YELLOWSTONE PART II

When we awoke Thursday morning (June 7th) it was 41 degrees in the RV and back up to about 30 degrees outside. Evidently, our generator issues have not been resolved. We dressed accordingly, started the generator by jump starting the batteries once again and charged up the batteries for a couple of hours. That done, we decided to take off and tour the west loop of Yellowstone. We dressed for the day in jeans, long sleeved shirts, polar fleeces and brought our gloves just in case. As it turned, out the day was beautiful. It warmed up to low 60s and was perfect for our hiking.



We arrived at Old Faithful around 11am and hiked to the Observation Point which was and I quote "strenuoun"eleveation gain of (per the sign) 200 feet above the geyser field. It was an uphill switch back for 1/2 mile and another 1.6 miles to complete the Geyser Basin loop. All we really could see was the steam from that point so we decided to stay for the next eruption and had lunch while we waited for it to go off. Very impressive at ground level.


View from Observation Point

View from Ground Level

Solitary Geyser on Trail back down to the Geyer Field

While we were on the west side of the loop, we decided to drive up to Biscut Basin and hike up to Mystic Falls. The brochure stated that this was a round trip of 2.5 miles with a "moderately strenuous" hike. It also said it was a trail that followed a lovely creek through a mixed conifer forest to the 70 foot falls over which the Little Firehole River drops from the Madison Plateau. We followed the boardwalk past Biscut Basin and its many beautiful geyers and started on the trail to the Falls. We noticed the sign that said it was bear country and be sure to have your bells and bear repellent with you. Okay..we had those things and we were ready to head into bear country. We came to a fork on the path and decided to take the high road over the Plateau and then go down to the falls. Silly us. The trail up was a 20 degree incline for .7 miles. Which meant that we climbed approximately 450 feet in elevation in that short distance. Quite a hike! The trail was narrow, rocky, close to the edge and very steep. It took us over an hour to get to the top and we thought we would see the Falls from here. We did not. We started down the far side of the mountain on another steep path to the Mystic Falls. Thank goodness we had our hikiing sticks with us. If you remember, when we went to Emerald Lake in the Rocky Mountain National Park, we thought that climbing 605 feet over 1.7 miles was steep. Now we know that wasn't so bad. Everything is relative! This was our hardest climb so far.

Tim at the edge of the Trail

Down Hill Trail

The Falls were wonderful to see and a good place to sit for a few minutes and relax. There were no bear sightings, only a few other hikers on the path.

Tim overlooking the Falls..once again off the trail!

Done for the day, and I mean really done, we headed back to the RV w here we found the batteries were almost dead again. The generator started and we charged them once again, but we will need to take action on this tomorrow. Another cold night tonight!