For the visually oriented, skip straight to the pictures here.
This was an early morning because I needed to be back and out of my Airbnb by 1PM. So I was in my car by 4:30AM and at the Old Faithful area by 6:40AM - just in time to see Old Faithful blow once more. Behind Old Faithful is the short 0.5-mile (one-way) up to Observation Point. There, I had an overlook of all the nearby geysers, as well as the lodge, visitor center, general store, etc.
When I was driving south down to Old Faithful, I saw signs for Fairy Falls, but driving north, the sign was missing. Earlier, I took note where the sign was, so I just pulled into the parking lot that I thought was it. Luckily, I was right. From the parking lot there's a bridge that crosses the Little Firehole River. From there, it's a mile's hike to the trailhead to Fairy Falls (to the right of this segment is the Grand Prismatic Spring at Midway Geyser Basin). The trail gives a view of all the fallen lodgepole pines that burned in the 1988 fire, and ends with the Fairy Creek plummeting 197 feet via Fairy Falls.
On the way back to the parking lot, I took one of the spur trails upwards so I could get a higher view of the Grand Prismatic Spring, the United States' largest (and the world's third largest) hot spring:
See photos of my day 2 at Yellowstone here.
Very nice
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