Yellowstone 2021: Day 4 - Geysers Part 2

Sorry about taking so long to get this post up.  Life has been A LOT lately and I haven't the time and/or mental capacity for writing. But these Yellowstone posts have been hanging out in the back of my mind and so I need to get them done. So let's get back in there shall we. 

Day Three had been Sunday September 5th. We got back to our campsite around 10:00 and everyone immediately went to bed.  In the morning we woke up around 7:30 and had a quick breakfast.  We got ready for the day and were on the road early.  

This was Labor Day and I was expecting the park to be busy and crowded. I wanted to make sure we got a head start on most of the crowds. 

We drove from our campsite in Canyon Village 15 miles to the Artist Paintpot parking lot. As we got closer to the parking lot I reminisced about the time I'd made this same drive with Derrick and Veronica.  It had been toward the end of our summer in Yellowstone.  They'd been squirrely and trying to rough house in the RV so I'd taken them to Artist Paint Pots to get their wiggles out. I laughed at how normal that had seemed back then. We really did live a charmed life that summer. 

Here's Derrick at the trailhead for Artist Paint pots. He had this grin on his face nearly the whole time we were in Yellowstone.  He was so happy to be back in one of his favorite places.

 

Since we were there so early there was lots of steam rising up from all the hot water.  This area looked really cool. I've never noticed it on any other visit to the paint pots. 

The trail to the paint pots is about a quarter of a mile.  We were excited to see more steam rising up. 

This bridge was extra steamy. 

Yellowstone in the early morning is so fun. 

To get to the actual Paint Pots you have to climb up a rather steep hill.  Fortunately there are stairs. 

Here's the view from the top.

And here are the paint pots. 

The kids had fun watching them for a long time. 

It's interesting to see the different consistency.  This one was thick. 

While this one was much more watery.  But they were only a few feet apart. 

We went back down the hill and walked by the lower hot pools one last time. 

Then we hurried to the parking lot because Veronica needed to use the bathroom.  There was a line of about 5 people in front of us so we were in line for a little while.  She and I had fun talking about our favorite colors. We also took a picture together. 

The parking lot for Artist Paint Pots is rather small and it was completely full by the time we left.  This made me antsy for our next destination. We were heading to the Fairy Falls Trailhead which was still 21 miles away. The whole way there I was hoping that we'd get to the parking lot while there were still spots available. 

All weekend the kids had been asking where the big herds of bison were.  I told them they were probably migrating from the Hayden Valley to the area around Madison.  It was possible we wouldn't see the bison on this trip. But as we came into the area around Fountain Paint Pots we saw a huge hurd of bison. The kids were so excited. 

We considered stopped at Fountain Paint Pots.  But I was still really worried about getting a parking spot at the Fairy Falls Trailhead.  So we passed Fountain Paint Pots.  We made it to the trailhead parking lot and were able to find a spot.  Whew.  

We loaded up our water and snacks for the day and headed out on the longest hike we had planned for the weekend.  I was excited for this hike because it was take us to three unique features.  We would hike .8 miles to the Grand Prismatic Overlook, then continue on about another 2 miles to Fairy Falls and from there we'd go another mile or so to Imperial Geyser.  

We'd done a longer and slightly misguided version of this hike one Saturday when we'd lived in Yellowstone.  It's one of our most memorable hikes and I wrote all about it in this post. But we had no intentions of redoing the long route to Fairy Falls. I was curious what it was like to hike to Fairy Falls on the more direct trail. 

The trail starts out very wide and open.  This is an old road. 

Then a small side trail branches off of the road.  The side trail takes you up to an overlook built into the side of a hill.  The overlook gives an excellent view of Grand Prismatic Spring. This overlook was built the summer we lived in Yellowstone.  Before that it was something of a unofficial location.

We stopped for a snack break after the overlook. 

Here's another view of the spring. 

We followed the side trail back down to the road/trail and kept following that.  

Here's the view of Grand Prismatic Spring from ground level. It's not as cool looking. 

Soon we came to the actual trailhead for Fairy Falls. This trail was skinnier, but well marked. 

I told the kids about the last time we'd been on this trail.  We'd been heading back from a long day of hiking.  The ONLY way I'd been able to keep three year old Veronica going was to point out the red trail markers that were stuck up in the trees. She'd become obsessed with spotting the markers. 

The markers worked their magic once again because the kids had fun spotting them.  They would run up and try to hit the markers. 

This kept them entertained for a while. 

But even the markers weren't enough to grant the kids unlimited energy.  They were all pretty worn out 2 miles later when we finally reached the falls.  Brandon and I had told the kids we'd stop at the waterfall.  But I was beginning to rethink that plan.  If we stopped at the falls I wasn't sure the kids would want to keep going to Imperial Geyser.  Brandon and I decided that it would be better to keep pushing onto the geyser and then come back to the falls on our way back. So when we arrived at the falls we didn't go up into the nice cool cove, we kept going. 

And the kids were NOT happy about that.  It's a good think this picture is taken from behind. EVERYONE was in a bad mood. 

We took a break in the shade for some snacks and several children refused to keep going. 

But somehow we got them to keep going.  (I'm not exactly sure how we did it.) That mile was pretty rough.  Brandon and I had to keep reassuring the kids that Imperial Geyser was well worth the hike. 

Eventually we made it and it did not disappoint. Imperial Geyser is a fountain geyser that erupts as high as 15 feet every 2 or so minutes.  

The kids sat down on the edge of the trail and watched the Geyser for a long time. 

Derrick and I walked around to a different angle and took this video. 

We also discovered paint pots here. 

I took a picture with my knees because I wanted to document the fact that they'd made it. I'd been worried about how my knees would handle all the hiking on this trip. They did fabulous and I had absolutely no problems with them. I was so grateful. 

Here are Derrick and I. 

We liked looking at the logs in this hot spring. 

And this paint pot had cool colors.

Derrick exploring. 

And the geyser again. 

The girls were still hanging out at the spot where they'd plopped down when we arrived.  They had fun playing in the fine white dirt. We were all pretty covered in that dirt when we hiked back down the trail.

Another angle of everyone. 

After a while we decided it was time to go back to the waterfall.  Derrick brought a branch and carried it with him for a while.

Here's the view of the hill where the waterfall is. It's hard to see. 

But soon we could see it again. The ground was muddy at this point.  One of the kids said, "Mom! You were right!  We would have got our school shoes muddy."  I felt pretty vindicated.  The kids had been whining all weekend about how I made them wear their old and small tennis shoes on this trip instead of their new school shoes. 

There were a lot of dead trees on the way up to the waterfall cove.  Here's Charlotte expertly navigating them. 

Here's the waterfall just before I passed the hills shaddow. 

And here's the waterfall after we were in the little cove. 

I took this video so you could hear it's sound.

We went close to the waterfall and hung out for a long time.  I took my shoes off and soaked my feet in the cold water for a little bit. 

Then Veronica and I sat on a log.  She and I looked at shapes in the rock walls and joked and laughed.  I don't remember much of what we said, but I remember that we had such a fun time talking together. 

There had been several groups of people at the waterfall with us, but we stayed longer than any of them. I'd hoped to get someone to take our picture before we left, but by the time we were ready to leave there was no one around.  So our friend Otto took a picture for us. 

Then it was time to hike back out.  This wasn't as fun as the way in had been.  It really was just a situation of putting one foot in front of the other. That trail felt very long, but eventually we were back out on the Fountain Freight Road. 

And soon we were within sight of the parking lot. 

We passed this pretty hot spring on the way to the car. 

A lady stopped us and asked if we'd been to the overlook and how how far it was.  I think she saw how tired and dirty the kids were and was wondering if the overlook was going to be a difficult trip.  I told her, "Well, we did a 7 mile hike to Imperial Geyser. That's hard.  But the overlook is less than a mile and pretty easy."

We were all pooped after our long hike.  No one felt like doing any more hiking.  Plus it was about 3:00 and all the other parking lots in the area would be jam packed for at least another 2 hours.  So we just drove back to Canyon Village. 

When we got back we spent a while relaxing. The night before Charlotte and Lydia had figured out some unique resting spots in the Honda and they tried them out again. 

After a while Brandon made dinner. 

It was chili and the kids devoured it.  I'd made the exact same thing for dinner a week earlier and they'd barely ate it then.  But now it was the best food they'd ever had and they were wishing for more. 

I took this picture to document my shirt.  It says Escape Artist. 

All weekend we'd been telling the kids that they could buy souvenirs on Monday.  So after dinner we drove over to the buildings at Canyon Village to pick out our souvenirs.  The plan was to go to the Xanterra Gift shop by the dinning hall.  Then check out the General Store. And finally see what was at the gift shop in the Visitors Center. 

Well it started out okay.  We had a fun time poking around the Xanterra gift shop.  We also peeked at the dinning hall.  That was sad.  We'd been there on opening day in 2017 when it had reopened after renovations.  Now all the fun seating was roped off.  The wingback chair that I'd sat in on my lunch breaks was gone. The ice creamery wasn't even open.  I hadn't thought much about COVID on this trip (other than wearing a mask in every building) but this was a reminder that COVID had changed a lot of things in the park. 

We didn't buy anything at the gift shop because I wanted the kids to examine all their options first.  So we left the Xanterra gift shop and walked over to the General Store.  But it had closed at 5:00. So had the visitors center.  I'd completely forgot that it wasn't summer.  These places wouldn't be open late like that had been when we'd lived in the park.  

The kids were super sad, but we told them we'd come back in the morning.  That sort of helped.  

When we drove back to camp we saw an Elk walking through the camp ground.  We hurried and parked at our campsite and then walked back down to see it.  The kids forgot all about the closed gift shop as they watched the Elk.

All weekend Derrick had been talking about hiking to the Brink of the Lower Falls. We'd seen the viewpoint from other parts of the canyon and had told me, "I want to go there!"  I'd been telling him we'd do it later, but also secretly hoping that he'd forget. I wasn't looking forward to that trail. It had like a billion switch backs and is steep in some areas. I knew I could go down the trail just fine, but getting back up would be difficult. 

But I also knew that Derrick would never forget. Like ever. The last think I wanted was to go back to Twin Falls and have Derrick keep talking about how he wanted to go close to the waterfall. 

Thankfully Brandon was fine taking Derrick on the trail.  So Brandon and Derrick drove over to the Brink of the Lower Falls while the girls and I hung out at the campsite. 

Lydia occupied herself by drawing a picture in the dirt. It's of a girl waving.  

I read the sequel to My Side of the Mountain to the girls.  We'd read My side of the Mountain while living in the RV and had related hard to Sam's desire to live in the mountains.  So I figured this was a good book to read on our return trip. 

Here are pictures Brandon took with his phone.  See the steep switch backs. 

Derrick didn't mind though.  

Here's the view of the canyon. 

And Derrick at the Brink of the Lower Falls where he'd been asking to go all weekend.  Yep, Yellowstone is his happy place. 

Brandon and Derrick came back and we build a fire with another box of firewood we'd bought from the campground office. 

We had a fun time sitting around the fire and talking for a long time. 

It was a beautiful night. 

We all got ready for bed and climbed into our sleeping bags one last time. It felt so good to slide my feet into my sleeping bag.  My feet and ankles were so sore from a long day of hiking. 

But it had been so worth it.