Yellowstone · Things to do

Roughly 150 geysers inside a single square mile, linked by boardwalks. As of January 2025 Old Faithful's median interval was 102 minutes give or take ten, with eruptions of one and a half to five minutes reaching 106 to over 180 feet; predicted times are posted at the Old Faithful Visitor Education Center, at the lodges and in the NPS app.

The most photographed hot spring in the park, next to Excelsior Geyser, which was throwing water over 300 feet in the late 1800s and is now considered dormant. The boardwalk is too low to show the colours, so take the Grand Prismatic Overlook side trail from the southern Fairy Falls trailhead; note that Firehole Lake Drive is currently closed to cars but open on foot or bike.

About 20 miles of canyon, over 1,000 feet deep and 1,500 to 4,000 feet wide, with the 308-foot Lower Falls and the 109-foot Upper Falls. North Rim Drive gives Lookout Point, Brink of the Lower Falls, Grand View and Inspiration Point; South Rim Drive gives Artist Point. You cannot see both falls at once, because the canyon bends between them.

The northern range carries some of the largest wild bison and elk herds in North America and the wolves and grizzlies that follow them, plus coyotes, bighorn sheep and the occasional bobcat or cougar. Spring is the best window for grizzlies, during elk calving; keep 100 yards from bears and wolves and 25 yards from everything else.

Travertine terraces that change visibly from one day to the next, built where hot water dissolves limestone and drops it again at the surface; the colours are heat-loving microbes. Boardwalks plus a one-mile Upper Terrace Drive loop past Orange Spring Mound, with the 1891–1913 army buildings of Fort Yellowstone alongside and elk in the village year-round.