Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

Roaring Mountain - fumerols venting steam

Lower Falls and Yellowstone River

We traveled out into Yellowstone National Park today, this time driving past Mammoth Hot Springs and south to Norris, then headed to Canyon Village and the main feature, the Upper and Lower Falls. Yellowstone National Park has 7 main areas of interest to see, this Canyon area is one of them. So in 2 days we have covered 2 of the 7!  Yellowstone River carved out the canyon that the river runs through and it was quite impressive.  But first, along our road to Canyon Village we stopped at the Roaring Mountain, a fumerol where steam is vented out on the side of a mountain - and you can hear the roar of the water escaping.  We also stopped along the road where boiling water was perculating out and bubbling!  Weird to see - I thought of how hot the water was and we are standing on top of a volcano!  Speaking of - there are over 600 earthquakes in the park every year.  These earthquakes change the course of many of the vents and places that steam escapes.  They say that everything changes every day. We also saw lots of bison on our road trip today - had to be careful.  Once we got to the trail head for the falls, decided to hike down the Uncle Tom's Trail to the Lower Falls which took us 300 steps and about 500 feet straight down to the base of the falls.  Little disappointed we could not get closer to the fall but was still impressive.  Had a rough time walking back up the steps to get to the top where the trail is.  At 8000 feet altitude, I had some trouble breathing.  After recovering from this we drove to Artist Point which is a scenic overlook that is painted by many.  An artist - Moran - painted this area in 1871 and these paintings greatly helped persuade Congress to declare it a national park.

Since we wanted to cover all the bases and won't be back to this particular area, we drove to the North Rim loop road which is right on the other side of the canyon we were hiking on, and followed it until we got to Inspiration Point, pretty awesome to see the colors of the canyon.  After seeing this area as a whole we now understand how Yellowstone got it's name.

Steps for viewing Lower Falls

Followed the Grand Loop road north now, driving towards Tower-Roosevelt visitor's center, got caught with road repairs and had to wait for about 1/2 hour, then continued on back to Mammoth and out.  Long day but saw about 1/3 of the park from the road.  Not alot of hiking trails, which is fine - the bear and wolf activity is high, don't want to get into trouble.

Range Wildfire

On our way from Canyon Village to Tower we saw wildfire smoke in the distant.  As we got near Mount Washburn, which is a separate road trip to the top with vista views, we had a chance to pull off on a pull-out and there was a park information employee there to answer questions about the fires.  We had a great view of the Range Fire now going on with Cygnet in the back of the Range - edging closer.  And stink.  The clouds of smoke put a haze on seeing vista views.  Both of these fires were caused by lightning and the employee said that neither one is being suppressed - they are only watching it.  Not in any area that would harm people and fires are good for the vegetation - only in extreme heat (fire) does the lodgepole pine tree's nuts break open and these seeds are what regenerates the fire area.  There are 5 wildfires within the park and it makes for photo taking a disappointment since the smoke hinders vista views.  So we hope for lots of rain soon so a) the fires are put out and b) the air is cleaned up.  Not sure if we will go out again tomorrow or wait until Sunday - rain is predicted late tomorrow afternoon and 50% chance for Saturday - maybe this will help clear up the sky.