Yellowstone – The Canyon



Lower Falls (taken with cell phone)

Today we traveled the full lower loop. Our first stop was midway geyser basin to see the Grand Prismatic Spring. We then proceeded up to Canyon Village, on the way we stopped at Gibbon Falls. We stopped in the Canyon visitor center so Mom could get her stamp and then went over to the cafeteria to get some lunch.   We drove the upper falls loop, and stopped at the first lookout point.  The path at the lookout takes you 600 feet down lower falls ridge; we walked about half-way down the path.  The path was rather steep and had several switch backs.  After that we went to the Grand View point, this point looks out over the Yellowstone Canyon and the river below. The canyon is a very light yellow color and the way the light played off the canyon walls made it breath taking. A picture just does not do this view justice.  We finished the loop road then headed down to the upper falls view point. We decided against walking down the 300 hundred steps to get us to the bottom of the upper falls, the view from the top was nice. Then we traveled further down the road to Artist Point. Artist Point looks out at the lower falls and the canyon. This is a beautiful overlook which lets you see the depth and colors of the canyon and the falls flow into it.  Again I don’t think the pictures I took will to the place justice.  From there we travelled further around the loop and stopped to look at a bison and then at Mud Volcano.  We were planning on eating in the park at West Thumb; however there was an accident which forced them to close the road for an hour. So we traveled back up to Yellowstone Lake and ate there. Dinner was ok but lunch was better.  An hour later we continued around the loop back to the start to head home.

Thus far we have seen a squirrel, mule deer, a chipmunk, an osprey, and bison and have taken a little over 700 pictures.

On Tuesday we will tour the Tetons starting with the Jenny Lake area.