About Mystic Falls
Mystic Falls (not to be confused with the name of the town in the Vampire Diaries
What was striking about this impressive waterfall was that there was noticeable steam rising from near its top, which turned out to be geothermal activity resulting in hot springs feeding the waterfall.
I had to believe that if someone came up with a list of largest geothermal waterfalls in the world, this waterfall would most certainly make that list.
Indeed, it was said that back in the 1930s, visitors would swim at the base of the falls to enjoy its heated waters (that would explain why we noticed a trail that led down there when we first visited in June 2004).
The Little Firehole River would eventually feed the Firehole River just past the Biscuit Basin – a popular geyser basin not far from Old Faithful.
So if you put that combination of hot springs and sizable waterfall together, this felt like an excursion unlike many other places in the world!
The Biscuit Basin and Mystic Falls Trail to the Start of the Loop
Overall, it was a short 2.4-mile out-and-back hike on a fairly easy trail that meandered through a forest recovering nicely from the 1988 wildfires.
It began at the Biscuit Basin parking lot then crossed a bridge over the Firehole River before entering the boardwalks meandering within the Biscuit Basin itself.
The basin featured attractive thermal features like the abyss of the Sapphire Pool and spasming Jewel Geyser.
The waterfall trail then continued at the end of the boardwalks at the far end of the basin (about 0.4 miles from the parking lot).
From there, a dirt trail meandered among a wooded area full of lodgepole pines that had now grown tall enough to obscure the neighboring hillsides once again. These trees were noticeably bare or fallen over when we first hiked it in June 2004 as a result of the 1988 wildfires.
After climbing a short hill, where the scenery briefly opened up before it meandered back into the forest, we then reached a signposted trail junction roughly 0.3 miles later (or about 3/4-mile from the parking lot).
While both paths would eventually lead to Mystic Falls (as it was a loop trail), the easiest and more straightforward path was on the left.
The path on the right was actually a pretty tough steeply climbing trail over several switchbacks eventually leading to an overlook of the Biscuit Basin.
The next section provides a trail description of the optional longer loop trail to the Biscuit Basin Overlook and beyond. The section after that continues on the Mystic Falls Trail as if we skipped this longer detour.
Optional Detour to Biscuit Basin Overlook
The path on the right started off innocently enough amidst the lodgepole pines, but it didn’t take long before the trail started ascending switchbacks in earnest.
I had lost count of the number of switchbacks in this stretch of trail.
But given that the aforementioned Biscuit Basin Overlook sat at the top of the neighboring plateau, it was no wonder why I found these switchbacks to be pretty tiring.
Afterwards the trail followed along the plateau back towards the Fairy Creek Trail.
That meant that I could have combined Mystic Falls with Fairy Falls as part of an even longer loop.
Anyways, continuing past this junction with the Fairy Creek Trail, the Mystic Falls Trail then descended steeply to the Mystic Falls itself.
This path from the top included an unsanctioned spur trail that descended rather steeply to the waterfall’s top.
That was where I was able to look carefully over the brink of the falls. The spur also revealed some thermal springs feeding the Little Firehole River.
The longer loop trail added an additional 1.7 miles to the overall hike making this route 4.1 miles round trip instead of just 2.4 miles round trip.
Heading Straight to Mystic Falls
Assuming we didn’t take the longer detour to the Biscuit Basin Overlook, we continued left of the fork at the bottom of the loop.
This trail meandered some more towards another trail junction just a few paces later.
At this junction, we kept right (the trail on the left went to Summit Lake) then the forest started to thin out as the trail followed along the Little Firehole River.
After rounding a bend to the right roughly 0.4 miles from the trail junctions, Mystic Falls started coming into view.
The views would continue to improve the closer we’d get to the falls.
However, it wouldn’t be until the trail climbed high enough past a thin seasonal waterfall before reaching a switchback with a signpost and the attractive view of the waterfall that you see pictured at the top of this page.
This was about 0.6 miles from the trail junctions or 1.2 miles from the Biscuit Basin Parking Lot.
An Old Spur Trail and Closing The Loop
During that final quarter-mile stretch of the trail, I swore that the park service must have re-routed the trail at some point because I recalled in our first visit in 2004 that it used to switchback somewhere downstream of the seasonal waterfall.
And near one of those switchbacks we inadvertently took a spur trail that we used to think led closer to the falls except it turned out to disappear into the Little Firehole River as a scramble that probably eventually led up to the base of the waterfall.
It was only when we realized that the views of the waterfall weren’t that great from down there that we backtracked and found the correct trail.
Anyways, in hindsight, that must have been the historical trail and scramble that visitors from the past would use to access the geothermally-heated waters at the base of the falls.
So in retrospect, it made sense that the park service would obscure that lower path because it was rugged and prone to erosion from the heavy foot traffic on the main trail up above.
As the sign at the Mystic Falls view indicated, we could continue climbing up the switchbacks towards higher and more angled views looking down at the cascading waterfall.
It would eventually make one long switchback climbing well above the falls before backtracking towards the aforementioned unsanctioned spur.
That unsanctioned spur was where I made the steep descent to the brink of Mystic Falls while bringing me closer to the sources of some of the geothermal springs heating up the Little Firehole River.
Overall, the first time Julie and I did this hike was the shorter out-and-back path, and it took us a leisurely 1.5-2 hours.
The second time I did this hike solo was the longer loop hike that involved the Biscuit Basin Overlook, and that took me 2.5 hours.
Authorities
Mystic Falls resides in Yellowstone National Park. For information or inquiries about the park as well as current conditions, visit the National Park Service website.
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