The route was compromised by road closures (for maintenance), on which we had already briefed ourselves via the internet, so we were expecting to cover about 200 miles. After traversing the Dunraven Pass, we stopped to view Tower Falls, as the atmosphere cleared affording excellent views. We turned east into the Lamar Valley, very beautiful with meadows bordered by craggy peaks. Hopes were high for further wildlife spotting, and we stopped when rumours of wolves were being spread by other tourists. The first stop, which involved hurried scurrying through scrub to viewpoints, only yielded a very distant sighting (via someone else's scope) of a bald eagle. We continued on our way to find a mass of vehicles all parked illegally at the side of the road (you are supposed to park in designated pullouts to avoid damage to the habitat) - no room at all for us, but they did say, as we passed, that there were apparently 3 wolves sitting in the grass miles away on the other side of the valley, but no one could see them. We completed our drive through the beautiful valley, turning around at the park entrance, and retracing our steps back to the wolf spot. Again, no sightings although we could see the supposed injured bison that everyone was staked out to see if the wolves would finish off, so we took some satisfaction in knowing that they were at least there. Of course, we encountered many more bison, but by this stage were starting to become a bit passé.
Back we went along the valley towards Mammoth Hot Springs. The sun was high by now and the walk up to the travertine terraces was hot. There is not a great deal of geyser activity there these days, just a pool which overflows, the chemical-laden hot water cascading down over white steps. The opportunity was seized for a bit more shopping, before pressing on the long way towards the famous Old Faithful geyser. This route was via Tower-Roosevelt and Canyon Village (again), Norris, and Madison. We arrived at about 5:15 pm, and learned that the last eruption was at 4:20 so were were hopeful of a short wait. We took seats in the front row, despite the odd static electricity jolt from the plastic boardwalk. The lowering sun was on our backs and quite comforting, as the geyser tantalised with false starts over the next half hour. A smaller geyser about half a mile away provided a sort of warm-up eruption, as a distraction from the fits and starts of Old Faithful. Eventually the main event started, the plume of steam and water generating an excellent rainbow, starting the show with a loud and low rumble, hinting at the power beneath the surface.
Concerned that a very late dinner awaited us, we rushed back to the RV. There was only time to visit the Midway Geyser Basin with its multi-coloured Grand Prismatic Spring shimmering in the evening light, pouring hot water into the Firehole River, before heading back to the campground. We could not do the Firehole Lake Drive as it turned out to be closed to RVs - very disappointing, and actually many of the side routes had similar prohibitions.
The way back we had a couple of screeching-to-a-halt false alarms of interesting wildlife sightings (by this time, we were desperate to see bears or moose in particular, having become sort-of wildlife twitchers...), but these only yielded yet more bison (yawn) and some mule deer (which we had seen many times before, although the last sighting was of a mother and fawn, which was sweet).
Notwithstanding the late hour - 8:15 pm - we were not to be done out of our aperitifs, which were taken as all hands bent to the preparation of dinner. One disadvantage was that the campground showers closed at 8:30, so we all had to shower in the RV, but it's a tribute to our efficiency that all essentials were completed by 11:00 pm at which point we all collapsed from exhaustion, but with a job well done.
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