Nancy and I settled into our room in the Old Faithful Inn overlooking the upper geyser basin. For four days and nights we hiked and then hung out in the upper balconies overlooking the lobby of the Inn.
We hiked upper geyser basin, biscuit basin, middle basin, and both Mystic and Fairy Falls trails. On the way we saw at least 5 geysers go off. Often we were almost the only people on the trail because we hit the trail early (or late) and walked more than 1/2 mile from the nearest access. We also had picnic lunches and dinners of salads, tuna, salmon, and lentils and sausages using the Alaskan as our mobile kitchen. Pretty nice to be looking out over the Firehole River meadows with several dozen bison for window seats.
On the Observation loop trail near the upper geyser basin we finally found an area not choked with lodgepole pines that have filled in after the 1988 great fires. We saw mature lodgepole, sub-alpine fir, engelmann spruce and juniper. One tree looked like silver fir but they are not supposed to have silver fir that far east. We also saw two types of squirrels, a chipmunk, several marmots, AND a weasel running off with a squirrel in its mouth. The view was nice too.
Afternoons were usually spent in the Inn to avoid rain/snow squalls. Up in the third balcony we read, people watched and looked in wonder at the intricate stick frame construction. We met one family of 4 from New York playing board games. That reminded me of being there some 16 years ago playing board games at the same table with a mother, her son, and Ruby and Rose. We had a nice conversation sharing places to visit. In the end one of my origami Totoro's wanted to travel with them. Another person we met was a single man camping in his car. He had been on the road for 6 weeks. I also had fun teasing the bar tender about which room he should bill my beer to.
While at the Inn, Totoro and Asiago had another adventure (see part 5).
We headed out at 7:30 am Wednesday morning to take Nancy to the Bozeman airport via Livingston to have one more steak for lunch. By 8:00am we approached a small crowd of people on the side of the road. Several had spotting scopes and professional telephoto cameras. That is the clear sign of some interesting wildlife. BINGO! A grizzly sow and 2 cubs came into the meadow below the roadway embankment. I must have taken 100 photos.
Photos include the grizzlies, Riverside Geyser, Mystic Falls and hot pools.
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