Morning Stroll Through Midway Geyser Basin - Geyser Basins

Midway Geyser Basin - as the name suggests - is roughly halfway between the famed Upper Geyser Basin (Old Faithful) and Lower Geyser Basin. There is only a handful of features along the boardwalk, but boy do they make up for it by their size and grandeur.

First up is Excelsior Geyser Crater, which take up a huge pit that it has excavated out of the layers of winter from nearby Grand Prismatic. When erupting - very rare - it can shoot to heights of more then 200 feet and last for hours to days. The rest of the time it’s just bubbling and overbooking out of a few areas. The pit is 200 feet by 300 feet and discharges more than 4,000 gallons of water a minute into the Firehole River.

The most famed feature at Midway is Grand Prismatic Spring. It’s more than 250 feet around and 120 feet deep. So it’s massive. But the best part is the cascading rays of color formed by bacteria living in the water as it cools and escapes the spring. The best place to view this phenomenon is from the overlook, along a separate trail.

The other features in Midway are Opal and Turquoise Pools. They aren’t boring by any means, but after viewing the 2 behemoths, they can be passed over quite often.

Chapters
0:00 Intro
2:18 Crossing the Firehole River
5:03 Steam Bath
6:44 Excelsior Geyser Crater
11:19 Grand Prismatic Spring
17:39 Opal & Turquoise Pools

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