Firehole Falls to Sentinel Creek
A short hike today to Sentinel Creek, maybe 10 miles. I’m camping there because there are no other allowed campsites for the next 25 miles or so of my route.
The trail from Firehole Falls winds along the meadows of the upper Little Firehole, its grassland ringed with forested plateaus. Like so much of Yellowstone it is vast and open and unpeopled. A miniature Serengeti. I sit in the shadows at the forest edge, watching and waiting. This is prime habitat, lush waist-high grasses and forbs stretching out for miles, plenty to eat. This place must support a lot of animal life. Surely some bears or moose or elk will be wandering about.
No one shows. The wolves have enforced a new discipline here among the browsers. Their carefree life of wandering about, eating their fill, reproducing unchecked until the land was stripped of its bounty—those days are over. They have to work for a living now, carefully calibrating their forays out into the rich meadows. I am the only freeloader in these parts.
The trail cuts through another young forest growing up after a burn, the firs uniformly 12-15 feet high. My route approaches the rim and I enjoy another view of Geyser Basin. The glare of the morning sun backlights the columns of steam, ghosts of creation drifting slowly upward, a faint aftermath of catastrophe.
I descend from the plateau and approach one of these columns. It has a name I suppose, but saw no point in looking it up. Instead I found a shady spot where I could relax and get to know it for a while. The geyser here is set in a clear blue pool maybe 50 feet across. It spouts more or less continuously, mostly in a 10-foot column but occasionally working its way up to 25-30 feet.
Watching it was every bit as mesmerizing as watching a campfire on a cold night. The endless flow of energy, the chaos of turbulence, the hint of order and pattern—I think these must entrain our neural systems at some very basic level. Nerves have a base level of random spontaneous firing that generates white noise in our sensory and cognitive systems. That internal noise is actually used by the brain to suppress attention to spurious external noise, allowing it to focus on what is truly meaningful. There is a reason why you feel relaxed and focused around a campfire or running water. I could sit and watch this geyser for hours and not get bored.
But today was a prime opportunity to fish. I didn’t have far to walk and the Firehole River was but a short off-trail detour along the way. A side trip might make up for the fishing deficits I have encountered so far. Yellowstone, Heart and Shoshone Lakes are magnificent, but not really fishable from shore. Few of the hundreds of creeks we crossed were big enough to support decent size fish. It was time to catch a fat cutt.
I barely paused at Fairy Falls, which I have to say was strangely unimpressive. Maybe it was the tourist hordes. A surprising number of people were willing to walk the mile and a half from the trailhead. The usual rule at Yellowstone is that automotive tourists rarely venture more than a hundred yards from their cars. Maybe the pandemic has rendered people more familiar with the use of their legs, or maybe these were all foreigners, people who are used to walking distances greater than a Walmart parking lot.
No matter. I made my way down to the Firehole, got out my rod and commenced fishing. But not catching. The river here is wide, shallow and without structure. There is plenty of water and plenty of bugs, but nowhere for a fish to hang out. I continued downstream a couple of miles, pack on my back, rod in hand. I enjoyed great views of a beautiful river but never saw, let alone caught, a fish. Boo hoo.
Looking up the Firehole River
Looking down the Firehole River
Though this section of the river is bereft of thermal activity, it still features a display of motion and energy. A mat of algae was home base for a mating swarm of giant red dragonflies.
Saw a lone bull bison along the trail- is it an outcast? Sick? Just a loner? Don’t know but hope to see more bison on tomorrow’s walk.
My campsite is along the creek in open country. There is scant shade, but fine views of meadows headed by mounded hot springs. Old bison turds and fur litter the camp. The bison have mostly moved on. I will see tomorrow if I can catch up to them.