9/4/2014

Monday evening Penny and I drove to the south rim of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and Hiked Uncle Tom's Trail. It's a 1 mile hike on a steel staircase that descends about 3/4 of the way down into the canyon, with 328 steps. When you get to the bottom, you are as close to the face of and as low as you can get to the lower falls.

 

When there's plenty of sun, you can see one, and sometimes two, rainbows in the mist at the bottom of the falls. They are some of the most brilliant rainbows we have ever seen.

 

Our hiking buddies were considering doing the hike at some point but weren't sure they would be able to complete it, due to the number of steps. We thought this would be a good chance to gauge whether or not they could make it. After completing it, we were convinced they could do it too. We were planning on hiking the south rim of the canyon with them on Tuesday anyway, so we added this side trip to that planned hike.

On the way home, we drove around the southern loop of the park, since this would be the last time we could do that. As of September 2nd, they're closing the road between Old Faithful and West Thumb, because they are replacing the bridge over Isa Lake and the construction will keep the road closed well into next season. As we drove through Hayden Valley we saw a pair of swans in the Yellowstone River and stopped to watch them for a while. After they swam around looking for food, they began preening themselves.

 

We also saw a bull elk by the side of the road, just a little farther down the valley.

 

Tuesday, we left the campground before 7:30 with our neighbors, to hike the south rim of the canyon. We took two cars, so we only had to hike one way. We parked our truck at the Chittenden Bridge and drove their jeep up to Artist Point to begin the hike. Artist Point gives you a view of about a mile of the canyon, up to the face of the lower falls.

The hike starts a little south of the viewpoint and travels through the forested ridge of the canyon. Every once in a while you get a view into the canyon.

 

 

About half way through the hike we got to Uncle Tom's Trail. Our hiking buddies were glad they did that part of the hike. They found it a lot easier than they thought it would be, even though the stairs and the trail are steep.

 

Since we had seen rainbows in the afternoon yesterday, we weren't expecting to see rainbows in the morning, but we were pleasantly surprised.

Penny got a picture of me and our hiking buddies going up the trail, each of us at a different level of the trail.

Down the trail a little further, you get to the upper falls and can see it from across the canyon.

 

The photo below is a view of the river looking downstream, from the upper falls.

Here's Penny taking a break along side the river, above the upper falls.

 

The bridge in the background is the old loop road bridge that can no longer support traffic due to deterioration you see in the second photo. It is now used solely as a foot bridge for hiking on the north rim of the canyon. 

We also saw some interesting trees.

On Wednesday Penny and I decided to tour the Lower, Midway and Upper Geyser Basins. Unfortunately, even though we are past peak season, there still was not enough parking for us to stop and see Midway Geyser Basin. The Upper Geyser Basin is where Old Faithful is located, but the areas contain more thermal features and active geysers than anywhere else in the park. Having seen Old Faithful many times, we walked the boardwalk to see some of the other geysers. On the way to the geyser areas we drove through Firehole Canyon and found one of the osprey out of the nest.

A little farther up the drive we noticed there was absolutely nobody in the swimming hole, so we decided to walk down to it just to see what we could see and get a different perspective of the canyon.

 

We had been to the Lower Geyser Basin back in May but did not get too deep into it because the boardwalk was still covered with snow at the time. This time we walked the entire loop and were lucky enough to be there when some of the geysers were erupting. The area also has a number of fumeroles, mud pots and hot springs.

 

In the Upper Geyser Basin, the one mile boardwalk takes you past many active geysers and hot springs.

 

 

 

 

After filling up with gas in West Yellowstone, we went home and rested our tired feet the rest of the night.