Lone Star Geyser

This is one of my favorite hikes. We felt compelled to drive to Old Faithful before the road closed for construction. There are 2 ways to get to the geyser and this trip we took the Howard Eaton Trail from the Old Faithful Inn. The other is to drive to the actual trailhead with the smallish parking lot and hope to find a space.








Howard Eaton was the first ranch owner to begin bringing people on horseback through Yellowstone. Once cars were allowed in, however, the trails he used became overgrown. Howard died in 1922 and in more recent years, horseback riding in the park has regained popularity.




 This trail we walked along was well used and went up over a smaller mountain crest and then down to Lone Star. Most of the trail consisted of trees and underbrush on each side.

Normally our approach would be from the opposite side. It was fun to do this differently but the other trail is by far prettier.




We missed Lone Star's main eruption (so named because it's nearest geyser, Old Faithful, is 4 miles away) and needed to wait an hour to see it fully erupt. But sitting and watching it was fun because you can hear the intense bubbling of the water inside of it and it kept 'blowing off steam' as you see in this picture.





We had another reason for traveling to the Old Faithful area. Bob loves the Bison burger the Inn has on their menu. So we watched Lone Star bubble and spout for 30 minutes then started the 4 mile hike back. The Inn stops serving lunch at 2:30 and if we walked very fast, we might make it in time.






This was the first obstacle. This is a garden variety snake and we pestered him to get a good picture (and yes, he slithered on the path right in front of me), so he finally bucked up and was going to strike if we didn't leave him alone.

He was really only about 1 1/2 feet long and a thin little guy.





We passed 2 groups that were hiking out 27 miles to a camp ground. Better them than us!













This is pretty typical of the path we were on. I'm way down there pointing out the way.










Soo, here is the other snake I could have stepped on. I look down a lot while hiking and was glad I spotted him early enough too. Again, garden variety and small.









We made it back and they let us in with 15 minutes to spare.














And here's my happy guy! Being a vegetarian, I ate off the salad bar.

Miles hiked: 100

That's right, we can now turn in our hiking sheets!