Hayden first wanted to let everyone know that he saw the first spurt of water out of Old Faithful yesterday and announced to the crowd that it was starting. Now, onto today. We got up, had a big breakfast and having packed camelbak's with water and hiking snacks, set off for our six mile hike to Fairy Falls, Imperial Geyser, across the meadow, past Goose Lake and back to Fairy Falls trailhead. All total 6 miles. We are presently at 6800 feet of elevation which makes you feel a little out of shape.
We were a little perturbed after driving past where we thought the trail head was about 7 times that their is very little marking the hiking trails here. Anyway, we finally came to a different trailhead that would take us on a similar route and see everything but Geyser Basin which we could drive a lot closer to see anyway. We arrived after about 1/2 mile to Ojo Caliente caldera, which would be a geyser if it had a small hole underground that built up pressure and then shot through but is a caldera because it is a big pool of water that boils(seriously boils) and runs to (in this case) the river. The algae is different colors depending on the heat of the water. Blue at the hottest, then white, yellow, orange and brown. This can lead to multi colored pools, which are beautiful. The blue is as blue as the bluest sky. The entire area we walked had had a fire in 1988, so the trees were little(10 feet tall and all the same height). We strolled past goose lake and had to take our first snack break because everyone was HUNGRY! If you could had seriously seen what they put away for breakfast, you wouldn't have known, how they could be hungry.
Doctor sports medicine mom then got out bandaids because part of Luke's tennis show was wearing through the inside and leaving him a blister. He forgot to change to his hiking boots prior to hiking. A long but pretty hike to Fairy Falls(above) and then a short distance to Imperial Geyser. This half caldera, half geyser was way more impressive than Old Faithful. It continuously shot water 5-20 feet in the air and boiled away. It had all the colors in its pool which don't really show up on the picture. Next to it were boiling mud pots. Like calderas but truly mud. You could hear it from 10 feet away rumbling in the earth. Unearthly!
Off to hike the meadow which was Katie's undoing. We had now put in 4 miles and had two to go to get back to our car. The meadow was pretty with grasses and streams, also some bison bones but had no shade and was windy and sunny. We finally ran into another hiker and he told us we had about 1.5 miles to go and she didn't want to go anymore. She did finally buck up and get to hiking again but now with much grousing. Past the Ojo Caliente and then with 1/8 mile left to go, Austin allowed her a ride on his back. Good Big Brother! The next time she complains about them I will remind her. Probably a larger factor was that it was 3 p.m. and we hadn't had lunch, just hiking snacks. It took us about 3 hours and 45 minutes. We drove to Old Faithful and were going to have "lunch" and browse and the crowds made us just get ice cream and move on to our campsite.
A meal of hamburgers and we are eagerly awaiting Joy and Trei. Tomorrow is lower loop to look at the highlights. Pack a lunch, I think or it will cost us $100 bucks for lunch. Eight dollar sandwiches and 3.55 more if you want to add fries and a drink! WOW!
No comments:
Post a Comment