fairy falls in the snow

I'm writing this entry with my feet propped up. Today we skied 11 miles, and I'm beat. Last night the weather forecast said we'd get 20 inches of snow, but we knew better. We keep getting our hopes up, but the promised snow has yet to arrive. When we woke up around 7:30 this morning it was snowing, but it didn't look like anything had stuck.

We took the 9 a.m. ski drop out to Fairy Falls, and snow was falling the entire way. We strapped on our skis after we crossed the Firehole River,


and we were soon skiing alongside Grand Prismatic. A couple of other people decided to climb the knoll for a better view, but we decided we'd ski to the falls first, and climb up on our way back (if we still had the energy).

The trail to Fairy Falls is a 6 mile out-and-back from the drop off spot to the falls; we've actually never hiked this in the summer either, so it was our first time seeing the waterfall. The trail starts by winding its way through the forest, new growth from the '88 fires


and then goes through a more burned-out area as you approach the falls.



There was still a little water flowing, but most of the falls had frozen over and was a great shade of blue in the light



The wind and snow picked up as we skied back to the trailhead, and by the time we reached Grand Prismatic again it was howling. We decided to trudge up the hill a little bit for a better shot, and the view was worth it



We skied along the road for about a tenth of a mile before picking up the Mallard Creek trail, which would take us back to Old Faithful. By now the wind was really pounding us, and we were anxious to get back into the trees.

After about another mile my stomach refused to ski any further without being fed, so we stopped for lunch. We had packed our JetBoil and Packit Gourmet's Tortilla Soup. We learned that it takes a lot longer to get the JetBoil boiling in altitude and cold


but the finished product was worth it. The soup comes with tortilla chips, cheese, and a dash of lime powder, and it was delicious. It was great to have something warm, though after about 2 minutes we both noticed that our hot soup was now barely luke warm.


I tried to take a pull of water from my CamelBack, but the water had frozen in the tube. I need to remember to tuck it into my jacket next time.

The trail follows a power line for what seemed like AGES. And ages. And ages. No matter how far we skied, we were still following the power line.


We eventually ditched the power line and came out next to the main road. Steve spotted these two bull bison feeding across the road. We watched them push the snow around with their faces, trying to get to the ground below and find something to eat. From what we could tell, it looked like they mostly just got a face full of snow.


We finally made the turn toward Old Faithful and familiar thermals


The snow was really coming down as we skied alongside the Firehole, but we were finally in the home stretch


As I write this, Steve is at his second meeting for the Winter Search and Rescue team. I'm hoping this means that next time we're out skiing and I get this tired, all I'll need to do is lay in the snow and yell "RESCUE" and he'll have to throw me over his shoulder and ski me home. It's a worth a shot anyway.