Day 7: Yellowstone

Despite trying to get out the door early to take advantage of the good weather before afternoon storms, we didn’t leave until 9:30am. We planned to explore the Tower-Roosevelt area and the Lamar River Valley areas today.First stop was Undine Falls overlook. We saw someone walking along the opposite rim of the falls, but couldn’t figure out if they were on a legit trail or not. We enjoyed the falls from the overlook.From Undine Falls we drove to the nearby Wraith Falls. We took the easy, well-maintained half-mile trail to the falls. They were really interesting looking- it was a giant, fast-moving sheet of water moving over a wavy rock face.Animals are the main attraction in this area of the park. We passed 6 black bears just while driving. It was pretty exciting in not that many people had found out about them yet so there weren’t loads of people with their giant cameras. Throughout the day we also saw tons of bison with their calves, and probably pronghorn, elk, yellow-bellied marmots, Unita ground squirrels, and white-tailed deer. During the afternoon, we even saw what we think was a red fox in a winter coat.We stopped by an amazing petrified Redwood tree. Then, we came to the opposite end of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone that we had visited yesterday.  Our real first view of this was at Calcite Springs Overlook. From there we went to Tower Falls.At the overlook to Tower Falls we noticed a trail leading somewhere. We didn’t know where it would end up, but we followed it down for awhile and were pleased to find out that it took us all the way down to the bottom of the canyon to the Yellowstone River. We had the riverbank all to ourselves. It was covered in stones of amazing and diverse colors. It was an unexpected and exciting find. Many places along the riverbank smelled of sulfur. Rain clouds look like they were starting to roll in so we turned around to head back up the trail to the car.There was an informational sign at Calcite Springs with directions to a ridge trail that could be picked up on the opposite side of the canyon. We went to the Yellowstone picnic area near Tower Junction and found the ridge trail the sign mentioned. We followed it until we could see Calcite Springs on the other side.From there we made the drive through the Lamar Valley to the Lamar River Trail. We veered off the river trail after a little while and climbed up to a ridge. This is where John spied the fox. It was very exciting. We were all exhausted by the time we got the car a short time later. It was our intention to hike the Beaver Pond Loop Trail near Mammoth Hot Springs, but we were tired. We also had to do laundry back at the hotel and John wanted to wash the car. It had gotten very dirty on a muddy area of the road that was under construction yesterday. We were very pleased that the rain had pretty much held off all day and felt happy about everything we were able to fit in, especially the fox and being able to get down to Yellowstone River. The only car wash in Gardiner recently closed, so the carwashing never happened, but we were able to get yummy veggies for dinner at the locally-owned and well-stocked grocery store.