Monday, 8/13
We left around 9am for
the South Rim Trail of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and saw, in the course
of 3-1/2 hours, about every possible geological formation and landscape
imaginable...forest, waterfalls, canyon walls which constantly changed color
and texture, alpine meadows, a lily-pod covered lake and a moonscape with sulfurous, bubbling geothermal activity thrown in for good measure. The waterfalls (upper and lower) were
powerful, loud and dramatic.
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| Upper falls, from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone |
As we climbed slowly
and steadily, the canyon dropped precipitously below us….soon we were hundreds
of feet above the meandering ribbon of malachite green water below. We climbed down Uncle Tom's Trail, which
consisted of 327 steps which descended only 3/4ths of the way down the canyon,
for a great view of the falls (including a rainbow!). Going down took 5 minutes. Coming up took 17 mins and was quite the
workout (there were numerous signs warning anyone with heart condition or
breathing difficults NOT to attempt it).
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| On the easy climb down Uncle Tom's Trail |
The north canyon wall
kept changing colors and textures….it was a veritable geological variety show,
and Nils was constantly pointing out the spots that were only AMTAFD (a muscle
twitch away from death). "That's
death. Oh, and up there, that one is
REALLY death"….. It was all
true….the trail wound within inches of steep smooth drops up which you could
not hope to climb out unassisted (that is if you didn't just break your neck on
your tumbling way down). And forget about surviving a plunge into the
rapids...if the rocks wouldn't kill you, the hypothermia would. Needless to say, we were careful and used our
hiking poles to good advantage. Every
view was prettier than the next (even when we were peering down at
"death"...perhaps especially then).
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| View of Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone |
We finally got to see the yellow stone for
which the park is named….at one point it looked as though pigments had been
spilled down the creamy yellow-white canyon walls...orange, pink-tinged terra
cotta and blood red. At the outlook
called Artist's Point (which looked out over a most colorful spot) there was a
parking lot full of tour buses which meant swarms of camera-happy tourists from
Japan and China and Germany and all over the United States, pushing and shoving
for the best spot to take stiffly posed pictures. Nils and I got out of there as quickly as
possible….by the time we were 50 feet away (and continuing down the trail), we
were by ourselves again, which is the way we like it.
On the loop back we
hiked past Lily Lake (covered with Lily pads), then--abruptly--a barren moonscape dotted with geothermal
mudpots (boiling like pots of thick oatmeal and smelling of sulfur)...then just
as abruptly we were on a rolling alpine meadow covered with golden and green
grass, interspersed with sage green plants that looked and smelled like
Rosemary. Thousands of little purple
daisy flowers punctuated the whole thing, which stretched as far as our eyes
could see. Back to the car, and then a
lot of driving north to Tower Fall, which is one of the tallest waterfalls in
the park.
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| Tower Fall |
It was just jam packed with tourists, and also
very hungry black flies. Waaah. We had driven so far, up and down and around,
that we decided we had to go a little farther north and then west, to Mammoth
Hot Springs, where we walked walked a good portion of the boardwalk. Hot.
Hundreds of tourists. But really
beautiful. Sometimes you just have to
put up with the herds of tourists, I guess.
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| the Cleopatra feature at Mammoth Hot Springs |
After a long tiring
and eventful day we were ready to return to the RV and eat a good supper, tout
de suite. Ah, but that was not meant to
be. An ambling bison just decided to take
a little walk in the middle of the road, weaving from one side to the
other. That stopped traffic for about a
quarter mile and then slowed things down considerably because everyone who had
been waiting to go now had to pause to take a picture. ARRRRGH.
It took forever. Well, at least
we were able to move quickly after that….about 15 mins from our campsite, the
traffic stopped again. This time it was
for an entire HERD of buffalo (Bison = Buffalo, in case you were wondering) who
were taking their sweet old time. An ambulance
cruised by and sounded its siren to get things moving a bit faster (which
seemed to help). The traffic was stopped
for probably 2 miles in either direction!
You never know with those crazy buffalo.
Oh, Nils wanted me to
be sure to mention that we saw other wildlife today in our travels, not only
buffalo but also pelicans, a black bear and a grizzly. And chipmunks.
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