A couple of deer wander into the campground, keeping quiet for all the sleeping campers...
Karl and Mariann are up quickly and pack their car. By 6:30 they are ready to head back to Seattle via the north Yellowstone exit, minimizing their travel time. It's been a most excellent adventure together, and their outdoor experience made the whole backpacking trip possible for Matt and Wendy. Hugs and good byes are shared with a smile, as we relish in the recent triumphant memories from the past few days. Matt, Karl, and Mariann propose another get together for July 4th, 2006, pending any schedule impacts due to Karl and Mariann's "sailing outing" starting in Sept '06.
We watch Karl's Honda Insight pull away from the campsite. It won't be the same without their company, but Matt and Wendy still have a half day of touring Yellowstone before their drive back, so it's time to focus on the adventure at hand. Matt takes on the morning driving, and on the way out of the campground, we see some deer.
A couple of deer wander into the campground, keeping quiet for all the sleeping campers...
This tree is shaking quite a bit. Good thing it's green and flexible, or else it'd be Timber time...
A further drive south brings us to a river with three elk wading across. This scene would be mobbed but at this early hour, there only ~6 cars pulled over.
Quite an ideal setting to witness some wildlife with large antlers...
We pass "Roaring Mountain" to the east, which we ignored yesterday, but this morning it looks worthy of a picture.
This mountain appears to be alive and venting some steam...
We reach Norris Junction and head east, towards Yellowstone Canyon. The road makes a convenient path for bison too, as several of them are taking up a lane this morning.
This bison should show some courtesy and stay in the right lane if it's going slow…
All these bison seem a little groggy, and not excited to head to work this morning, despite the favorable traffic conditions…
Note that a baby bison (I hear an "aww…" from somewhere in the car) is a lighter brown color…
After passing all the buffalo, we continue to...
There are 7 small hikes in this attraction area, some 100 feet from the parking lot, and others ~1/3rd mile down a steep paved trail, or steps. We plan to do them all. First up is Inspiration point.
The canyon is made up of "yellow rock", or you might even say, "yellow stone"...
Next we drive to Lookout Point, and also walk down to Red Rock Point. Here we see a magnificent high volume water fall. The water in this river is a lime green, and there is a green stripe on the left side of the water fall (at the top).
Indeed, the morning sun illuminates the falls quite nicely...
You can kind of see some people standing at the ledge to the right of the falls.
Notice the green stripe in the falls. We see a chunk of snow on the left slide off too...
At the beginning of this trail is an odd tree with roots like legs. It looks as if it wants to walk away.
Wendy finds some shade under the trunk of this tree...
Next on the Canyonland attraction list is Brink of Lower Falls. We get to walk down to the waterfall itself (and back uphill afterwards). The water is REALLY green. Matt takes some creative stitched pic shots here.
The water is like melted green jello (color)...
You have to tilt you head a bit, but this is what the whole thing looks like...
A look back up the canyon shows the path of the resulting river.
The river cut this canyon over the years, and is still at it...
That waterfall was the "lower" fall, and there is an "upper" waterfall as well, which is the next stop on the circuit. It's not as big, but still nice, I guess...
The upper falls is jealous of the more popular lower falls, but we give it some love here...
We hop in the car and hop out at Uncle Tom's Trail, which has a ton of stairs going down and ending up right in front of the lower falls. We have to wait while a tour bus load of people make their way up the stairs. This view is very impressive, and there are rainbows in the mist.
I call this one "Waterfall and Rainbow"...
This would make a good backdrop for a school yearbook picture (minus the railing)...
A peak back up the canyon, with the morning sun still low in the sky...
I mentioned there were a lot of stairs...
The last stop in Canyonland is Artist Point. This is a short walk, further up the canyon, on the opposite side that we first started out on. A good look at the canyon and waterfall, from afar.
I probably took 25 pics from here, but this stitched shot does the most justice...
Having thoroughly experienced the canyon, we drive south, towards the Mud Volcano purple dot (on the map).
The first attraction we see is Dragon's Mouth Spring, which is very cool. It's a cave that makes very loud flushing/churning water noise, and emits heavy steam over the grey turbulent pool. It really sounds and looks as if some fire-breathing monster lives in there.
This 2x3 matrix stitch shot really captures the whole of Dragon's Mouth Spring...
We walk around and check out the mud volcano, but it's basically just grey bubble water. Not nearly as cool as the paint pots from yesterday. Towards the end of the loop we see Mud Geyser, which used to be very cool. It would explode every few hours and send mud 50 feet into the air. But like many of the geysers in the park, they all change as the earth changes beneath (or people throw objects in and ruin them)...
A look at Mud Geyser. Not that impressive, but thought I'd put it up...
When we get back to the start of the loop, we see 2 bison on the hill near the path to Dragon's Mouth. A ranger is keeping people away. We go up and watch. An older woman who isn't aware of the situation, walks right by the ranger, and the ranger says, "I'd stay back here if I were you." Then she looks up and jumps, and hurries back.
The ranger says he's seen bison jump over this wooden fence from a standstill...
Eventually the bison head up the hill, and we head to the car and travel south. Soon we see a huge beautiful lake, with mountains across, and we stop in Fishing Bridge for lunch along the lake.
Ignore the glitches and slanty horizon in this poorly stitched pic. Error correct with your eyes...
After lunch it's ~12:30, and we have one stop left in the plans before heading out the park. We decide that instead of taking the east exit of Yellowstone, which would be a little shorter drive home, we'll exit out the south again, so we can see the Tetons one more time. So we drive south to...
Interesting colored pools, with a deep blue lake backdrop, and a lighter blue sky.
A look into Abyss Pool. I wonder how deep that cave goes...
We walk along the boardwalk, passing cool pools, and end up along the lake. We see Fishing Cone, which is currently underwater, due to the peak melting season, but usually it's above water. In this cone is boiling water, and fishermen used to catch fish, bring them to Fishing Cone, and cook them without even taking them off the line. Pretty sweet deal. Fishing is no longer allowed near here though...
You could catch and cook a fish here without leaving the lake...
This place has nice looking pools, but what makes it amazing is the lake and mountains in the backdrop.
After completing this loop, we head back to the car to leave the park. We made good time today, and saw lots of wildlife. Even Wendy says it was worth getting up early for. Now it's time to head home...
Looking across various points of Jackson Lake...
We pass Jenny Lake, where we met up with Karl and Mariann 4 days ago, and head south past the Death Canyon trailhead. We take a peak to our right, and can see the entrance to Death Canyon, as well as a bit of the shelf. We remember seeing this road from up on the shelf, so we might be catching a glimpse of Anemone Flower Mountains somewhere in this pic...
The entrance to Death Canyon is the split in these mountains...
Now the adventure is over, and all that's left is the drive back. We decide to head home via an alternate route than we arrived from. We stop in Jackson, WY, fill up on gas, and Matt buys a 6-pack of Old Faithful Ale as a sovenior (Karl and Mariann had bought one last night as well).
Then Wendy takes over the driving, while Matt hooks his laptop to the car battery (via the cigarette lighter), and starts stitching pictures. He took more than 1000 pics over the 5 days, and has a lot of work to do if we wants to write up a web journal.
"Man," he thinks, "this is gonna be a LOT of work...". But this is an adventure worthy to archive for the ages, and share with others, so he gets started stitching his 210 stitched pic shots, and is grateful for the extra 7 hours of time to work on during the drive back, thanks to Wendy.
The drive back is uneventful, aside from a decision to back track a few miles to a gas station once we leave the highway to head to Fort Collins via a back road. We arrive back at Argyle Apartments at 11:15pm, and leave all our stuff in the car, cause it's gonna take a LONG time to clean and collect everything. Tomorrow after frisbee will be a better time...
If you're interested in reading more about these 2 fine characters, check out my spin-off prequel about their wedding in Norway last June. Click the thumbnails for larger pics.
Thanks for reading. I hope it inspires you to get outdoors and visit exotic places like these, or just enjoy a walk in the park.
Send comments to mjtracz20@hotmail.com