If you were going to go see one thing when you visited Yellowstone National Park it would probably be Old Faithful. Fortunately Old Faithful is in an area where there is plenty else to see and also a historic district to tour.
How to Get to Old Faithful
As you might expect since it is the most popular sight in the park, Old Faithful is not particularly difficult to find. Yellowstone is a massive park however, so there are multiple ways to enter the park from, in fact you can com in from different states.
The easiest, and probably most common way these days is to come through the town of West Yellowstone in Montana. When you come through that entrance you just follow the road until you reach the Madison campground. Right after the campground you will turn right. You then just follow the road until you arrive ate the Upper Geyser Basin. You can’t really miss it as there is a huge parking lot and visitor center to accommodate all the visitors.
When to Go See Old Faithful
Old Faithful owes its name and its popularity to it being the most predictable geyser in Yellowstone. But that doesn’t mean that it goes off every hour on the hour. You will need to check with the visitor center to see when it is next predicted to erupt. Even though Old Faithful is fairly regular that doesn’t mean it is like a stage show that will start on time or a few minutes late, there is fairly broad window around the time it is predicted to go off.
So first you check the time, then make sure that you can arrive fairly early so you can get a seat, remember this is very popular. If you are close then just go have a seat right away and wait patiently. If it is going to be a while take the opportunity to explore the rest of the basin first. This is what we did.
When Old Faithful does get ready to go off big crowds will gather all round it. I think eruptions vary in size and length, but when we were there it seemed quite large and went off for several minutes. It is really awesome to see.
Seeing the Upper Geyser Basin
Like most of Yellowstones active areas Old Faithful is accessed by boardwalk. If you walk around Old Faithful you can get onto the boardwalk that goes up to Geyser Hill after it crosses the Firehole River. This is a fun walk going past multiple other geysers which may be going off or not. For the most part they are probably steaming, which Lucy called “Bubbles!”
Tour the Historic District
Besides the rest of the geysers in the Old Faithful area there is also a lot of history. You can pick up a brochure for a $1 donation that will give you the walking tour stops. Yellowstone was the first National Park and Old Faithful has always been popular so there is a lot of history around the area. It is a nice walk and a great way to learn some history while you wait for Old Faithful to be ready.
Sum Up
Of course you should go see Old Faithful while you are at Yellowstone, there is a reason it is one of the main attractions for over 100 years. It is a nice way to ensure that you do see at least one geyser go off since most of the others are not nearly as regular or predictable. As with all thermal active areas stay safely on the boardwalks.
New Old Faithful Retro Poster
In conjunction with our posts on Yellowstone National Park we have released a new retro travel poster on our Etsy shop of the Old Faithful Geyser. Please check it out here.
