October 4th, 2015
Facts about Fairy Falls
The hike to Fairy Falls is very easy despite its length. The trail passes Grand Prismatic Spring, and a short detour scramble up a hill offers a spectacular view of the spring. Along the hike are tons of wildflowers, obsidian, lodgepole pines, and other wildlife. Fairy Falls is 197 ft tall.
What happened…
Andrew writes: The weatherman deserves to be shot somedays, and this could be one of them. The forecast had called for ”Patchy fog in the morning, followed by isolated rain/snow showers in the afternoon”. So Amanda and I weren’t in any hurry to get moving this morning since we weren’t too keen on crossing three Continental Divide passes in the snow today. Instead we took it easy all day long, taking time to bike/hike 5 miles to nearby Fairy Falls. The weather? Yeah, partly cloudy with periods of warm, beautiful sunshine. Really, it was a perfect day to ride today. I’m almost certain that tomorrow it will rain and snow, even though it’s not forecast. Ahhh well, Sunday is typically a day of rest for us anyways, and this one was quite restful.
Amanda writes:
I didn’t sleep that well. Something was outside our tent and I’m not sure what it was. I don’t look outside to see when I hear something because knowing might make it worse. To add to that, my body has decided to finally return to it’s regularly scheduled cycle after my miscarriage today. Not ideal being that we’re back-country but it’s been two months so it’s good. So with all that when I woke up, my brain wanted to ride but my body didn’t want to move. When Andrew suggested we not ride I didn’t argue. My mind kept saying ‘it’s not raining – go!” but I didn’t listen to it. And as I type this I’m glad.
It’s still bloody cold but at least our stuff dried out today. Okay maybe our shoes aren’t 100% dry but close. We also re-organized our panniers. One of mine is broken and I’m returning it in Denver and I hope to upgrade to a different model (Ortlieb Bike Packer Plus) which Andrew already has. He doesn’t think the new model is necessary and thinks I should stay with the Ortlieb Rear Roller’s so he is letting me try his out before making the change. I basically unpacked all of my panniers and repacked. It usually feels good to re-organize although this time I’m left thinking I could still do more. In any event after the re-organization I did some overdue stretching and practiced my guitar. By dinner time I was happy we hadn’t ridden. We’ll see if I’m still happy tomorrow morning if it’s bloody raining again.