West Yellowstone Hostel Day #4 – Elk Pictures, Firehole Falls & Swimming Hole, Fountain Paint Pots – September 2, 2010

Day #4 at the West Yellowstone Hostel started out with a plan to head back up to the Mammoth Springs area of Yellowstone.  Like many previous days the plan changed.  Not only did it get delayed it got completely derailed.  The geyser area between Madison and Old Faithful had yet to be explored on the trip.  The Madison area was in the same boat.  The first stop was the Madison book shop and mini welcome center.

Elk were everywhere in the meadow across the river from the book shop.  This turned out to be lengthy stop #1.  Stop #2 was along Firehole Falls and Swimming Hole.  Stop #3 was in a meadow just passed Firehole Road.  Stop #4 was the Fountain Paint Pots area.  Despite ending up in the opposite end of the park than was planned, it was an AWESOME day in Yellowstone National Park!

After getting the Yellowstone Madison passport stamp the elk out in the meadow were simply to much to walk away from without taking any pictures so what was planned to be a 5 minute stop turned into an hour and a half as is often the case in Yellowstone.  The elk in the meadow were all female today.  There was no big bull elk with a nice big rack to herd and chase the females of show off his antlers for the photographers.  The females in the meadow were HUGE and everywhere.

There was one little baby elk among the females. It was past the stage of having weak legs but still rather small compared to all the others in the meadow.  Fly fisherman dotted the shores and got a little nervous when the young elk waded into the river close to where the fishing was happening and the photographs were being taken.

So far on the trip a female elk has never shown any signs of aggression but the fisherman were a little concerned that this could change with a baby approaching the human population.  At times the ears of the large females would go back but they never got up and never made and defensive or offensive move in any direction.  Eventually the little one went back on the far shore and everything stayed calm and peaceful.

Once the elk were all on film the next unplanned trek was a last minute whiplash turn down the road on which Firehole Falls is located.  The road just appeared and sometimes there are amazing sights down some of these roads that don’t get much attention.  The first sight along the road was Firehole Falls.  Like many other waterfalls in Yellowstone it isn’t very high, maybe 40 feet, but it has a TON of water gushing down it.

The next great spot past Firehole Falls in the Firehole swimming area.  In the summer or even on a warm day like today this has got to be a popular spot among those who know of it.  The river winds around through some large rocks.  There are some rapids to go through if you have a life jacket (no tubes or toys permitted in the river).  There is a little cave on the far side of the swimming hole and the water looks to get fairly deep in the middle though the river isn’t more than 50 feet across in the swimming area.

The next stop along the way was at the end of Fountain Flat Drive.  Unless you continue hiking or bike down the trail at the end of this short road there are no landmark type sights to see along here, just a beautiful meadow with a river running through it.  There was bison poop all over the place so bison do visit the area.  The river was teeming with life and lots of fish jumping for the bugs near the water so it may be a hot spot for bears during some times of the year.

Even with nothing other than a couple hot springs here and there along the road the amount of wildlife in the river and flying around above it made for some great photos.  While there was no impressive grizzly to snap a photo of, sometimes the little creatures when captured in great detail with a zoom lens can product pictures that are even more impressive.  The water in the river was crystal clear so anything in the water was in range for a close up photograph.

There were at least two types of dragonflys zooming around in the air and one unlucky one ended up in the drink and didn’t seem to be able to get out.  The camera was able to capture stunning detail of the blue dragonfly that ended up in the river.  The other larger red ones that buzzed wildly about seemed t first very hard to capture on film that is until they could be seen resting on the bank of the river blending in with the surroundings.  After capturing some of the smaller creatures on film it was decision time.  Keep exploring the geyser area toward Old Faithful or head back up to Mammoth Springs.

What was going to be just one more quick stop at the Fountain Paint Pot area turned out to take up the rest of the day until the sun set.  The Fountain paint Pot area has a few more places where thick mud bubbles up constantly.  Bubble form on the top of the mud pot and little bits of mud shoot up out of the mud as well.  It’s something different than what you normally see but not much different than the Artist Paint Pot area.

The really cool thing in the Fountain Paint Pot area are some of the geysers along the .5 mile boardwalk trail that goes through the area.  The Clepsydra Geyser was erupting constantly for the couple hours spent in the Fountain Paint Pot Area.  It never erupted as high as Old Faithful of The Grand in the Old Faithful Geyser Basin but it put on a constant show.  None of the other geysers around did much of anything up until close to 8pm.

Not far from the Celpsydra Geyser is the Fountain Geyser.  For most of the time spent in the Fountain Paint Pot area the Fountain Geyser didn’t do anything at all, only the Clepsydra geyser put out a steady stream of steam and water bursts.  Around 7:30 there was talk among some of the people in the area of these two geysers about a possible eruption of the Fountain Geyser.

The sun and the clouds were setting up for what could be an amazing sunset at Yellowstone.  The Clepsydra Geyser was already putting on a show against what could be a stunning backdrop in the sky and if the Fountain Geyser let loose (it is supposed to let loose every 4 to 15 hours) then it would be quite a show indeed!  As predicted the Fountain Geyser did go off and put on a show for about half an hour.

The sunset was the most fiery and vibrant of any sunset so far at Yellowstone and two large geysers going off at the same time with the sunset as a backdrop made for a show Lagy Gaga would have a hard time topping.  The show went on for about half an hour or more.  The crowd watching was small, not more than 40 people but they all stood close to the geysers right in the line of what would have made the best photos.  Regardless, lots of good sunset geyser photos were taken and the day turned into one of THE best photo outings in the last 5 months.

Once the sun went down and the camera could no longer gather enough light to keep taking photos, a dark walk along the boardwalk back to the car ended the day at Yellowstone and a drive back to the West Yellowstone Madison Hotel hostel ended what turned out to be an amazing day at Yellowstone National Park!

Tagged as: clepsydra geyser, elk pictures, fountain geyser, yellowstone geysers, yellowstone hikes, yellowstone waterfalls