Yellowstone National Park - Old Faithful

The colloquial language device of saying that something is as regular and reliable as “Old Faithful” has made it to Australia, albeit somewhat disconnected from its origin. No visit to Yellowstone National Park would be complete without a visit to the wellspring of the phrase.

Old Faithful erupts more frequently than any of the other big geysers, although it is not the largest, or the most regular geyser in the park. The average interval between eruptions is about 90 minutes, although it varies somewhat within a range of 50-120 minutes.

Each eruption lasts from one and a half to about five minutes and expels 14,000-32,000 litres (3,700-8,400 gallons) of boiling water. The geyser reaches a height of 30-55 m (106-184 feet). It’s pretty impressive.

When I arrived, a sign in the visitor’s centre predicted that Old Faithful was due to erupt about ten minutes previously. Damn, I thought, I’m not waiting another hour and half to watch a geyser go off. I figured I’d just go and photograph the crater, then be on my way.


Based on the size of the crowd, and their impatient muttering, it seemed that Old Faithful had been waiting for me to arrive. Pretty much as soon as I ambled up, it started going through its warm up exercises, limbering up for the big eruption. Clouds of steam burst from the top, and small spurts of water slopped over the sides from time to time.


Australians may recognise the tourist in front of me. Dickie Knee does Yellowstone!

Working hard to satisfy the tourists, Old Faithful gave us about 15 more minutes of foreplay before finally erupting and taking a well earned nap for another 90 (ish) minutes.


It was impressive and quite beautiful on such a hot, sunny day, but I was keenly aware of the thousand other people sitting around who had waited longer than I had, and were even more eager to get away. I didn’t want death by traffic jam any more than I wanted death by scalding. So I only watched for about two minutes of the eruption, just enough to pay my respects to Old Faithful, the wellspring of a great cliché. Then I strapped my camera to my body and charged off to the Cream Puff like … well, like a geyser erupting.