At eight o'clock we were picked up by a coach and in 30 minutes dropped
off at the DeLacy Creek trailhead. We wanted to follow the DeLacy Creel Trail to the
Shoshone Lake, then cross the lake to the Shoshone Geyser Basin and then follow another
trail over the continental divide back to Old Faithful. There were 11 miles to the basin
and then another 12 back to the Old Faithful. Our plan was to camp near the Shoshone
Basin.
The sky was overcastted and as we started, the first snow flakes began to
fall. The trail was well broken, leading through pine forest and beautiful meadows. Great
winter scenery all around. We easily followed the trail all the way to the Shoshone Lake.
There, the continuation of the trail was not so obvious. Tours organized by the Snow Lodge
go just to the Lake and back. It was not clear whether the broken trail to Geyser Basin
followed a summer trail along the north shore of the lake or whether it went straight
across the lake.
Several starting trails seemed to exist. We picked one which seemed to go in the right
direction across the lake. However, it ended after about a mile. We had to continue in the
deep snow. We decided to try to hit another trail closer to the shore. There was no trail
on the lake but we found the one following the summer trail. It was broken by some five or
six people ahead of us, making reasonably stable base even for the heavy loads that we
with our backpacks constituted. The trail cut through a peninsula, the only place we had
to climb a hill. 
Eventually the trail went back on the lake. It
was still snowing and hard to see where the lake ends. We kept checking the direction with
compass. After couple miles, the trail became slushy and we had to retreat. We found a way
back to the shore and reached another trail over there. From there it was just a short
distance to the basin. Suddenly, the clouds started to clear out and sun showed up. It was
getting late and we had just about 40 minutes to explore the basin, to allow enough time
to progress little bit further and find a place to camp. This - hidden from
civilization - geyser basin was no less beautiful then all the other ones we have seen.
Couple of geysers were erupting every few minutes, even though not to any extreme heights.
We enjoyed our limited time there (again - it is the same as always - it takes
a long time and lots of effort to get somewhere and then one has just a short time to
enjoy it in order to make it back. Seems like it does not matter weather you climb Mt.
Everest or a backyard hill.) We returned to our backpacks and skies that we left at the
edge of the basin, put on the backpacks and set off towards the divide. We made it about
one mile up the narrow valley of Shoshone Creek, when it became almost dark.
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We quickly found a place to camp. We had to use our skis to level the surface and harden a base for the tent. We pitched the tent and got ready to make a dinner. It turned out that our tea that we did not drink during the day turned into a solid ice. Thus, in addition to cooking soup from melted snow, we also had to defrost our tea bottles. The simple Ramen noodle soup certainly tasted better than a dinner in an expensive restaurant... We carried enough batteries to be able to read for the long hours between darkness and the time it would make sense to go sleep. But exhaustion took its toll and we fell a sleep right away after the dinner, before eight o'clock. The temperature dropped close to 0F, but it was warm inside the tent and in our new Marmot sleeping bags.
In the morning, the most difficult thing was to get form the warm sleeping
bags into frozen cloth and start cooking. The man was the braver one in this case and
after couple minutes we enjoyed warm tea and frozen sandwiches. Then we packed up and were
on the way before 9am. The sky was without clouds again, another nice day. The trail went
through pine forest and nice meadows once again, fresh snow all around. 
Just enough to make the scenery perfect but not to completely cover up the
trail, which we were following. The map suggested that after reaching the divide, the
trail becomes "experts only" again; however, it turned out to be pretty easy and
a lots of fun. As we were advised, it was pretty fast, but very save with plenty of space
for turns and breaking. We skied by couple hot spring areas and saw several bison taking
advantage of the warmer air and melted snow. We reached Lone Star geyser just in time to
see it erupt (it erupts every 3 hours). We had 20 minutes to eat our lunch. From
there the trail was flat and easy back to Old Faithful. We arrived at half past one, just
in time to change, re-pack and get on the two o'clock snow coach back to Mammoth Hot
Springs.
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Are map: high resolution [JPG, 800kB] low resolution [JPG, 400kB]
