Knowing the crowds in the park were getting worse as the week went on, we got up really early and got into the park before 7am. We headed to the trailhead for the Fairy Falls trail, which is almost to the turn off for Old Faithful. When we pulled into the parking lot, there were only two other vehicles. But the area was very foggy due to the hot springs in the Mid-Basin thermal pools. As we got our selves ready to hike, the sun came out and burned off the fog. As we headed down the trail, we kept our eyes and ears peeled for any wild life. The trail initially followed and old road and then turned off into a heavily forested area. This area had been burned during the 1988 fires and there were a lot of trees on the ground, but the new (30 year old) saplings were 20 feet high and packed together, making it hard to see very far into the forest. We kept a close eye out for Grizzly Bears since we had heard they were active in the area but the mosquitoes were the worst pest. The trail was fairly level until the last quarter mile and we made good time (2.5 miles per hour). The falls were running very well and were very pretty. A good treat at the end of the hike (5 miles, 82 feet elevation, 941 calories). We only saw two other groups of hikers on the way out (we let one group pass us to act as bear bait for us), but on the way back there was tons of people heading to the falls or the mid-basin overlook. They were coming in by the busloads! When we got to the parking lot, it was packed with hundreds of cars and busses. We were very happy we were getting out of there!
We then went down to the Lower Geyser Basin and hiked the boardwalk. Parking was packed and we had to circle the lot a couple of times before a space opened up that we could fit the Behemoth into (David almost had to get out and have words with someone who tried to cut into the spot in front of us). Again there were a lot of people but they were fairly spread out so we were not crowded. After a week of seeing thermal features, we were getting a bit burned out and none of these features really stood out. Leslie wanted to take a shot at seeing the Grand Geyser in the upper basin again since we had missed it yesterday. As we got off the Grand Loop Road to the access road for the Upper Geyser Basin the traffic came to a screeching stop, two miles from the parking lots! We quickly did a U turn and headed for the Wanderer. Along the way, we took Firehole Lake drive and stopped to enjoy our lunch.
Returning to the Wanderer, we stopped off at West Yellowstone to pick up supplies to last us for the upcoming 4 days of roughing it.
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| Fairy Falls |
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| Lower Geyser Basin |
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