hiking to the Firehole Meadows in YNP
In my endless search for large meadows I managed to read an article where the existing bear management area in Firehole Meadows was no longer in effect. So there I went ……………..
The start of this trail is a popular area in Yellowstone, the Biscuit Basin thermal area. There is a parking lot that gets full pretty fast and you are immediately on a boardwalk doing a small loop, with the highlight the Sapphire Pool (more on this because this was an eventful day for that pool).
Halfway in the loop, you will see further into the woods that there is a trailhead and many people continue on that trail since it will take you to the Mystic Falls. I want to say that it is about one mile in mostly level ground to reach the falls. Of note, when you continue past the falls, there is a Y junction on the trail where you can take a detour to a viewpoint of the area and then come down back to the boardwalk. More on that on the way back.
I was pretty early so I enjoyed a mama deer frolicking on the trail with her kids:
These deer do really know what a human is since they do not run away; I spent 5 minutes next to them and they eventually left the trail and I continued my hike. This happens with all the deer that I see in the park, that is not the case with elk …………. they don’t stick around.
So, the highlight for casual hikers is the Mystic Falls and they are quite pretty; just keep going on a social trail to get closer to them for nice pics.
I could have sworn I also took video, but I can’t find it. Anyway, for a casual hike I recommend getting to these falls, and either turn around immediately or go a bit further and on the Y junction take a right for the viewpoint from the top and back to the boardwalk. But my real destination was the meadows.
For a while you will be in a forested area, but from what you can see on the topo map you are going to descend from the plateau down towards the Little Firehole River. Very tranquil waters.
You are hiking next to the river for a little while and the trail “ends” at the Firehole Meadows and they are amazingly large.
From the topo map, you can see that the trail continues northwest towards the Fairy Falls area. One area that I want to explore off trail is the Buffalo Meadows. Looks quite accessible since you will follow a creek.
On a personal note, I have decided to bury the ashes of my pets in YNP and one of them, Lizzy is under that tree.
I hiked into the meadows to get a better perspective. The area was not wet so that was not a problem. To the left there is the one campsite close to the trail, perfect location since it is next to the river with completely open views of the meadows. I used my scope to see the other side of the meadows for anything interesting, but nothing jumped at me so I decided not to hike there since I had plans to walk around the Old Faithful geyser area later in the day (maybe next time).
The image below is the area where the trail continues northwest. From the topo map it looked forested so that was not something interesting to me. The actual trail is in those trees to the right. I just climbed a small hill to see the rest of the area and figured it was all forested.
Something that I missed on the way in was the Firehole Falls. When you reach the river and are close to the meadows, there is a side trail to another campsite. You just walk past the campsite to see the small falls.
So, on the way back I took the other side at the Y junction. You are going up to another plateau, not a big deal. The views from the top a pretty cool. Something that I didn’t take a pic but made me curious was that I could see the parking lot and it was empty, just my car and another one. I had no clue why, it occurred to me that the day was very hot and somehow that was a factor (more to come).
If I blow up the image above, I have marked my car and I have another arrow pointing to ………….. spoiler alert ……………. a big fucking mess.
When I arrived to the trailhead it was blocked with yellow tape (WTF), but you can take a side trail that goes over the Firehole river and takes you a quarter of a mile into the main road. So I walked back to the entrance of the parking lot and there was a ranger blocking the entrance, very weird. I approached him and told him “that’s my car there, what happened?”. The ranger told me that the pool exploded and first thing that came to mind was that I was lucky I didn’t park close to it. At that point I was not aware of the magnitude of the explosion, until I read the news later in the day. You can see in the second video a report from the USGS and how fucking big it was. There are amateur videos of people next to it and it was a miracle that no one was hit with debri.
When I arrived at my car, another group of park rangers were surveying the damage, I didn’t stick around and left the parking lot. Yup, I was there, ok close by, when the shit hit the fan.
Overall, I loved this hike. It has a very nice waterfall, a nice wall along a river, and a large meadow to explore. Also, a side trail that gains elevation to see the valley below.