Yellowstone NP – Mystic Falls Hike and Old Faithful 6/7/19

Friday, June 7, 2019

Yellowstone NP – Mystic Falls Hike and Old Faithful

Mystic Falls – 3.5 miles

We woke up early again to try and get to Grand Prismatic Spring, which I was super excited about, but it was too steamy to see it. This was my biggest disappointment of the trip, but that just means I have to come back!

We moved on to the Fountain Paint Pots and saw a few other geysers and such before dropping Doc and Suz off at the hotel.

Court and I then went on a hike at Biscuit Basin to Mystic Falls. The beginning of this hike is actually part of the official Continental Divide Trail, so I have now stepped foot on each of the Big 3 National Scenic Trails!

The hike was beautiful. The beginning is a boardwalk with many more geothermal features.

Once into the woods, we climbed up to an overlook and saw Old Faithful erupting from a mile or more away.

Mystic Falls was at the far end of the loop and was very beautiful, as expected.

We closed the loop and headed back to meet back up with Doc and Suz for lunch at the historic Old Faithful Inn, built in 1904. The interior is just awesome.

After lunch we saw Old Faithful erupt, which is pretty impressive.

We spent the rest of the day hanging around Old Faithful and the Visitor Center. It wasn’t nearly as touristy as I expected and was a lot of fun.

The next morning we woke up to a blizzard in June! We got 8 inches in two hours! We had planned to drive out the south entrance of the park past the Tetons again, but with the storm, all roads were closed except for the west entrance. Luckily we were staying at Old Faithful because otherwise we would have been trapped and missed our flight back from Salt Lake City. It was fun driving in the snow and the scenery was fantastic. Snow in June. Crazy.

Once again we had an amazing trip with Doc and Suz. This was my first time to Yellowstone/Grand Teton and it lived up to every expectation. We will be returning, especially to see Grand Prismatic Spring!