AS RELIABLE AS THE GEYSER ITSELF VENERABLE OLD FAITHFUL INN HAS PROVIDED RUSTIC HOSPITALITY IN YELLOWSTONE FOR 100 YEARS.

Byline: Eric Noland Travel Editor

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. - When a 7.5 earthquake rolled through Yellowstone National Park in 1959, the Old Faithful Inn shuddered, groaned and coughed up a few of its fireplace stones, but ultimately shrugged off the intrusion.

When the North Fork Fire savaged the park in 1988, the old inn wept. That was the appearance, anyway, when fire sprinklers - fortuitously installed the year before - sent cascades of protective water down its steep roof and over the eaves.

Through brutal winters, when the inn's timbers and vintage wrought iron were assaulted by prodigious snowfalls and temperatures that fell as low as 50 degrees below zero, the massive lodge shifted its weight and sighed in the chill but stoically stood its ground.

This happens a lot - animate traits ascribed to the Old Faithful Inn, as if it were a living being, with a heartbeat and palpable emotions.

It's true to this day.

On a recent Saturday evening, as George Sanborn provided his customary piano entertainment on the lobby mezzanine, he was joined by Tara Cross, a 25-year-old violinist from nearby Gardiner, Mont. She swayed as she played, eyes closed, delivering a haunting interpretation of Jay Ungar's ``Ashokan Farewell,'' better-known as the theme music to Ken Burns' Civil War documentary.

All the while, Cross wore no shoes or socks.

``It's a beautiful building to play in,'' she said later during a break. ``That's why I play barefoot - I want to feel it underneath me.''

The Old Faithful Inn is celebrating its 100th birthday this summer, and it seems to be standing a little taller, a little prouder. It's the undisputed grand dame of the national park lodges in the American West, and the years have done nothing to diminish its rustic majesty.

It could never get built today, but there was a different land-use ethic in place at the start of the 20th century. No one thought twice about positioning it inside the boundary of a volcanic caldera, just a few steps from Yellowstone's famed Old Faithful geyser, which continues to gush skyward every 90 minutes or so.

For building materials, they used what was at hand: hundreds of lodgepole pine trees growing nearby in the national park and rhyolite stone quarried from an ancient lava flow.

Convenience and comfort were the objectives of the railroad and tourism interests that built the hotel, and boyish architect Robert Reamer delivered - but with a distinct flair.

His masterpiece is just inside the bright-red front doors, whose iron hardware emits a resounding clank when they are swung shut. The massive lobby rises to a ceiling peak of 76 1/2 feet, and the rounded, gnarled timbers of the construction produce the appearance of rustic lace.

Or an indoor forest. That's how it's most commonly described. Light angles through this space from windows and false dormers that are asymmetrically

positioned and randomly shaped (diamonds, squares, rectangles). Just as sunlight haphazardly finds its way into a forest glen. Contorted logs were used as diagonal support pieces for columns, creating the appearance of branches angling off tree trunks.

The four-sided stone fireplace (only two sides of which work, owing to the earthquake damage of '59) rises like a giant cairn in one corner. A 20-foot pendulum clock on its face chronicles the hotel's remarkable staying power with every quiet tick and tock.

The old inn zealously safeguards its heritage.

Most of the rooms in the original building - called the Old House - were never retrofitted with private baths. It means padding down a long hallway to take a shower or use the lavatory, but it also means affordability for families; these rooms start at $78 per night. Children seem to find these living conditions more of an adventure than an inconvenience, especially when the alternative might be a tent in one of the park campgrounds.

Also, the inn takes pride in its wealth of original furniture, but doesn't stuff it away in a museum exhibit. The pieces are positioned here and there for guests to actually use: oak-armed davenports in the lobby, octagonal tables on the mezzanine, copper-topped wash stands in some of the Old House rooms.

``A pitcher and basin would have been on the top shelf, a chamber pot on the bottom,'' said Betty Hardy as she led one of the historical tours of the inn, offered four times daily for guests and visitors alike.

The tours provide a sense of what life was like during the inn's infancy, when the lumber was newly cut and the stones freshly laid.

The hotel was so popular when it opened that expansion projects began almost immediately, and continued into the 1930s. A roomier East Wing was added in 1913, with private baths and rooms (request one with an even number) that directly overlook the geyser. The cavernous dining room was added in 1921. A West Wing went up in 1927, the same year the lobby entrance was pushed out, a veranda was built and the cozy public room that now serves as the Bear Pit Lounge was added.

The work continues to this day, as the inn fidgets through a makeover that will span the next three years.

The fireplace will get a new foundation, two of its earthquake-damaged chimneys will be cleared and the area around the hearth will be sunken for greater intimacy, conforming to its original design. The weathered flooring of the lobby and the Old House rooms will be replaced. Wiring will be restrung. Upgrades will be made to accommodate disabled visitors.

During the construction, the inn will remain open during the summer, but on a shorter schedule than normal - for example, likely from July 1 through Sept. 11 next year.

When the work is finished, ``the lobby will be restored more to what guests would have found when it first opened,'' said Scott Cote, executive director of operations for Xanterra, Yellowstone's concessionaire. ``But there will be seismic and life-safety upgrades that will help ensure that people will be able to enjoy it for another 100 years.''

Enjoy it they certainly do. To its credit, the Old Faithful Inn is an affable and welcoming soul, swinging wide its doors at the slightest sound of tread on the porch. The result is never-ending waves of gawking admirers. During the day, tour buses pull up to the porte-cochere one after another.

If you're a guest in the hotel, however, you might conclude that these conditions make the first floor of the lobby less than optimal for quiet relaxation. Many guests, in fact, retreat to the second-floor mezzanine, there to settle into comfortably rustic chairs and settees around the balustrade and survey the human parade below.

Another such retreat can be found in the Bear Pit Lounge, where there are four local microbrews on tap (including Moose Drool brown ale from Big Sky Brewing in Missoula, Mont.), friendly bartenders and such tasty appetizers as smoked salmon and goat cheese croustades.

Those glass panels behind the bar aren't playing tricks on your eyes. Yes, that's a moose dancing with a woman in a ballroom, while a bear leads the orchestra and a bighorn sheep balances a serving tray. The sandblasted images pay tribute to wood etchings that were fashioned by cartoonist Walter Oehrle in the 1930s. Some of the original wood panels are protected behind glass in the Pony Express snack bar.

In the evening, the routine at the Old Faithful Inn is as reassuringly familiar as the geyser itself. Guests who were wise enough to make reservations far in advance make their way into the sprawling dining room, which is doing some fine work under the guidance of new chef Jim Chapman.

Menus from as far back as the 1920s were consulted so that a few ``historical selections'' could be included among the entrees - roast leg of lamb, coq au vin, pan-fried Rocky Mountain trout. (Back then, the trout was undoubtedly wild, but bland, farm-raised fish must be used now; even the pecans and lemon butter can't make it interesting.)

More contemporary dishes include an outstanding Angus coulotte steak and a nice choice of vegetarian dishes.

The service in the restaurant tends to be young and minimally trained but earnest to a fault, and the wine list is a wonder - an extensive selection with prices that seem to be just a couple of dollars over cost.

Spring for the good stuff here. There aren't many nice restaurants in the West where you'll find Schramsberg Blanc de Blanc champagne for $45, Rancho Zabaco Sonoma Heritage Zinfandel for $24 or Ste. Chappelle Johannisberg Riesling for $16 (a steal). We only wished the general locations of some of the wineries were listed (Oregon? Italy?). The list does, however, include helpful descriptions of the wines and explains why they go well with particular foods - a nice demystification of the process.

There's speculation that the Yellowstone volcano will erupt again someday, and as if in anticipation, the dining room's dessert menu includes the Yellowstone Caldera, a decadent offering of chocolate truffle with molten center.

Throughout dinner, the piano music wafts in from the second-floor mezzanine through a balcony opening, where a string quartet played during the hotel's early days.

There used to be a lot of interaction among the guests, including long tables for dinner, ballroom dancing on the lobby floor, singing around the piano, gatherings at the fireplace for popcorn popped over the blaze.

``Early visitors were traveling around the park in stagecoaches with the same group every day. It was very social,'' said Ruth Quinn, the inn's interpreter. ``We lost that with people coming in their own cars.''

But the inn does a nice job of trying to reclaim it. There is not a single TV here - not in the bar, the lobby or any of the guest rooms - so guests naturally gravitate to the lobby as the evening proceeds.

People play cards and board games (bring your own), or write postcards or read books beneath the green-shaded lamps of the writing desks. Some grab an ice cream cone from the Pony Express and wander onto the veranda to take in a moonlit geyser eruption. Others sit quietly and listen to the piano music.

Hushed conversations, the whir of cards being shuffled, the creak of ancient floorboards beneath footfalls, the crackle of the fireplace ... they all combine to create a gentle hum. This is the Old Faithful Inn's pulse.

Surely that's what the barefoot violinist was feeling.

Eric Noland, [phone]

eric.noland(at)dailynews.com

IF YOU GO

GETTING THERE: The most convenient airport to the Old Faithful area of Yellowstone is Jackson Hole, Wyo. But major construction is being conducted on Highway 89/191 in Grand Teton National Park, just south of Yellowstone, and it took us two hours to drive the 48 miles. The return drive required even more time, due to a flag delay of a half-hour. A key tip: The Jackson Airport is several miles north of town, and the rental-car companies that operate at the airport are Hertz, Avis, Alamo and Thrifty. If you have Dollar or National, you'll take a long shuttle ride into Jackson - the opposite direction of your ultimate destination.

THE INN: Rates range from $78 for a room without private bath to $134 to $185 for a premium room to $371 for a suite. The Old Faithful Inn will be open on its usual schedule this year (until Oct. 15), but will operate on a shorter-than-usual schedule next year, due to renovations - likely July 1 through Sept. 11. Xanterra, the park concessionaire, also operates eight other lodging options in Yellowstone. [phone]; www.travelyellowstone.com.

DINING: There are a number of budget-priced cafeteria and snack bar options in the Old Faithful area, but if you're looking for something nice, the inn is about the only choice. This means it is essential to book reservations for dinner far in advance: [phone]. We also enjoyed breakfast and lunch here. Buffets are available for both meals, but we found some excellent made-to-order items on both menus - vegetarian breakfast tacos in the morning, for example, and a hummus pita with salad at midday.

THE PARK: The fee for entering Yellowstone Park is $20 per private vehicle, good for seven days - and you're not exempted just because you have a reservation at the Old Faithful Inn. Don't try to tackle this park in a day ... or even two or three. The park encompasses 3,472 square miles - larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined - and has 310 miles of paved road. There is a lot of diverse terrain, geologic wonders and wildlife to see, all of which is best enjoyed if you take your time. Yellowstone's buffalo population has stormed back in recent years and herds can be seen on drives near Old Faithful. Rangers at the visitors' center can provide details. www.nps.gov/yell; [phone].

GUEST COMMENT CARD

Best attribute: Proximity to Yellowstone's most famous geyser, Old Faithful. It's a short walk away, and is visible from some rooms.

Something unique: There is not a single TV anywhere on the premises of this sprawling, 327-room hotel - and it's bliss.

Don't miss: The historic tour. Guides will propel you back in time 100 years.

Could be better: Unfortunately, musical entertainment is not offered in the lobby on Sunday and Monday nights, which results in unattended kids stumbling through endless renditions of ``Heart and Soul'' on the piano.

Final thought: A full century of rustic comfort and charm.

CAPTION(S):

8 photos, 2 boxes, map

Photo:

(1 -- 3 -- color) The old Faithful Inn, top, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, provides rustic comfort to guests who arrive in Yellowstone National Park curious about geysers and wildlife. The inn's namesake, right, is a few steps away, while bison roam the nearby Biscuit Basin, below.

(4 -- 7) A worker adjusts the pendulum clock on the fireplace of the Old Faithful Inn at Yellowstone National Park, Wyo., top, perhaps marking the time until the inn's next centennial. A landmark since 1904, the inn has seen the advent of the automobile, right, and distinctive features such as gnarled pine support pieces (top right) and a wide-open lobby (above) have charmed thousands of guests.

Becky Bohrer/Associated Press

National Park Service

(8) Guests at the Old Faithful Inn will find this sign advising them of when they can view an eruption from the namesake geyser.

Eric Noland/Travel Editor

Box:

(1) IF YOU GO (see text)

(2) Guest Comment Card (see text)

Map:

OLD FAITHFUL INN

Jorge Irribarren/Staff Artist