geyser basin; a lot more than usual for this time of year. The trees and grasses were covered with frost. We stopped to take pictures and to take in the peace one gets when in Yellowstone. The ground fog had burned off and you could see the plumes of steam from the various thermal features. There were small groups of bison everywhere.

We continued on down the trail and stopped at Castle. It was not predicted to erupt until about 6:30 but we sat for a while and watched it anyway. We continued down the trail and stopped across from Oblong. You can get a good view of an Oblong eruption from the trail. We did not know when Oblong would erupt as the last recoded eruption was two days ago. Since we had a lot of time before we had to be at Riverside, we watched Oblong and Giant. Giant had a short hot period. We took some pictures of the frosted trees and some frosted grasses.

We went down to Grotto which was erupting. We notified the Visitor Center as no one had previously called it in. We did not know when it actually started. We continued on to Riverside. The path to Riverside had not been cleared but we went in anyway. They had always cleared the path in prior years. It was not bad as most of the snow had already melted. Riverside was not yet in overflow so we know we had at least an hour and a half before it would erupt. It started overflow shortly after we arrived. We had a bagel for lunch and then chatted with a few people that wanted to know whether the geyser was ready to erupt. They left after we told them it would not erupt for about an hour. I guess they were not that interested.

Riverside finally erupted at 1:37. Just as I started to call it in to the Visitor Center another gazer called in the Grand eruption (G1Q) at 1:37. Riverside and Grand erupted at exactly the same time. So much for catching Grand after the Riverside eruption. We will try again tomorrow. The clouds had moved in so it was not very good for taking pictures. We watched it for a while and since nothing else was due to erupt we decided to return to the Visitor Center. It was well past 2:00 and if we dallied we would get back around the time the Visitor Center closed.

Grotto was still erupting so we stopped to take some pictures. Giant and Oblong were still not doing anything. While we were watching them we heard someone ask whether anyone had called in Castle. The Visitor Center said it was not predicted to erupt for several hours. The gazer said she saw water and that it was definitely erupting. We decided to go to Castle as it erupts for a long time.

We arrived at Castle and it was in eruption. Castle has special meaning to us as it was the first geyser we ever saw erupting in Yellowstone. By now the clouds had moved on and the sun came back out. We watched Castle erupt and took some pictures. You never can have too many pictures of Castle erupting. While Castle was in transition from the water phase to the steam phase the wind shifted. This created the proper conditions for a rainbow with the eruption. We took more pictures and watched Castle well into the steam phase. The Visitor Center called and wanted to know whether Castle was still in eruption. We told them how far along it was in the eruption.

When Castle finished we continued on to the Visitor Center. At the Visitor Center we saw that Old Faithful was predicted to erupt in a half hour. Since we had not yet seen an Old Faithful eruption this trip we decided to stay. There were only three people watching the eruption; Deb, me and one other person. This is very unusual and shows the effect of the new rules and high costs on winter visitation. The sun glistened on the rising columns of the Old Faithful eruption. This was a beautiful way to end a wonderful day.

We went back to the room and ate our box lunch.