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.

For the visually oriented, skip straight to the pictures here.

A flight to Salt Lake City and a road trip up north to Rexburg, Idaho later, I was on my way to Yellowstone National Park. Like Yosemite, Yellowstone required a lot of driving - to get there from Rexburg, and then to the actual trails. I had a list of trails I wanted to do at Yellowstone, but failed to do the proper Google Mapping ahead of time. The day before I left SF, a quick check on the maps made me realized that some of the hikes are about four hours away from Rexburg. Heck no. Instead, I decided to concentrate my time in the Old Faithful area (2.5 hours from Rexburg), with a detour to the Grand Teton (1.5 hours from Rexburg).

My first morning drive to Yellowstone began at 5:30AM, with the sun gently rising in the horizon and lighting up the farmlands to either side of the road. It's a rather easy drive that's accompanied by gorgeous landscapes so I didn't mind the drive.

When I got to the Old Faithful area, the parking lot was about 80% empty (but a couple hours later there were wheels everywhere). After waiting for Old Faithful to blow its steam, I drove north to the parking lot to Kepler Cascades, took a quick walk to the Cascades, and then found the trailhead for the Lone Star Geyser. Round-trip, the trail was only 5 miles, but once I got to the end of the trail I had been turned into such a mosquitoes pin cushion that I didn't bother waiting for the Lone Star to blow. Instead, I hiked back out as quickly as I could and went back to the General Store at Old Faithful to get some insect repellent.

Lucky I did go back to Old Faithful, because I overheard a ranger saying that the Bee Hive was about to blow (which only happens once every 24 hours). Longer and larger than Old Faithful, the Bee Hive gave quite the show. I only had my phone with me at the time, so that's where the pictures came from.

I then drove back up north to Biscuit Basin, which holds a collection of thermal pools. Behind these pools was also the trailhead to Mystic Falls, a short hike that leads to a 70-foot tall waterfall off of the Little Firehole River.

See photos of my day 1 at Yellowstone here.