On the following day, we woke up at the crack of dawn to secure a first-come-first-served campsite at Tower Fall Campground near the Roosevelt Lodge. We got a great one as someone was packing up to leave, but more to come about this endeavor later…
Yellowstone gets it’s name from the canyon with the Upper and Lower Yellowstone Falls: the walls of the canyon burn a brilliant yellow, contrasted by the muted earthy tones, greens of the trees, and blue sky.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/oruwu/19899615555/in/album-72157652768606564/
Yellowstone Falls was spectacular with a plunge of over 300 meters, and dramatic yellow rock walls lining the grand canyon of Yellowstone.
Hiking around the North Rim:
Lower Yellowstone Falls:
The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone:
The hike to fairy falls was a little disappointing. Marketed as the best hike in Yellowstone, and a beautiful trail to a spectacular waterfall, but were a little disappointed in a more or less flat hike through dense trees with no views, and a very thin waterfall that didn’t really impress after the grandiose Yellowstone Falls. The redeeming grace was a little offshoot trail that gave us a view of Grand Prismatic.
Fairy Fall:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/oruwu/19303988003/in/datetaken/
Grand Prismatic:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/oruwu/19302052994/in/datetaken/
A grizzly bear had traffic on the highway in a mess, and unfortunately we couldn’t stop, but we got this one image from the car:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/oruwu/19301716964/in/datetaken/
We walked around the Lower Geyser Basin, home to the famous Old Faithful. The geyser erupts every 90 minutes or so, and geologists are able to predict the time in a window of 20 minutes! Since we hung out for such a long time in the area and ended up eating our ‘very fancy’ instant ramen dinner in the lodge, we saw the geyser erupt 3 times!
Geyser Basin:
First time, right before sunset:
The 2nd time:
And the third time was pitch black, so no photograph! After a long day of hiking around boardwalks and trails to fit in as much sight seeing as possible, we drove back to our campsite, only to discover that someone had stolen it… The campground being completely full, the perpetrators seem to have made an honest mistake in misreading our reservation tag at the site, nevertheless, this was severely annoying, especially since we had gotten up so early in order to secure it. We setup our tent anyways on a very not level area of the lot, and rested for another action packed day in Grand Teton.
Trip Counter:
– Cumulative Caffeine Count: 26
– Geyser eruptions: 3
– Campsites stolen from us: 1
– Puppy Count: 9