We caught up on sleep again this morning and left the house around 10:00 to head for breakfast at the Euro Cafe in West, MT. Breakfast was delicious and Caelin's was the best with her biscuits and gravy. I was just glad to get a good cup of coffee. Ha! Next we headed into the park for day 2 of the south loop. Here are our adventures in order...
*Firehole River and Canyon Scenic Drive
*When we approached Firehole river, we immediately saw Bison on the other side of the river. We also found the Ojo Caliente Spring down by the river and could feel the warmness. In looking at a nearby map, we noticed there was a trail leading out to Fairy Falls. We decided to take the trail and thought it was a 4.5 mile hike roundtrip. Little did we know that was the miles for one way. Thus, this turned into a 9 mile hike through the back country. I must say the falls were beautiful and the hike back took us through trails with hidden springs and geysers. Cade said his favorite part was the hike without a trail in the back country. Caelin enjoyed the chipmunks at the falls. Charles and I both loved the Fairy Falls and thought the hike was worth it. When we finally made it back to the car, it was just over a 4 hr hike. This hike was a little bit of an oops...but we survived and are all proud of ourselves.
*Fountain Paint Pots: included bacteria mats, a fumarole, Red Spouter, and 6 different geysers. It was a nice .5 mile walk
*Midway Geyser Basin: We loved seeing the giant hot spring and the Grand Prismatic from the ground level/side. We are excited to hike this trail and get a birds eye view on Monday. Not sure that another long hike would be a good idea for the kids, lol!
*OLD FAITHFUL! We were lucky to get there 5 min before it erupted! It wasn't as tall as we thought it would be, but still VERY COOL! We then sat and ate dinner on the benches by Old Faithful before checking out the Old Faithful Inn and getting Caelin a Junior Ranger book to complete.
*Black Sand Basin where we saw an active geyser going off and several hot springs.
*Biscuit Basin contained many interesting springs (mustard spring, black pearl spring) and we found the trail head for Morning Glory. However, Morning Glory was a 1.5 mile hike round trip. So, we will hit this on Monday when there is more day light due to active Bear sightings.
*We saw a BLACK BEAR on the way out of Yellowstone around 9:30pm on the bank of the Firehole River! The pics did not turn out due to it being dusk, but he was busy finding food and then quickly scaled the steep rocks up the cliff. Now all we have left to see is a Moose. Fingers crossed for Monday, ha!
Total steps for the day was 32,102 and 15.8 miles!
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