Upper Geyser Basin Loop
Easy
2.4 miflat~1.5 hr
Boardwalk past Old Faithful, Morning Glory Pool, and a dozen other named geysers. Stick to the boardwalk; the ground can be boiling underneath it. No permit.
Yellowstone · Mile 01 · The Story
A volcano wearing
a forest as a disguise.
Everything under Yellowstone is on fire, just quietly, at a distance most visitors never think about. The park sits on top of one of the largest volcanic systems on the planet, a hot spot that has erupted catastrophically three times in the last two million years and is still, right now, boiling groundwater into more than ten thousand geysers, hot springs, and mudpots. Old Faithful is not a novelty act. It is a pressure gauge for something enormous.
In 1872, Congress set this land aside as the world's first national park, eight years before the word conservation was common and eighteen years before Yellowstone even had a permanent staff to protect it. The idea that a government would preserve land purely because it was extraordinary, with no plan to mine it or farm it, started here and spread to every country that now has a national park system.
Come for the geysers. Stay for the fact that you are standing on top of a supervolcano and it is completely, reassuringly fine. Read the story, trust the live data above for what is open today, and when you leave, collect the stamp.
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