OLD FAITHFUL

 

 

We got up at first light on Wednesday.  We had slept well in our hammocks, despite the chilly weather.  I’d gotten Christy an under quilt for her hammock for Christmas.  That makes a huge difference in colder weather, as it blocks the cold air from reaching the bottom of the hammock.  I used a fleece blanket as a liner in my hammock, which helped.  With lows in the 30’s, I still needed to wear a couple of layers and a hat to be comfortable. 

 

We drove to West Thumb and then on towards Old Faithful.  We stopped at Kepler Cascades, which is a nice roadside waterfall.  The view from the overlook is ok.  There is a steep scramble path to the base, but there isn’t much to hold onto, and I really wasn’t in the mood.  We drove on to Old Faithful and parked at the ranger station.  Our first order of business was picking up the permit for our backpacking trip.  I wanted to get the red tape out of the way first thing.  We arrived at 10am, right when the ranger station opened.  Or should have opened.  The park website said that it was open Monday to Friday, but the sign on the door stated that they would be closed every Wednesday, too.  Crap.

 

There were two other reasonable options for getting the permit.  We would pass the ranger station in the West Yellowstone Visitor Center that afternoon.  There is also the Bechler Ranger Station near the starting point of our hike, but it isn’t always open.  We would need to stop in West Yellowstone, to be on the safe side.  The park website said it was open until 8pm, so we had no time constraints. 

 

I had downloaded an app that showed the predicted eruption times for some of the park’s geysers.  Old Faithful was expected to erupt in the next few minutes.  It erupts approximately every 90 minutes, so we decided that we might as well start there.  In hindsight, this was a poor strategy.  The Upper Geyser Basin, including Old Faithful, is one of the most popular areas of the park.  Old Faithful always draws a huge crowd.  We should’ve headed the other direction while all of the tourists were at Old Faithful.  That would’ve given us the opportunity to enjoy the rest of the geyser basin without the crowds.  I’ll keep that in mind next time.

 

After the eruption we joined the herd of tourists leaving the boardwalk that circles Old Faithful.  We were elbow to elbow with hundreds of people when I saw a tripod just ahead.  There was a camera with an expensive lens mounted on it.  People were streaming by on both sides, but incredibly, the photographer was looking down at his cell phone.  A small child got loose from his parents and dashed ahead, running directly between the legs of the tripod.  Somehow, the child didn’t knock it over.  Incredibly, the photographer didn’t even notice.

 

Our goal was to hike to the northwest end of the geyser basin and then loop back on the far side of the Firehole River.  That loop passes dozens of colorful hot springs and geysers, many of which are quite active.  Most are unpredictable, and the few that are predictable can only be narrowed down to a time range of an hour or more.  We figured we’d simply walk through the basin and see what happened.

 

The first thing that happened was a major eruption of a geyser on the far side of the Firehole River.  Although we were a good distance away, it was quite spectacular.  I think it was Beehive Geyser, but I’m not certain, as there are a lot of geysers in that immediate area.  We watched that for a minute before heading on.  Castle Geyser is really neat rock formation, but it was merely gurgling.  A few minutes later we reached a side trail to Daisy Geyser and Punch Bowl Spring.  The sign there indicated that Daisy Geyser would probably erupt in the next 30 minutes or so.  That sounded like a good time investment, so we headed that way.  We waited a few minutes, but I got restless.  Christy decided to wait while I continued on to Punch Bowl Spring.  This spring is very colorful, and I had the whole area to myself.  I was tempted to continue on to Black Sand Basin, but I figured I’d miss Daisy’s eruption if I did.  I hurried back, and arrived at Daisy just as it started erupting.

 

From there, we returned to the main trail and followed it to Grotto Geyser.  Grotto is one of the neatest geysers, as the rock formation looks like the head of a giant, deformed gnome.  We crossed the Firehole River on a bridge and reached a bathroom just before Morning Glory Pool.  There was a long line, but Christy needed to use it.  I asked her if she wanted to continue on to Artemisia Geyser and Gem Pool.  Those two are in an isolated area 10-15 minutes beyond Morning Glory Pool.  She wasn’t enthusiastic, so I decided to do it solo while she used the bathroom.  We had missed these on our visit in 2003, as we had turned around at Morning Glory Pool.

 

I’m guessing most people turn around at Morning Glory Pool.  That’s a huge mistake.  Artemisia Geyser and Gem Pool are two of the most beautiful features in Yellowstone.  Because of their isolated location, they are lightly visited.  I had them all to myself.  I did turn around at Gem Pool, as I didn’t want to keep Christy waiting.  There is one more feature on the trail, Mirror Pool.  It is very close to the road, and we parked near it later when we visited Biscuit Basin.  Unfortunately, I forgot all about it when we made that stop.  On a future visit I’ll need to visit Mirror Pool as well as Black Sand Basin.  I think those are the only two easily accessible thermal areas in the park that I haven’t visited.

 

I hurried back, only stopping briefly once to photograph cascades on the Firehole River.  I rejoined Christy at Morning Glory Pool.  Morning Glory Pool used to be a beautiful blue.  Now it is yellow and green.  The color has changed over the years due to debris – mainly coins thrown into the spring by idiot tourists.  Sadly, the damage is almost certainly permanent. 

 

From there we crossed the Firehole River on a sturdy bridge and followed trail and boardwalk back towards Old Faithful.  We were still some distance away when the spectacular Grand Geyser erupted.  We had a great view of it from the trail, though the eruption subsided right before we reached it. 

 

When we reached Beauty Pool, I noticed a piece of paper floating on the water.  It looked like a trail map that someone had printed out.  It was a breezy day, and it had probably blown out of someone’s hand.  Unfortunately, there was no safe way to retrieve it.  I fear that it, and the other springs and geysers, will all be damaged by careless tourists, much like Morning Glory Pool.  I wonder how many others have already been altered?

 

One that has been severely altered is Solitary Geyser.  As its name suggests, it is isolated from the other features in the Upper Geyser Basin.  It is high up on the hill to the north of the basin.  Originally it was just a hot spring.  Years ago, engineers came up with a brilliant idea to pump hot water from the spring to the Old Faithful Inn.  In the long run, that project saved a bit on the power bill, but it altered the plumbing beneath the spring.  Those changes actually turned it into a geyser.  Solitary Geyser has small eruptions (only a few feet high) every few minutes.  I would visit Solitary Geyser later in the hike, on my way to Observation Point.

 

It was early afternoon at this point, and the crowds had reached peak level.  The boardwalks were so packed, it was difficult to move at times.  While we were killing time, we decided to work on our tourist scavenger hunt.  We came up with the following checklist:

 

-        Child on a leash

-        Free range children

-        Parent putting a child on a bison for a photo

-        Idiot trying to parallel park a rental RV

-        Moron stopped in the middle of the road looking at who knows what.  (Probably a deer)

-        Asian guy with at least three cameras

-        Dork with a portable speaker playing terrible music

-        Middle aged white guy using a Bluetooth to participate in a conference call while “hiking”

-        Amateur geologist showing off his knowledge to anyone who will listen (even though everything he is saying is wrong)

-        Soccer moms and / or children doing laps around the campground

-        Eurotrash selfie-girl

-        Dude with a mullet

-        Chick with a mullet

-        Guy boiling himself in a hot spring

 

Sadly, we were able to check off the majority of these in only a couple of days in Yellowstone.

 

Christy and I visited the Lion Group, colorful Heart Spring, and Beehive Geyser before looping around to the Giantess Geyser and Doublet Pool.  At that point Christy was worn out on the crowds of tourists.  She decided to find a quiet place to wait while I hiked up to Observation Point.  Observation Point overlooks Old Faithful, and I had just enough time to get up there before the next eruption.  I made a loop past the Solitary Geyser and hiked through the woods to a steep hillside with open cliffs.  I passed one cliff with a great view of the Old Faithful area just before reaching the official overlook.  The overlook is small, and even with only 15-20 people it was quite crowded.  The view from there is marginal, too, so I backtracked to the open area I’d passed a minute earlier.  It featured a comfortable place to sit, and I had it all to myself.  Seeing Old Faithful erupt from above was a unique perspective, and it was far more enjoyable without having to jockey for position among hundreds of tourists. 

 

Afterwards I did a little bushwhacking, hoping to find a view of the western part of the basin.  There were just enough scraggly pine trees to prevent that.  In the process, I jabbed my leg against a fallen log and got a nasty splinter.  I didn’t take the wound seriously, and incredibly, it got infected later in the trip.  Fortunately the infection cleared up without any medical care beyond a good cleaning, Neosporine, and bandaids.  Still, it took two weeks to go away, and it became of source of concern later on, during an extended backpacking trip.

 

I hurried back down from Observation Point and rejoined Christy.  We drove north on the park road, but forgot to stop at Black Sand Basin and Mirror Pool.  We did hit Biscuit Basin, which has some of the most beautiful features in the park, including Jewel Geyser and the stunning Sapphire Pool.  Biscuit Basin is also the starting point for one of the best short hikes in Yellowstone.  It combines Mystic Falls and a cliff overlook of the Biscuit Basin, Black Sand Basin, and the Upper Geyser Basin.  The view from there is a window into hell, with dozens of steaming vents and pools littering a barren landscape largely devoid of vegetation.  We had hiked there in 2003, and a return was high on my to do list for this trip.  Unfortunately, we weren’t able to squeeze it into our busy agenda.  That one will be a priority on our next visit.

 

From there we drove down through the Midway Geyser Basin and past the Grand Prismatic Spring.  That area was a zoo, so we skipped it.  We did drive Firehole Lake Drive, and caught the tail end of an eruption of the massive Great Fountain Geyser.  We decided to hit one more thermal area before relocating to the southwest corner of the park.  We had missed the Artist Paintpots in 2003, and it was only a few miles out of the way.  The loop trail there offers some neat views of colorful springs and bubbling mud pots, both from ground level and from above.  I wouldn’t consider the Artist Paintpots a must-see, but it was still worth a brief visit.

 

It was late afternoon, so we drove out to West Yellowstone.  We still had to pick up our backpacking permit, drive a couple of hours to the Bechler / Cave Falls area in the southwest corner of the park, and find a campsite.

Continue reading about our trip as we start a 6-day backpacking trip in Yellowstone's Cascade Corner.

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