Best hill for viewing Grand Prismatic Spring

[BlackDragonsCaldron]

Not wanting to hijack another thread that wandered into the subject of viewing Grand Prismatic Spring I thought I'd start a new one.

I've seen people mention climbing the hill along the Fairy Falls trail and I've seen others mention climbing the hill on the east side of the Grand Loop Road to get the best view of GPS. That one seems a bit farther away but would give a different perspective.

So I have two questions:

- Is the hill on the Fairy Falls trail the best one to climb?
- Is there a more "broken in" social trail or pathway that is worth finding rather than just making your way over the loose rock and downed trees? And if so, how do you find it?

20 days and counting until we are at Roosevelt!

[ashley]

I was posting on the other thread I think you're referring to, so I'm sure you've seen my comments. As far as the Fairy Falls hill, I may have been too negative- I don't want to discourage people because it is definitely worth it, but it's also not as easy as just walking up a hill. There are social trails up the hill, and you can see several different approaches that people have made. If there was a better approach than the one I made, I didn't see it. Several other people were climbing the hill when I was, and I didn't see any of them using a "better" trail. There are some downed trees where the hillside burnt. It is not all over rocky, but there are areas of small stones/rocks and loose soil , which I think is to be expected with erosion on a hillside. If you are in average shape you should not have a problem.

Grand Prismatic from the Fairy Falls hillside

As to the other hill, I haven't climbed it, but I did take a look at it and consider it. The social trails did not seem to be as well defined, and I thought Fairy Falls was the better option overall.

[ashley]

A few resources about the Fairy Falls hill-

Check out this thread for a picture of the hillside
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1387

A couple at the top of the hill (gives you some idea of steepness/the hill?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lushaevans/3939036346/

Some pictures of the hillside with close up shots of ground and description of climbing the hill
http://mtsrool.blogspot.com/2011/09/mid ... matic.html

[GeorgiaPhotog]

I was researching this a while back and read that you should go almost to the point where the trail breaks out west to Fairy Falls. At that area is the tallest hill to climb up to get a good view without dead trees in the way. I'll look around and see if I can find that again. Someone on Trip Advisor mentioned looking for a telephone pole and taking the trail next to that. Someone else mentioned looking for the 2nd electrical overhead line and going up at that point.

[TeeJay]

The easiest way I can describe the trail I take, is it's right across from GPS, the Fairy Falls trail. There is a path that comes down the hill, and at the base there is usually some rockfall, about the size of common riverrock. We take that trail every time and have a good view. There are a few fallen trees that you have to climb over but it is a fairly straight up hike.

I have 2 bad knees, but I am able to make the climb, and it's definitely worth it!

[PandKB]

I think either of those hills can be a good vantage point depending on time of day, sun position, temperature, and maybe a few other factors.

I will say that the NPS actively discourages climbing either hill. The only answer I've ever been able to get about why is because people climbing them creates "social trails." I have no idea why the NPS doesn't go ahead and create a trail and viewing platform on the top of Fairy Falls Hill (that's obviously an unofficial name - the hill isn't named), since it is so incredibly popular. They have all of these other trails they keep around that few use, and even clearing a simple trail to the top of that hill wouldn't cost that much money. *shrug*

I've not been to the top of Midway Bluff (the hill on the eastern side), but I have to go up there soon to get a picture of the benchmark up there, so I'll see which seems better to me when I do.

[S_Egbert]

Here is a view from Midway Bluff. The Fairy Falls side is definitely the better view.
As you can see here, the elevation is lower and you ar farther away, thus looking more across rather than down.
The red pickup in the turnout at the bottom of the photo is mine, the trail is pretty much straight up from there.
This was shot at 17mm with a Canon 30D.

PandKB, I think I remember seeing the benchmark up there but I didn't get a shot of it.

[maj]

If you want to see some shots we took from Midway Bluff (didn't realize it had a name) here is a link. I agree the best place of the two is the one right next to Fairy Falls trail if you are only going to do one place. Also we found the first part of the Midway Bluff trail to be much more challenging since we were walking up through deep sand on a pretty steep part of the trail. (we are in our 60's and not that agile so a younger person may not have a problem). Also, we were extremely lucky that the day we decided to do it ended up being a beautiful day (sometime in the afternoon). We walked the Fairy Falls trail a few years ago and climbed to the top of the hill there as we started our walk and the views of the Spring were not that great. After we came back it was much calmer and clearer and we again climbed the hill and got some great shots.

http://s231.photobucket.com/albums/ee13 ... y%20Bluff/

Here is a photo we took of what we thought was the top of the hill by the trail:


Benchmark



Trail to Midway Bluff

[PandKB]

Here is a view from Midway Bluff. The Fairy Falls side is definitely the better view.
As you can see here, the elevation is lower and you ar farther away, thus looking more across rather than down.
The red pickup in the turnout at the bottom of the photo is mine, the trail is pretty much straight up from there.
This was shot at 17mm with a Canon 30D.

PandKB, I think I remember seeing the benchmark up there but I didn't get a shot of it.

Look like you shot that in the middle of the day, when the sun was overhead. I wonder how photos taken in the morning with the sun at your back would turn out?

And Maj, the steepness of that trail is one reason why I didn't make it up there last year. lol Thanks for the benchmark pic, too.

[S_Egbert]

Look like you shot that in the middle of the day, when the sun was overhead. I wonder how photos taken in the morning with the sun at your back would turn out?

It was mid day and the light was pretty bad. The clouds moving in and out giving patchwork shadowing didn't help my shots that day either.
Morning would have been much better for that spot I think. The view up and down the valley is great and good for pano shots.
Mine from that day stunk from being underexposed trying not to blow out the clouds.

[DS8i]

from the fairy falls trail there is a little hill with social paths up it. i went up there and was not impressed so i hiked up the big hill behind it. It is very steep and lots of dead fall some of which was moderately difficult to climb over (i'm tall 6'6", pretty athletic and have been doing the exact same thing for work ) so it would probably be much more difficult for most.

one of the hard parts is getting there at mid day, with the sun out (more color in the spring), and minimal steam.

here is a 2 or 3 shot pano i put together from the very top. i did use a polarizer for this shot, on my 70-200 2.8.