Fairy Falls Trail and Imperial Geyser Hike
By Larry and Jill Couture - August 1995
There are several routes to Fairy Falls - anywhere from 2.5 miles to 10 miles as described by Larry and Jill. It is a nice hike. My wife and I took this hike during our Labor Day visit. I highly recommend the book "YELLOWSTONE TRAILS - A Hiking Guide"
by Mark C. Marschall. It is very well written with great descriptions, maps, milage, etc. - John W. Uhler
The Fairy Falls trail is approximately 10 miles round trip through several large meadows (for about 2-3 miles) with some thermal activity and stands of burned forest. The potential for running into a fair sized heard of Bison is fairly high. After the meadows the trail branches to either Fairy falls (~200 feet, very pretty, and no people), or to Imperial geyser. Imperial is really a thermal pool
(~50 feet dia, deep, blue, no signs, crowds, guardrails, etc.) near it is a geyser I believe is called 'Sputtering' geyser (or something similar) the path disappears and there is no sign of tourist control. We choose to watch from about 15 ft as it erupted every ~5 minutes to about 6-10 ft. In many ways we felt it was the best geyser in the park - for a half hour it was just us and this geyser, you can't ask for anything better.
If you hike off-trail about 1/5 mile above Imperial geyser (fairly steep and wind blown since this area was fairy severely burned) you will stumble upon three beautifully unexpected Lilly ponds. At this point one can either return as we did or continue all the way to the lower geyser basin (~15 or so miles). Personally I think the burned areas are wonderful. I think many people do not appreciate that this type of burn only occurs once every several centuries and opens up vistas not normally seen.
I would highly recommend this trail to anyone.
Send Comments To: John@Yellowstone-Natl-Park.Com. Thank you!
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