{"id":576,"date":"2016-08-06T04:28:12","date_gmt":"2016-08-06T04:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/?p=576"},"modified":"2017-06-03T14:23:34","modified_gmt":"2017-06-03T14:23:34","slug":"hot-springs-geysers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/2016\/08\/06\/hot-springs-geysers\/","title":{"rendered":"Saturday, August 6 Hot Springs & Geysers"},"content":{"rendered":"

SUMMARY:\u00a0 <\/strong>No rush to get up this morning\u2013it’s only 13 1\/2 miles to our next permitted campsite. It rained a bit, so we were glad to stay in the tent a little longer. We followed the trail to the west shore of huge Shoshone Lake, then waded through a quarter mile of swamp before finally reaching the Shoshone Geyser Basin. Wow! It is quite a place!<\/p>\n

Signs warned us to stay on the trail as we passed close by hot spring pools of all sizes, colors, and temperatures ranging from just steaming to bubbling and boiling. The geysers each have little cones, and they roar and send up plumes of steam.<\/p>\n

We went slowly through, looking at everything, before going on to our designated campsite, OA1, near the Firehole River. We hung out by the river for awhile, took a nap, and then walked half a mile to see the Lone Star Geyser erupt. It’s the 2nd biggest in the whole park, and quite spectacular! Back to camp for dinner then we had to dive into our tent as a thunderstorm came rolling through.<\/p>\n

DETAILS:\u00a0 <\/strong>It was raining lightly this morning, and since we only had 13 1\/2 miles to do, we just lazed in the tent until it cleared up a bit.\u00a0 By the time we got around to packing up the tent, it had already dried nicely.\u00a0 The only bummer was the mossies (mosquitoes)–they were at nuisance level.\u00a0 I wish that the Yellowstone campsites would be placed where there are less of those whining little critters!\u00a0 After a bit of climbing (including one big climb), we reached the shore of huge Shoshone Lake.\u00a0 The trail goes along the “beach” a bit (nice!!) but then it heads into what looked at first like a pretty green meadow with a few water lily ponds and baby pine trees, but then it becomes a SWAMP.\u00a0 All we could do was to follow the “trail”, going slosh, slosh through water, mud and plants.\u00a0 We didn’t care about it, with our La Sportiva running shoes, but we wondered aloud, “What can the people do with this when they wear hiking BOOTS?\u00a0 Take them off and go barefoot?”<\/p>\n

Not too long after we got out of the swamp, we were into the Shoshone Basis geyser zone.\u00a0 Wow!\u00a0 The signs warned us to stay ON the trail.\u00a0 The place was full of hot springs (all colors) and little geysers and boiling springs.\u00a0 I was so glad we did not have to rush through it.\u00a0 We walked slowly and stopped often to look at the amazing features.<\/p>\n

By lunchtime, we were back in quiet green forest, with NO mossies!\u00a0\u00a0 Yay!\u00a0 It was so peaceful.\u00a0 We took time to just enjoy the quiet.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 By 2:00, even though we’d spent so much time just sauntering along, we had reached campsite OA1.\u00a0 The first thing we did was to hang our food over the “bear bar”.\u00a0 Then we headed for the nearby Firehole River, where we got water and drank a whole liter of “bug juice” (Emer-gen-C + Crystallite) each while we just lay around resting near the river.\u00a0 One interesting feature was that there were tiny little cute hot springs everywhere.\u00a0 You actually have to watch your step a bit so you don’t land in one of them!<\/p>\n

Then we headed off along the trail for the 1\/2 mile hike to see the Lone Star Geyser, but after a few minutes we met two young guys who told us it had just erupted 15 minutes ago.\u00a0 Since it goes 3 hours between eruptions, we decided to go back to camp and wait there.\u00a0 We set up the tent, and\u00a0 I lay on top of my sleeping bag studying the maps for the trail to Mack’s Inn and then on to Lima.\u00a0 At 5:00, we walked over to the Lone Star.\u00a0 About 5 minutes after we arrived, the eruption started, so that was great timing!\u00a0 There were a fair number of other people watching also, who had walked in from Old Faithful Village.\u00a0 The geyser roared mightily (very impressive) and sent a plume of hot water and steam up 40′ in the air, for about 15 minutes.\u00a0 When it finally fizzled down, everyone applauded, and as if it heard us, out came another burst (we all yelled, “Encore!”) before it finally did stop.<\/p>\n

But dark, dramatic clouds were building fast and thunder was rumbling in the distance, so we hurried back to camp, and were into our tent just before it started to rain.\u00a0 Whew!\u00a0 Glad we had already set up the tent!\u00a0 We ate our dinner in the tent (tortillas, ham, cheese), and after less than an hour, the T-storm was over and the setting sun was peeking through the clouds.\u00a0 Our plan for tomorrow is: Breakfast at Old Faithful Village, then on to our next campsite.\u00a0 If we can put in a 28 mile day, though, we could make it all the way OUT of Yellowstone Park and skip the campsite.\u00a0 We’ll see!\u00a0\u00a0 I hope we can pull that off, because Montana is calling!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SUMMARY:\u00a0 No rush to get up this morning\u2013it’s only 13 1\/2 miles to our next permitted campsite. It rained a bit, so we were glad to stay in the tent a little longer. We followed the trail to the west shore of huge Shoshone Lake, then waded through a quarter mile of swamp before finally […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wyoming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":991,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576\/revisions\/991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}