Today’s main activity was to explore the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone in Yellowstone National Park. Being that this was our first day, we enjoyed some of the sights along the way. We were nearly immediately graced with a herd of bison, which luckily stayed out of the road and didn’t cause any traffic delays. Here’s one of the bison just wandering near one of the Mud Volcano springs like it’s nothing.
We decided to do the South Rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone first, where we saw this glimpse of the upper falls from Uncle Tom’s Point.
From there, we hiked along the South Rim trail between Uncle Tom’s point and Artist Point, where we were greeted by a bison just chilling in the grass.
Not long after the bison, we came across the first of many views of the Lower Falls of Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone as seen in the featured image of this article.
Unfortunately, Uncle Tom’s Trail down to a platform right at eye level with the Lower Falls was closed, so we continued on toward Artist Point and soon were greeted with the proper lighting for this gem of a rainbow.
There were quite a few vistas along this trail, but there are too many to list here (they’ll be in the gallery). When we finally made it to Artist Point, it did not disappoint. Here’s the view back up the canyon.
Once we basked in the beauty at Artist Point for a sufficient amount of time, we hiked back to the truck and went to the North Rim, where we first visited the Brink of the Lower Falls (the Brink of the Upper Falls was closed). Here, we hiked down to the very edge of the falls for our first delight of the North Rim.
We continued down the North Rim, and just like the South Rim, we were greeted by wonderful views too numerous to mention here. Our destination was Inspiration Point, where we got a view even further down the canyon that words do not do justice.
After we were finished basking in the beauty at Inspiration Point, we hiked back along the North Rim toward the truck and headed back toward the Bridge Bay area, stopping at the Canyon Visitor Center along the way.
Near to Bridge Bay is the Mud Volcano area, which we visited before getting back to our campsite. The most interesting feature (aside from the actual Mud Volcano) was this Dragon’s Mouth, which made sounds and constantly belched steam, creating an eerie and out-of-this-world experience.
Here is the namesake of this area itself.
Once we left the Mud Volcano area, we experienced some of the typical traffic congestion found here in Yellowstone National Park.
Clearly this bison just doesn’t care about who wants to go where. Once we got past the bison, we proceeded past the Fishing Bridge area to Storm Point out to the northern Yellowstone Lake Shore, where we were greeted with this vista:
And that was the remainder of our activities for the day.