Day 10 - Last Day and Fun Meet Up

Another late start for us. I think the biggest advantage of having 5 full days here is that we didn't need to rush as much. I mean, we probably would have had fewer traffic jams had we gotten out earlier, but I also feel like we were more well rested and sane. We left at 10. I was on a mission to find the hike that led to an aerial view of the Grand Prismatic Spring. Apparently, people used to climb a hill to see it, making it an unofficial trail, but the park built an actual trail last year with a ledge at the top in order to keep people safe and protect the park. I'd read that it was off of the Fairy Falls trail an that you park at this Midway Geyser Basin, which is where the Grand Prismatic Spring is located. It was insanely crowded, so we parked on the road and walked toward the lot. But we couldn't find any trailhead and all we saw were the boardwalks for the springs. We could see the people up on a hill but couldn't tell how they got here. It was frustrating. So we trekked back to our car and went up the road. Sure enough, there was a full parking lot for the Fairy Falls trail. Oops. That is not what I had read, and the current map doesn't even have a dot for Fairy Falls. Annoying. 

The hike wasn't far and on a wide, sandy gravel path. About a half mile in, you turned and went up a steep hill. At the top, you were looking down on the Grand Prismatic Spring. You could see all the colors so well. It was awesome! We were able to get someone to take a pic of the four of us with the awesomeness in the background. We decided not to continue on to Fairy Falls because it was almost lunchtime, and Ethan really had to go to the bathroom. Seriously - every hike. He refuses to go in the pit toilets, so we moved on to the Old Faithful area. Ethan wanted to exchange the Yellowstone pin he got anyway because he wanted one with a bison since we'd seen so many. We hit the bathrooms, exchanged the pin, and I got a hat. Then we went to find a place to eat lunch. We'd had part of our lunch before our first little hike in case we had gone ahead, but we still had sandwiches to eat. We wanted to get to the West Thumb area, along Yellowstone Lake. 

A good friend from college, Marty, was in Yellowstone today with his wife Debbie and daughter Lauren. He'd commented on one of my Facebook post that they were coming Tuesday. Yesterday, he texted, asking for any suggestions. I gave him a few and also the link to this blog to get some ideas. I said it would be fun to meet up but with our departure times so random and the cell service in here, it would likely be hard to coordinate. And this place is HUGE. Well, after our  Grand Prismatic hike, I had a little service and texted that they should definitely do it. He texted back that they did it that morning and that they were in the West Thumb area. I texted back that we were headed there. We passed by the West Thumb Geyser Basin and went about a mile up the road and pulled off the road and just went down in this little area by the lake. Marty texted that they would wait for us. I asked if they were at the basin and said that we had passed it already. He said they would come to us. So they did, and we got to visit for 20 minutes or so. It was lovely to see them. We were continuing north, but they planned to go back out the way they came in, so we had to part ways. But how fun that we were able to meet up in this big park? I haven't seen them in several years. Wish we could have visited longer, but we both had drives ahead of us and they planned to do the Mystic Falls hike we did a few days ago. 

I'm wondering if they were able to do it, though, because we had rain come in shortly after we left them. But before that, we came across 3 elk, right off the road. Got some great pictures. Then we stopped off at this spot in Yellowstone Lake that had a sandbar going from one side of the inlet to another. It was cloudy at this point, and only high sixties with a breeze, so I had no desire to go in the water. But Eleanor did. Ethan skipped rocks while she got in her suit. She didn't last long, though. I think she would have stayed in, but we had storm clouds rolling in fast, and it started raining lightly, so we got back in the car. We drove up through Hayden Valley, which is home to many bison. At one point, we saw at least 50 off the road. 

There was one last thing I wanted to see that we hadn't stopped at a couple of days ago: Artist Paint Pots. Debbie said they stopped and it was really cool. She mentioned something about soup and stew. Well, it was raining as we approached, but I decided I would go see it regardless if anyone wanted to come. It's our last day here after all. The kids said they would come, so we grabbed umbrellas and set off. It was .6 miles down a trail. Once you got to it, there were boardwalks along the bottom and then you could go left or right to go up to another higher level. From the top, looking down was very neat. There were a lot of light green moss covered rocks, and all kind of small springs of different colors, hence the name of Artist Paint Pots. Then, we came to the soup and stew part. There was one spring of liquidy mud boiling; this was the soup. Next to it, a much thicker white mud stew was boiling. It was so cool! A circle would form and out would pop a string of mud. Sometimes it was small, other times a big blob of mud would come out. It kind of looked like frogs jumping sometimes. At one point, a blob of mud jumped so far it hit a guy next to us. Luckily, he had a raincoat on. The kids said it was the coolest thing they had seen in Yellowstone and didn't want to leave. Will had stayed in the car, saying he might catch up to us, but he hadn't come. We were sad for him to miss it. We stayed a bit longer than said goodbye and went back down the stairs. It had stopped raining, and there was faint rainbow, reminding me of our last night in Banff last year. We also got rain followed by a pretty rainbow in the mountains. My camera was acting up, so I'm not sure I got a good picture. At this point, the kids were convinced Will had to see it, so Ethan was going to run back to the car to get him. He didn't get far before Will was coming back. He had finally set off when the rain ended. So we went back up to show him. I'm not sure he was as impressed by it as me and the kids, but I think he's glad he saw it too. I'm so glad we decided to stop, especially since the kids loved it so much. It was a great way to end our trip here. 

Will was commenting on the sheer amount of driving we have done on this trip because the park is so vast, but it just hasn't seemed nearly as bad to me as some of our other trips. Maybe because the drives are easier and not as claustrophobic. Besides when we were in traffic, we were rarely in the car for more than 30 minutes at a time. And there's so much to see out the window! Maybe it's because he did all the driving in the park. I've offered, but he is more comfortable driving I think. 

We could go through Yellowstone and out the south entrance tomorrow and then drive through the Tetons to our place in Jackson, but Will decided we will do it on the main highway. For some reason, the 14 mile stretch from the west entrance to the loop always takes at least 30 minutes, and the part we'd have to drive through the park goes through the Old Faithful area, which can also be congested. Just now, we turned onto the road out of the park and we are going 5 miles an hour with a huge line of cars ahead. It is likely the fact that everyone is leaving the park right now. That, and there may be wildlife delays. (Update: It was an elk delay. We blew past. We already saw elk and they were a lot closer. Ha ha!)

It really was a wonderful visit to Yellowstone. Our place was nice and close, we saw more than we thought we would, the extreme wildlife viewing was something new, and we had some awesome hikes. Now, on to the next adventure in the Tetons!