Epic RVing with the Gradys - Day 5 - Chasing Waterfalls

Up early again today! We set the alarm for 6:00 AM, had a quick breakfast, then were out on the road for the 50 minute drive to the North Entrance of Yellowstone. It was definitely worth it, again. We beat a good deal of the traffic and didn’t have to wait in line to get in, though to be fair, I don’t recall seeing a line to get in any of the times I passed the north entrance gate.

Our first stop was the overlook trail at Mammoth Springs. It was, fine… There were some decent views and fun areas to walk, but all in all, it was more geysers and thermal features. Once you’ve seen one…

After Mammoth we headed east towards Tower Falls. We had a few stops planned on the way and were then going to head south towards the Canyon. The attractions we wanted to hit along the way included Undine Falls, Wraith Falls, and the Petrified Tree. Undine was right off the road, so we stopped, snapped a few quick pictures, then left. Wraith was a little more interesting. It wasn’t a big area, and there was nobody there, so we pulled off, then looked at the map and found that it was only a 1 mile out and back. No problem, except there was a sign for Bear Danger!!! So we geared up, got our bear spray out, and spent about 10 minutes figuring out how to use it. Then we hit the trail - 5 minutes later we saw the falls, then 5 minutes later we were back at the car. A family in a Ram truck pulled in just after we left, promptly got out of the car and left right away. We felt pretty silly… Later in the day we would pass the same lot and it would be full, so we felt good about our choice to stop early.

Our last stop was the petrified tree. It sounded cool, to all of us except Quinton, who couldn’t believe we were stopping to see a tree. Of course, when we got there, wouldn’t you know it… A tree… We didn’t hear the end of that for a bit.

We had seen a sign back at Mammoth Springs that the Tower to Canyon road was closed. We didn’t quite believe it, but after the tree, we saw for sure, that road was closed… We stopped at a service station to get some sodas and talked to the lady behind the counter who said that yes, indeed, the road was closed because some of it was falling off of a cliff and it had been closed for over a year already. Oh well, she directed us to Lamar Valley instead where we could see a lot of animals, and see a lot of animals we did! Mostly bison, but we also saw a nesting bald eagle thatwas pretty cool.

We weren’t able to take the 12 mile road between Tower Falls and Canyon, so we had to go all the way back around, 12 miles back to Mammoth, another 20 or so miles down to Norris, then 12 miles back to Canyon, so it cost us about an hour all told. When we finally made it to Canyon Village, we were ready for some lunch. The Canyon Village seemed pretty active and nice. The stores were a bit nicer, the people were a bit nicer… They even had these electric, self driving vehicles called Ollie, which carted people around the various lodging locations in Canyon Village.

Almost as a surprise, we found the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. We weren’t intending to visit it, but it was prominantly advertised in Canyon Village, so we stopped, and we were glad we did! We managed to continue our lucky streak of finding just the right parking at the right time, and parked in the first parking lot along the North Rim drive. We all got out and viewed some very impressive falls! First we saw the “lower falls,” which implied that there must be such a thing as an “upper falls.” A few steps later, sure enough, an upper falls! There was a hiking trail to get to the crest of the lower falls, and it was only 3/8 of a mile one way, so we embarked on that trek post haste. And man, did it go DOWN! They claim only 600 feet over the course of that 3/8 mile, which I assume must be a lot. Going down wasn’t that bad, but going up again definitely got me sweating!

Mireille was struggling a bit to come back up the 600 foot vertical - not because it was that hard for her, but because she is off her schedule and struggling in general. We made it up, though, got in the car, then drove about 1/8 of a mile before we found another parking lot, so we got out and did it all over again. We were fooled into thinking that this hike wouldn’t be as hard, but we were wrong. It was just as far down, and just as far up again, but the views were amazing! We separated between the boys and girls for this portion of the hike, and when we made it to the top, Quinton and I saw a shirt that we really liked - it said, “Don’t Pet the Fluffy Cows,” referring to the bison in the park.

We negotiated with the kids to do no more elevation hiking, so instead we headed south to see Yellowstone Lake (not a lot of creative naming going on in this park). On the way we were treated to a big herd of bison as well as a black bear! Unfortunately we didn’t get any pictures of the black bear. There was, predictably, a big cache of cars surrounding the bison herd.

A little ways past the bison herd was the Mud Volcano area, so we of course stopped. It was just as it said - it was a geyser that was spewing mud. For some reason, this particular area smelled WAY worse than all of the other thermal areas. There was about a 3/4 mile loop to see several different thermal areas, like the simmering pool, the dragon’s cauldron, and the mud volcano, and there were a few times where I just couldn’t breath due to the overpowering smell of sulpher! Honestly, I am writing this two days past the event, and I can honestly say that I’ve had nightmares about the smells I encountered at that location!

Back in the car about 30 minutes later, we headed south again and finally got to Yellowstone Lake. It was pretty big! We didn’t have a ton of energy left, so we went inside to get some drinks and some sodas. Unfortunately they didn’t have the sodas we liked, so I got us beer instead. Then we just hung out for 30 minutes or so looking at the lake before deciding we should head back - it was going to be at least 2 hours to get back to our campsite, and it was already nearly 3:00…

On the way north, we passed the “South Rim” area and a place called Artist’s Point. We decided to stop one more time - Quinton opted to stay in the car, but we were treated to some of the better views of the Yellowstone River Falls. A couple of interesting things I learned from eaves dropping on people - the Yellowstone River is the longest undammed river in the lower 48 states, going some 800 miles before it merges with the Missouri river. Also, the Yellowstone Falls are formed naturally by two geological formations butting against one another. On one side is solid rock, and the other is lava rock. The lava rock has been eroding for thousands of years much more quickly than the other side, so - waterfall!

At one point during the day, I can’t entiretly remember when, Quinton started singing what I can only describe as an old black spiritual song. It started something like - “Days never finish - massah’s got me working…” It was pretty funny - he did it at an appropriate time when we asked him to do something and he didn’t want to do it. We eventually found out that it was a song from South Park - one that Cartman sang. It figures - we’ve recently come to understand that Quinton is most likely the black Cartman!

We headed back north, and by the time we got to our campsite, we were HUNGRY. We tried going to the restaurant a mile or so from the campground, but when we passed it, it was closed, so we headed into Livingston and got greasy burgers from a drive in. They were delicious!!!

We finally got to the campsite around 7:00, ate hastily, then got ready for bed. We had new neighbors again, including a nice Asian family, which I only note because I found their camp food was made in a pretty nice looking camp rice cooker… We finished the night by trying to get Mireille to sleep, Quinton played basketball with a kid from the park, and Jenny hung out at the laundry by herself, enjoying some well deserved quiet time alone.