Thursday, June 29th, 2023

Starting mileage: 5302, distance travelled: 104

Miles hiked: 4.5

Knowing we would be fighting the crowds, we got out of the campground as early as possible, which translated into 8:30am, fueled but sadly without coffee. We stopped briefly at Moose Falls, a quick walk from a turnout before going to Old Faithful.

We ran into significant construction traffic, and didn’t arrive at Old Faithful until 10:10am, just in time to sprint across the parking lot and see the 10:30am geyser, right on time.

We flooded the visitors center to hit the restroom and get our passport cancelled, only to hear the announcement that the Beehive Geyser was scheduled to go off in 10 minutes, a once every 18-20 hour occurrence. We scooted out and saw the rare spectacle.

We decided to abandon our idea of hiking through the complex due to an approaching thunderstorm and chose instead to drive to Fairy Trail, where we encountered massive traffic and zero parking. We found a roadside spot at a 30 degree slope in our very tall camper in the pouring rain. We made and ate our lunch, carefully load balancing to not tip our camper over. The rain hadn’t completely abated but we hiked our way to the Grand Prismatic Overlook. The view was spectacular.

After hiking down, we drove another mile and got to walk right up to the hot springs we had viewed from above. The colors were amazing. In addition to the Grand Prismatic Spring, we also saw Opal and Tourmaline pools.

We continued driving north, hoping to stop at the Lower Geyser Basin but were dissuaded by the massive traffic jam and zero parking. We continued north on the Grand Tour loop road, finally stopping at the Artist’s Paint Pots, which didn’t disappoint, finally providing a view of actual bubbling mud pots, which Brady had been greatly anticipating.

The last 30 miles of our day were interrupted with lots of traffic, but mostly because people were stopping/slowing to view buffalo grazing in the fields adjacent to the roads. We were tired but it was worth it.

We arrived at the Yellowstone Lake Hotel just after 4pm, checked into our cabin, and had time to hit the general store before dinner. We had a cocktail overlooking the beautiful lake, listening to the string quartet playing Come on Eileen! An amazing dinner followed, complete with rabbit confit and elk sausage for Brady and local trout for Laura. We were all happy to snuggle into real beds for the night.