Perhaps you’ll catch sight of a moose feeding on lily roots in a pond beside the road, or a band of elk emerging warily from the timber. Over there is a new beaver dam, and that gray shadow skirting the road is a coyote.

Old Faithful Inn is said to be one of the highest and largest log buildings in the world. Its pleasantly rustic public rooms have long made it a favorite with Park visitors. Facilities are exceptionally complete.

Crossing dozens of creeks with picturesque, western names, you enter the boundaries of Yellowstone. Again leaving the Park, the road winds through the Madison National Forest, skirts Hebgen Lake, crosses the Madison and brings you to West Yellowstone—your official entrance to the Park.

Its curiously formed cone has earned it the name of Grotto Geyser. In its two major basins, Yellowstone has more active geysers than all the rest of the world, but you’ll never tire of their varied fascination.

The Motor trip from Gallatin Gateway is a perfect introduction to Yellowstone, and shows you country unlike any within the Park.

Here Comes Old Faithful

From West Yellowstone, the route follows the Madison through Christmas Tree Park, and then down the lovely valley of the Firehole River into geyserland. There are more geysers in Yellowstone than in all the rest of the world, and the greatest of them are here in the Lower and Upper Basins. The hiss of steam, low, subterranean mutterings and the roar of geysers in action make this landscape a scene from the Inferno. You see Fountain, Great Fountain, Riverside and Giant geysers, Morning Glory Pool and Fountain Paint Pot, and reach Old Faithful for dinner and the night.

The most famous geyser in the world, Old Faithful may be depended upon to stage its almost hourly shows for your special benefit. Approximately every sixty-five minutes it growls and hisses for a moment, and then leaps into action sending its glorious plume of boiling water 120 or more feet into the sky.

Old Faithful is a perfect spot for your first stay in Yellowstone and offers a variety of attractions that will make your time here seem all too short. Besides the many nearby geysers, you will see the iridescent turquoise of Morning Glory Pool with its flower-tinted cone ... Black Sand Pool and Sapphire Springs ... Firehole Lake with its flame-like streamers of gas bubbling to the surface, Chinaman Pool and numerous other steaming pools and springs.

Yellowstone’s Ranger-Naturalists are always on hand to give interesting explanations of the numberless wonders of the Park.

Giant Geyser, though an irregular performer, is the largest in the Park. At full discharge it sends its huge stream of boiling water and steam from 200 to 250 feet in the air. The rumble and roar of the geysers can be heard for long distances in the clear mountain air.

Across the Firehole River clouds of drifting steam mark the Firehole Geyser Basin—another reason why beautiful Yellowstone is the most photographed of our National Parks.

There is an enclosed swimming pool and a museum. A variety of short walking trips may be taken with the ranger-naturalists, and longer trips made on horseback with colorful wranglers who know the phenomena of the Park.

Old Faithful Inn itself is built wholly of native materials. Within its friendly walls, you dine, dance, play and meet congenial fellow travelers before the great open fireplace.

The following day, your caravan moves on from Old Faithful past the beautiful Kepler Cascades of the Firehole, and over the Continental Divide. Here is the Rocky Mountain watershed that sends the rivers on one side flowing down to the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, and on the other side, to the Pacific. To the south lie Shoshone Lake and the snowy peaks of the Teton range.

Lovely Yellowstone Lake

At Thumb, the road descends to the shore of Yellowstone Lake. 7,730 feet above sea level, this huge lake covering more than 130 square miles, is America’s highest navigable body of water. Past Fishing Cone, the road skirts the shore of the Lake for many miles to the mouth of the Yellowstone River. Many Yellowstone visitors enjoy fishing or boating on the lake.

Big, hard-fighting trout of several species inhabit the deep, perpetually cold waters of the lake, and afford the finest kind of sport. Boats, guides and fishing tackle are available.

Here is part of the crowd clustered around Old Faithful as it nears time for an eruption. This famous geyser discharges with almost clock-like regularity at intervals of about 65 minutes.

There are also a number of modern speedboats that were painstakingly hauled up to the lake. These mahogany beauties make regular passenger trips and give a real thrill as they race over the sparkling water. Yellowstone Lake is one of the few places in America where you may still see wild swans—the last survivors of once-numerous flocks of these majestic birds. Pelicans are plentiful on Molly Island.