Thursday, September 19, 2013

Yellowstone National Park - Day 4

 


We had another early start today knowing that we’d be doing a lot of driving, as we planned to explore the Canyon Village and Tower-Roosevelt areas of Yellowstone.  Of course, we passed bison along the route.

 
The canyon area is known as the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River ~ the canyon is 20 mile long, 1000+ ft deep and between 1,500 and 4,0000 feet wide. There are two prominent waterfalls in the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone ~ Upper Falls at 109 ft and Lower Falls at 308 ft.

Our first stop was the brink of the Lower Falls, a steep, paved trail where one can see the 37,417 gallons per second water plunging overt the edge.




Red Rock Point was another steep hike with nice views
 


And at Lookout Point we saw this young osprey waiting for Mom or Dad to come back with lunch.
 


The last stop on the north rim of the canyon was Grand View……
 


We then drove to the south rim, stopped at Upper Falls Viewpoint and then took the steep Uncle Tom’s Point hike to view the Lower Falls and canyon walls.
   



To add to the steepness of this hike, there were 313 steps! :-)
 


Artist Point was our last stop in the canyon where we continued to enjoy the views.
   



We then continued our drive to the Tower-Roosevelt area passing more evidence of the 1988 fires.
 


We were also quite surprised at how much the terrain changed, yet we were still in Yellowstone National Park.
 


We stopped to view the Tower Falls, then continued into the Lamar Valley
 
passing by a few big horned sheep and more bison.
 
 



At one point, we had to cross a narrow bridge. At this point, if a bison wanted to get to the other side, they would need to go down into the steep canyon, cross the water, then back up – or – use the bridge. Yup – this pair chose the latter!
 


We then continued driving along the roads of Lamar Valley, enjoying the scenery
 


When eventually we came to a TON of people on a hills side with big cameras and scopes.  Out we got, climbed, the hill, and too friggin’ cool – a mother bear, her three cubs, and a recent bison kill (courtesy of a pack of wolves) that the bears took for themselves! Here are a few photos……..
   
 



It was getting much later than we planned on being out, the mother bear decided to stop eating and sleep on the kill (quite common), so we left, passing by an antelope

   

Enjoying more cool scenery
 
And even though late for us, we just had to stop for another bear!



As we passed Mammoth Hot Springs, we did finally see some elk.
 


Then we hightailed it home – definitely an awesome wildlife day!!
 
  
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