After the holidays we decided to take a little break from activity on the second day of 2010. We had a leisurely lunch of gyros at the employee dining room (or EDR as the kids call it)

and took a little walk to enjoy our first view of blue skies in what seems like a week.

Our rest didn't last too long, as day 3 of 2010 brought another activity: the snowshoe tour. Now snowshoes are the red-headed stepchild of the winter transportation options here at Old Faithful, with only sneakers being a more looked down upon form of footwear for getting around outdoors this time of year. Still, given that we have our own snowshoes and always enjoyed trampling around the New England area in them, we were at least happy to get some use out of them.

We were expecting a fairly easy walk around the boardwalk at the geyser basin so we were pleasantly surprised when our guide took us straight down the Firehole River. Skirting some trails, we hugged the river to get a look at some of the thermal features that made trappers give the river its descriptive name back in the early 1800s.

Some of the features were just hot enough to melt the snow

While others were quite a bit hotter (we were told blue = goo - as in you fall in and you turn to goo)

Despite their low-social status, the snowshoes came in handy as we hiked into wooded nooks and crannies where no skier would be able to go. This gave us not only up-close views of the thermal features but also a good glimpse at the pockets of new growth stimulated by the huge forest fire of 1988.

Crossing the main road, we hugged a ridge overlooking the river

Having been following in other people's ski trails for the last two weeks, we enjoyed getting into new territory and breaking new ground. We saw a couple otter tail tracks down by the river and an abandoned eagle nest but didn't spot any wildlife. About a mile up river we spotted a thermal feature that had sprung up in an island right in the middle of the river.

After turning for home, we got a fly-by from a good sized bald eagle and took a little detour downriver and got the chance to put our snowshoes to good use yet again as we forded a little stream.

On the other side, we encountered this none-too-shy red squirrel munching away

We too were getting hungry so we headed back to the Snowlodge, a little less embarrassed about the gangly plastic boards attached to our feet.