Spending The Day With Friends

We met Bob and Susan at the RV-Dreams Rally and have been following each other's blogs since then.  Since we were both in Yellowstone, we made a plan to take a hike together.  Today was the day.

Last night Jim had realized he had lost his car keys.  He spent a lot of the evening trying to figure out where his keys could be.  Then, in the middle of the night, he woke up and realized he had probably thrown them out with the trash we had taken out of the car.  Then, to compound matters,  he had taken the trash to the compacter that is locked each night and not opened until 8.  We had planned to meet Bob and Susan at Mammoth Hot Springs about 9 planning to leave here at 7.  To make a long story short, he was able to find a camp host who would open the compactor.  He found the keys in the trash bag and now, we were starting out at 7:45.  Bob and Susan were nice enough to wait for us.

We got there about 9:15 after Jim stopped for another elk.

When we got out of the car, there were many elk laying in the grass.  I read in Yellowstone Treasures that these elk keep the grass trimmed in this area.  It is the only turf grass found in Yellowstone and was planted in the days of Fort Yellowstone.

Our plan was to make the hike around the Beaver Ponds.  The trail was a little over 5 miles long.

 We got started about 9:30 making the upward climb after closely passing another elk at the beginning of the trail.  We continued to climb and finally reached one of the tops.  The view was gorgeous, there is a lot of smoke in the air right now from forest fires, so the views were clouded.

We passed over this little stream with stepping stones provided.

 Bob, Jim and Susan pause for a quick picture on this wooden bridge.

 There were streams,

 luscious, green vegetation,

and flowers and butterflies.

We counted four lakes that we passed, but we all agreed this last one was the prettiest.  We spotted several beaver dams, but no beaver.  The reflection of the mountain and trees in the still lake was beautiful.

Susan and I crossing the bridge made out of a tree log.

We continued on back up again and then out across an open field.  Finally, we reached the top of the last mountain.  There was Mammoth below us.

We made it down the hill about 1:00.  All of us were famished.  Jim and Bob took all of our equipment to our vehicles.  Susan and I went to the Grill to order lunch.  It was a zoo with people backed up all the way to the door.  We decided the Mammoth Dining Room looked a lot better.  The guys met us there where we ordered our food.  It and the conversation were wonderful!  We said our so longs. Bob and Susan were going to continue on another hike.  Jim and I were pretty well worn out and headed home.

It was another great day!

Mesa Falls and Old Faithful Inn

We thought we would take a break from our early morning ventures into Yellowstone and head the other direction into Idaho.  Not far from us is the beginning of one of Idaho's scenic byways, Mesa Falls Scenic Byway.

We took the northeast turnoff and it wasn't long until we were driving through the forested land.  We arrived at the Upper Mesa Falls which has been developed with paths and viewing areas that are easily accessible.  The Upper and Lower Mesa Falls are the last major falls in Idaho that have not been used for irrigation or hydroelectric projects.

We stopped at the Big Falls Inn which is now the Visitor's Center before proceeding to the walk to the falls.  This was built between 1907 and 1912 to capitalize on the tourist traffic around Yellowstone.

We took the easy trail to the falls.  There are many stairs, but they are relatively easy.  The Upper Mesa Falls was beautiful with a full rainbow just above the river at the bottom of the falls.  We couldn't get over how wide this falls was.  It is 114 feet high and 300 feet wide at the crest of the falls.

This is the view of the river and rocks just below the observation deck.

 We moved over to the other deck that stands out just above the brink of the falls.  It was thrilling to be standing over the water.

We got in the car to move on over to the Lower Mesa Falls.  You have to stand at an overlook to see them, so you are not as close as you are at the Upper Mesa Falls.  It was a pretty view.

We at lunch at a little drive in in Ashton and headed home.  We had reservations for dinner at Old Faithful Inn so we headed over there later in the afternoon.

We arrived at the hotel which opened in 1903.

When you walk in, the first thing you see is the multi-storied log lobby reaching high to the rooftop  and the gigantic stone fireplace along with the comfortable overstuffed chairs throughout the lobby.

We had arrived 30 minutes early and saw that Old Faithful would be erupting in a few minutes.  We went to the observation deck of the hotel and sat waiting,

for the show to begin.

It was now time for dinner. We headed to the dining room.

Our table was in the original dining room close to the fireplace with this picture of Old Faithful on it.

 We had the prime rib buffet which was wonderful.

After dinner, we went out to the boardwalk around the geyser basin that we had not been to yet.

We walked around the different pools and springs.

We were able to watch Castle Geyser erupt in the distance.

We took this view of Old Faithful Inn from the geyser basin.

As we were leaving the basin, people were gathered around Old Faithful, so we knew it must be time for another eruption.  We viewed it this time from the other side with Old Faithful Inn in the background.

 It was getting late and we needed to head out of the park before it got dark.  On our way out, we saw cars gathered and got this shot of another beautiful elk.

A little farther down the road, Jim saw something moving on the right side.  He stopped the car and this elk came from out of the woods and crossed in front of us.  She didn't look both ways, just walked on out across the street and to the water.  It was a neat wildlife moment we shared without any other people around (there aren't many moments like that at Yellowstone).

She walked out to the water to get a drink. We pulled our car over to the turnout just passed her and watched.  Of course, we weren't alone for long. When people see you out of a car with a camera, they just stop.  It wasn't long and there were two other cars.  We decided to go on.

By the time we got home, it was dark.  It had been another great day.

Back to the Canyon

We got an early start this morning and decided to go back to the Yellowstone Canyon area to go to the areas we had missed the other day.

We took the North Rim Drive parking at Lookout Point and beginning the switchbacks and steps to Red Rock Point.

 It is a paved but very steep trail of about 1 miles round trip.  It had rained yesterday and parts of the trail were wet.  I sure had wished I had brought my hiking poles with me.  There were parts of the trail that had to be taken slowly because it was so steep and winding.  The view down was beautiful.

Towards the end, there are groups of wooden stairs and the view of the lower falls.

We reached the last platform and were greeted with pounding of the water of the Yellowstone.  Osprey flew over the falls.  It was gorgeous!  The early morning lighting formed a rainbow at the bottom of the falls.

 We spent quite a bit of time admiring the beauty and then made the much harder hike back up.  We reached the top and then walked the short trail the other way to Lookout Point.  There were more spectacular views!

We left Lookout Point, completed the North Rim Trail and headed back to the Brink of the Upper Falls.  From there, we took another trail that led to Crystal Falls.  This trail was definitely not traveled much and there were signs stating this was Bear Country.  I began my clapping and chanting of No Bears, No Bears so we would not run across any by surprise.  It was a short walk and we came to Crystal Falls which drops 129 feet in three stages.  We took the right fork first to see the view of the falls and then went back and took the left fork which crossed over the top of the falls. It always amazes me how there are places in Yellowstone that are wall to wall people, but then you can go off on another trail and there is absolutely no one!

We got back to the car and continued toward Tower Junction.  We stopped at one of the many turnouts to admire the views.

Our next stop was the 132 foot Tower Fall.  When we were here in 1982, there was a large boulder right at the top of the waterfall.  It fell in 1986.  In fact, members of the 1871 Hayden expedition placed bets on when it would fall.  So, it was balanced there for quite awhile.

Tower Fall is the only waterfall in the park officially called "fall" rather than "falls", maybe, because it is one clean drop to the creek below.

We continued the drive passing these basalt columns that were formed when the lava flowed, stopeed, cooled enough to become solid, and then continued to cool and shrink.

We came to the Tower-Roosevelt Junction and stopped at the Roosevelt Lodge for a little while, then continued down the road.  We were lucky today was Saturday, so the road construction was not going on today.

Our next stop was the Petrified Tree.  We didn't know there were petrified trees in Yellowstone!  This happened 50 million years ago.  In fact, Yellowstone has more well-preserved upright trees than any other known locality.  At this spot, there used to be three trees, but tourists would chop away bits for souvenirs prompting the forest service to build a fence around this last one.

Next, we came to Blacktail Deer Plateau Drive, a 7 mile unpaved one-way road following a former tourist road.

We climbed and weaved the road seeing more awesome views.

Our last stop was Undine Falls, a triple waterfall dropping a total over 100 feet.

 We came back around to Mammoth Junction stopping to view yellow-bellied marmots sunning themselves on the rocks by the river.

It was another wonderful day in Yellowstone!