Our last day (for now) in Yellowstone, and it was a good one!
It was Waterfall Day, and we were excited to see how big the Yellowstone River was after plenty of winter snow. Answer = pretty dang big! Nice timing for our visit.
Jason and Kristi's campground host suggested we park near Lower Falls and hike around to a loop by Clear Lake. Something new for me and John - let's do it! Turned out to be more walking than we had anticipated (based on my very loose map estimates), but everyone was game to keep going and see as much as we could see.
Admiring the river and all the mist at the Lower Falls overlook:
There's a whole lot of water going over that edge!
As you can see... bigger than John and I have ever witnessed:
A short video at Lower Falls: https://youtu.be/ynqYkYK9xNs
The river between the waterfalls is quite scenic and we were happy to walk up the trail to see more. Except for some Grand Canyon river rafting flashbacks.
Upper Falls was also going crazy, so super cool:
Yep, impressive.
How a tree can grow there is anyone's guess:
Hello nice marmot!
View of the bridge we'd walked over on the other side:
Another angle on Upper Falls, with a rainbow for good measure:
The start of the long section of incredible colors and shapes in the Yellowstone canyon:
Hard to say how long this tree will be here (we should come back in a couple years to check on it):
View from Artist's Point - so dramatic even my little camera does a decent job:
Sharing the space with a bunch of other people - worth it for this view (and most of the rest of our hike was much quieter, at least people-wise if not rushing water-wise):
More gawking as we continued along the rim, so pretty! Oh, and yes it's about to rain, because it's afternoon in Yellowstone:
Trying to keep the camera dry, I didn't get pictures of the thermal features on the trail around past Clear Lake. I highly recommend that hike for something different that not many people know about. Random steam coming out of holes and springs, you gotta love it.
Finishing up the lake hike as the sky starts to clear again:
On our way back to the truck, suddenly John said "Bear!" and he put out his arms to stop everyone in our tracks. Not only a Bear! but also two cubs!!
Bear spray in hand, we walked slowly backward and watched the scene in front of us. How cute are these little ones?!
We stayed for a while, continuing to slowly retreat and keep our distance. Eventually the bears left the path, while we circled around the other way to take the road instead. Thank you bears, that was awesome!
I couldn't resist a trip over to the mud volcano area. It's one of my favorite places in the park. We were just in time for a ranger talk at the volcano, yay for ranger talks!
Dragon Mouth Spring was going strong with a whole lot of steam-generated noise:
Kristi got a sticker for helping the ranger by taking measurements with her temperature gun :)
Trying to squeeze every last bit out of the day, we walked both loops at Norris Geyser Basin. So otherworldly:
I believe this trail is closed. Not sure the status of the campground:
More incredible landscape:
Maybe someday we'll be lucky enough to see Steamboat erupt (although apparently that might not be great for the vehicles in the parking lot):
Wonderful adventures! Thank you John, Jason, and Kristi for a fun, full three days in the park.
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