Wow, it is hard to believe that our time here in West Yellowstone is almost over! We have only 4 weeks left of work, before we start venturing back east for a few weeks to visit with family and friends, as well as dentists and doctors (for Dan….Makena and I are good!). Then we will be heading down to begin our fall jobs at Amazon in Jeffersonville, IN.

The temperatures here still get in the low 40’s at night, with 70’s during the day. It has been a very pleasant summer. We have been venturing into Yellowstone every week, mostly for just a few hours, as it gets extremely crowded. Towards the end of August, it should get better, as the kids start going back to school.

Since we need to start increasing our walking to get ready for Amazon, we met up with friends for two hikes last week.  Originally, I was going to do both hikes in one blog, but decided to split them up, as it was getting a bit lengthy. So the second part will be posted in a few days.

On Sunday, we met up with Karen and Al at Biscuit Basin in Yellowstone for a short 3 mile hike to Mystic Falls. We started out looking at the various geysers in the area, the most famous of which is the Sapphire Pool. It had biscuit shaped formations surrounding it, but they were all blown off in the 1959 earthquake (our previous blog gave more details about this earthquake). The beautiful sapphire color remains, and it is one of the prettiest geyser (as far as color) that we have seen this summer.

Sapphire Pool

The trail starts out relatively easy, and then the trail splits off. We had been advised to “go left” as it was the easier route to the falls. We discovered later that was very good advice, as it is much easier to go down the steeper climb of 700 feet, then up! The trail winds along the Little Firehole River, and is very scenic.

the easy trail

Even though there were “bear aware” signs, we did not see any wildlife at all, except this little guy.

our ‘wildlife’

After less than a mile, we reached the 70 foot high Mystic Falls.

Mystic Falls

Karen and Al

We had 2 options, go back the way we came, or take the more strenuous and less scenic route. We all opted for the latter! The new route back down began with a steep climb, but did offer a nice overlook to the Upper Geyser Basin which is about 3 miles away.

Old Faithful in distance

We continued climbing, and commenting that we are supposed to be ‘heading down’. Al has a GPS tracker on his iPhone, and it indicated we had climbed over 650 feet in a very short distance. We were happy much of it was in the shade of the trees. We stopped at the ‘scenic overlook’ which looked over the parking lot and the Biscuit Basin where we began our hike. In the upper right corner of the photo is the Upper Geyser Basin where Old Faithful is located.

Biscuit Basin overlook

And then we began a rapid descent, going down switchbacks for most of the way. Al’s GPS indicated we were going down a 12% grade. We met a lot of people huffing and puffing their way up, and were glad we chose the “left” option up, and the “right” option down.  Dan is in the center of the photo below.

heading on down

Al is the tiny orange dot in the center of this picture.

Hello Al!

After we made it back down, we decided to go to the Old Faithful Inn for lunch. After lunch, we discovered a tour of the Inn was in progress, so we tagged along on. The tour lasts about 45 minutes, and is very informative, and includes a view of one of the rooms for rent. This room rents for $109.00 night, and you have your own sink (not original) but do share a bathroom with everyone else on the floor. It was quite the deluxe room back in the early 20^th Century!

Old House Room

sink is not original

On the second floor of the Inn, there is an overlook into the dining room where we had lunch.

Dining room

The flag inside the Inn contains 45 stars, representing the 45 states at the time the Inn was complete in 1904. By 1912 there were three more stars added to the flag, with Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona being added. The remaining two stars were added when Alaska and Hawaii were added to the union in 1959.

45 stars on the flag

We hope to get together with Karen and Al one more time before we leave this area, to do some more hiking.

Quote for the day: “Hiking is just walking where it’s okay to pee.” – Demetri Martin