Emily had been content to let me largely plan how we would spend our time once we got to Yellowstone, and I, naturally, had had plenty of ideas about what things I wanted to do/show her. So, months before the trip, I had made a list of all thing things that I kind of wanted to do, and had organized those things geographically, such that I had four tentative day-plans sketched out. I didn’t necessarily expect that we’d do everything on my list, but it was a starting point. In general, my focus on this trip was less about seeing and doing new-to-me things, and more about showing a bunch of my favorite things out there to Emily (while also, of course, getting to see those things again myself). My four days didn’t necessarily need to happen in any particular order, for the most part, but I did kind of envision starting with the Canyon area on day one. Emily had no objections, so that’s what we did!
In general, we did not get going as early each day as has been my custom on previous trips. This was at least partly a consequence of arriving at our destinations so late on the way out there, and thus getting into a pattern of going to sleep on the later side, making it hard to get up early the next morning. (Even on days when we did get to bed not-so-late, it was often after what felt to me like too-short periods of evening relaxation-at-campsite, so it kind of felt like we never quite “caught up.”) Actually, though, I felt like I was having a harder time getting myself moving on some mornings than I could really explain in that way…forcing me to conclude that I might just be getting old (this was somewhat of a theme on my last trip to Yellowstone, two, as anyone who read my account of it may recall). Then, too, Emily’s preference for more leisurely mornings (and more of a breakfast) than what I gravitate toward on my own also played a part. (It’s not relevant to this particular day, but while she was okay with keeping breakfast pretty quick and simple most days, she for sure wanted to do a bigger breakfast on at least one morning.) Anyway, all of this to say that I think it was at least mid-morning by the time we got ourselves headed back up the eastern side of the loop road on this morning, en route to the vicinity of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. (Though, truth be told, I’m having a bit of trouble reconstructing this day’s timeline. One of the differences between a solo trip vs. a trip with someone else: I didn’t take any time during this trip to jot down notes that I could later use when writing about it!)
So, we drove up to the Canyon area and parked in the Wapiti Lake trailhead/picnic area parking lot, as I have done on more than one previous trip. This spot is located just off the loop road and across the Chittenden bridge, which crosses the Yellowstone river a short distance upstream of the Upper Falls. The road that branches off from the main loop and goes across the bridge is South Rim Drive, which (yep) heads in a northeasterly direction along the south rim of the canyon. From the parking lot, one can a) access the South Rim Trail, or b) walk back across the bridge and access the North Rim Trail, as well as c) use the picnic area, or d) access various other, more full-on back country trails (some of which I’ve hiked in the past). We commenced our adventures with option b, mostly because I wanted to make absolutely sure we got ourselves to my favorite spot in the canyon area—the Brink of the Lower Falls (which is on the north side). This also meant that would, at least at first, be retracing a route that I tried to take on day 2 of my 2016 Yellowstone trip (though part of the trail had turned out to be closed on that day, forcing me to go back and drive to the lower falls). The trail basically proceeds along the high ground right next to the canyon, and periodically connects with shorter trails that lead from a succession of parking lots along North Rim Drive down to various observation points, the first two of which are at the respective brinks of the upper and lower falls. Naturally, we visited both of these spots.
In retrospect, I’m actually a bit surprised at how few pictures we took during this excursion; then again, I think we were low on phone charge. (This is another difference between this trip and all of my previous ones: always before, I had an actual camera with me, but this time we only had our phone cameras.) There are, however, some pics of the Lower falls still to come, so stay tuned! Anyway, the trail down to the brink of the Lower Falls (the most spectacularly awesome spot) is a series of steep switchbacks; after hauling ourselves back up it, we decided to retrace our steps back along the main trail to the parking lot.
I’m not entirely sure, but I think it must have been at this point that we paused for lunch at the picnic area that’s right there by where we had parked. It must have been getting close to 2:00 pm already by the time we got there, which seems kind of late—but a lunch here helps to explain the two-hour gap between when the last of the above pictures were taken and when the next ones got taken. (The first of the above pics was taken at nearly 12:30, suggesting that we really must have gotten going pretty late this morning. I almost wanted to explain that time stamp by saying that we maybe ate lunch before setting off along the North Rim Trail, but I don’t think that’s right.) Then, we hopped in the car and drove to Artist Point, which is at the end of South Rim Drive (so now we’re looking at the canyon from the opposite rim)—a spot that I perhaps had never actually visited before (or at least not as an adult; it’s harder to say whether I may have been there on my first-ever Yellowstone trip, as a 14-year-old boy scout).
Besides the Canyon area, the other thing that I had planned for this day was a stop at the Mud Volcano area, since we would be driving right past it twice. I should add that we also, of course, drove through the Hayden Valley en route to and from the Canyon area, and as anyone who is at all familiar with Yellowstone ought to know…that means that we saw buffaloes! However, we apparently didn’t take any pictures of them on this day. (Not to worry; we’d be back.) We also took no pictures at the Mud Volcano area, which honestly is mostly fine; as I’ve commented before, I find the mudpots delightfully weird and fascinating in person, but they never photograph very well. (Pictures also don’t capture the intense sulfury smell of the area…) What’s not so fine, though, is that we (I guess) didn’t even take any pictures of the buffalo who was hanging out by one of the mudpots, and whom we therefore got to see pretty up close and for an extended period of time. What were we thinking!? Oh, well. You’ll just have to take my word for it that it was awesome.
After Mud Volcano, we called it a day and drove back down to our campground—where, after I got a fire going and cooked us up a bona fide camping dinner (and Emily experimented with turning some grocery-store cinnamon rolls into charcoal in the pudgy pie maker 😀), we did take one more picture.
