Many yellow Pond Lilies floated on the small lake's surface.
Pink alpine laurel frames a reflection of trees and sky in the water.
Globeflowers grew in the nearby marshes.
Above is a variety of Indian paintbrush blooming in the surrounding meadow.
From the unnamed lake, the hikers continued a short distance to Orange Rock Spring. Water from the spring's flow was warm, but not deep enough for a soak.
From Orange Rock, our intrepid explorers struck out cross countrytraveled, bushwacking through a Lodgepole forest and some blowdown to an extensive thermal area including Whistler Geyser and many fumeroles and bubbling hot pots.
This water was plenty deep enough for a hot tub, but the temperature would remove a person's skin. 212 degrees fahrenheit or more, continually boiling.
Above, Chris checked out a thermal and was nearly obscured by steam.
They encountered masses of mosquitoes in the forests and meadows. Steve's 35% DEET kept the bugs at bay, but Eric and Steve still managed to attract a horde whenever they stopped. Chris wore a short-sleeved shirt, but seemed to be swarm-free. When they checked the label on his repellent, they found it was 98% DEET -- high octane, indeed. No wonder the bugs ignored Chris!
They passed Josephs Coat Springs, shown above. (The name comes from the biblical Joseph's coat of many colors.)
Not far from there, our hikers located their designated campsite, 4 B1.
The campsite is an open meadow with a fire pit and a few cut logs for seating.
There's no bear pole for hanging food. A tripod about 15 feet high which might have worked for that purpose, but it was too close to the best tent site. Eric improvised a line between trees for hanging the food.
Broad Creek was 100 feet away. They didn't see any fish in the clear, weak tea-colored water.
Pumping water would have been okay, since there wasn't much cloudy particulate matter to foul the pump filter, but they either boiled or used iodine treated water instead. The water tasted fine, with no mineral taste after adding the iodine neutralizer.
The boys climbed into their 3 man tent under clear skies and a Comanche moon. (This is a half moon, which the Comanche Indians considered good for raiding. A full moon would be too bright, allowing the raiders to be easily caught, and a new moon would be too dark, not good for finding anything to raid. Half is perfect.) Of course, our hikers weren't planning to raid anyone, and they hoped having their food cached high in the air between two trees would keep them from being raided by a hungry bear. The portable electric fence was set up around the camp, and they each had pepper spray inside and at hand.
Trail-weary after a 12 mile trek, they welcomed a mosquito-free shelter, and hoped no wild creature disturbed them before morning. They listened for wolf howls and coyote yips as they drifted into sleep, dreaming of the next morning's planned hike into the park's mysteriously unmapped secret treasure, Fairyland Basin.
To be continued.
July 3, 2009, 6:15AM. Morning is a great time to see wildlife and scenery. At an overlook on the road from Canyon to Tower Junction in Yellowstone National Park, the view to the east shows Mirror Plateau and the Beartooth Range. (click on the photo to enlarge)
In addition to their backpacking trip to Fairyland Basin, Steve, Eric, and Chris did a couple of day hikes in Yellowstone National Park. One was along the Yellowstone River near Canyon. Before they'd gone very far, they heard a yipping of canines (coyotes? wolves?) then heard something crashing through the brush on a hillside. This elk cow and her tiny calf were rushing downhill toward them, desperate to escape whatever was chasing them.
In the second photo (below), the calf's head is peeking out from behind a tree. 
Apparently the pursuers sensed man's presence and took off. The elk soon followed suit, since she didn't trust that human smell, either.
The hikers spied this blue grouse (above),
a great-horned owl, 
a ground squirrel,
Yellowstone National Park always provides gorgeous views, but backcountry travel there isn't for the unprepared. After visiting Fairyland Basin (see yesterday's post), our 3 hikers headed for home.
While traveling through an open meadow on Mirror Plateau on the return trip, they encountered a huge pile of scat. Amazingly, no one thought to take a picture of this obvious bear sign. What kind of photographers are these guys anyway!?
They passed more thermal areas,
saw beautiful flowers (common self-heal, shooting star, and an unknown yellow one),
They don't look too bad for guys who just walked 35 miles in 3 days, do they? (You probably wouldn't want to catch a whiff of them, though! Good thing they were headed for a cabin with a shower.)
They stopped for photos at Coffeepot Springs, which bubbles at 212 degrees Fahrenheit or thereabouts. A clear creek in a meadow above the hot springs provided good water to refill the drinking bottles. 
The approach to Fairyland involves a four hour hike followed by a steep 1000 foot descent from the surrounding 8000 foot terrain to the confluence of Broad and Shallow Creek. (The destination was a total of about 17 miles from the Artist Point trailhead.) Steve had marked a track on his GPS where he thought the descent would be easiest. They had no problem finding a break in the conglomerate cliffs. At the point they went down, the slope required careful foot placement but was walkable. 
Can you see the castle-like structures?
The yellow carpet leading up to the geologic turrets is made of yellow monkeyflower.
Steve is giving a thumbs up to the camera as he stands beside one of the geyserite cones, formed by mineral deposits over eons of geyser activity. This part of the formation is inactive now. The soil around the tall cones is sandy white and smells sulfurous.
A robin found a lookout on a handy geyserite tower.
Warm water was actively flowing out of this 3 foot tall cone in the same vicinity The hole on top gives it the appearance of a mini-volcano. The green stuff is algae that grows on the wet sides. When the currently inactive Fairyland cones were forming their unique shapes, perhaps they looked like this.
In all, there were about 20 geyserite cones, some up to 10 feet tall. There were also some near boiling springs on the edge of Broad Creek.
After they'd explored the area, our hikers had lunch and took their boots off for a siesta. 
From their trailhead at Artist Point, our 3 hikers had views of Lower Yellowstone Falls from the first quarter mile. After that, they continued on Wapiti Lake trail through the Lodgepole pine forest. The pine forest was poor bear territory, but all along they blew whistles periodically and kept pepper spray handy just in case. 
Many yellow Pond Lilies floated on the small lake's surface. 
Pink alpine laurel frames a reflection of trees and sky in the water.
Globeflowers grew in the nearby marshes. 
Above is a variety of Indian paintbrush blooming in the surrounding meadow.
From Orange Rock, our intrepid explorers struck out cross countrytraveled, bushwacking through a Lodgepole forest and some blowdown to an extensive thermal area including Whistler Geyser and many fumeroles and bubbling hot pots.
This water was plenty deep enough for a hot tub, but the temperature would remove a person's skin. 212 degrees fahrenheit or more, continually boiling. 
Above, Chris checked out a thermal and was nearly obscured by steam. 
They passed Josephs Coat Springs, shown above. (The name comes from the biblical Joseph's coat of many colors.) 
Not far from there, our hikers located their designated campsite, 4 B1.
Broad Creek was 100 feet away. They didn't see any fish in the clear, weak tea-colored water. 
