Day 7 of our trip and we were finally out of luck with the good weather. The next two days had a forecast of rain and possibly snow. We knew that anything we wanted to go see, we would need to do so early in the morning before the weather moved in. We grabbed a couple of granola bars (or buddy bars, as Scott calls them), and headed toward the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Unfortunately, Scott was not feeling the best. His sickness and cough are getting a lot better, but he’s still feeling pretty beat up and run down. We knew this would be a slow day for us.

We got to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. If you’ve never been here before, it’s this beautiful canyon that has the wildest combination of colors in the rock. We took the North Rim road to view the canyon. The road to take you to the canyon is one-way, so once we were in, we were in! Scott wanted to walk down to see the Lower Falls. It was a 600 foot drop, so the way down was easy, but the way up was steep. It was really cool though, as we were literally right at the edge above the Lower Falls. Scott was terrified! I laughed a lot watching this. We also looked at the Grand View, which wasn’t the best view, and also Inspiration Point which was awesome!

 

We then headed north to the Mammoth Hot Springs in the northwest corner of the park. We stopped off at a Petrified Tree at Scott’s request. It was totally not worth it! Neither of us even took a picture! We got to Mammoth Hot Springs, and arrived in the little town right next to it. There were elk walking through the town, and tons of people. We found a parking spot, and headed off to see the springs. Scott, still not feeling great, led the way to go uphill first in taking the hundreds of stairs.

Mammoth Hot Springs has a lot of history behind it. According to their trail guide, for hundreds of years the Shoshone and Bannock people collected minerals from the springs for white paint. The heat source behind the springs is a mystery to scientists, who have proposed two sources; the magma chamber below the Yellowstone Caldera, or a smaller heat source closer to Mammoth. There is an underground network of fractures that allow hot water to reach the surface. The limestone in the surrounding area is dissolved as carbonic acid rises to the surface, which then creates calcium carbonite that is deposited in the form of travertine. This travertine forms terraces of Mammoth Hot Springs. There are millions of thermophiles in the springs, which produce the varying colors around the springs. This is a common occurrence at Yellowstone in all of the springs and geysers. The travertine is produced rather quickly, so Mammoth Hot Springs is constantly changing. Some springs are dormant, while others are not. Some of the springs that we saw, were not in existence 20 years ago. This is pretty cool and I look forward to coming back and seeing the changes.

 

Our last sighting of the day was to go back to the Grand Prismatic Spring. Scott had done some research the night before, and we felt confident that we could find the trail that would lead us above the spring. This proved much easier than the previous day, as there were SO many more people around. We could actually see people on the trail from the road, where we hadn’t seen them the day before. We took the trail up, and finally saw the cool sights we had so desperately wanted to see. It was our last day in Yellowstone, and we felt good about what we had seen, and are already making our list for the next visit.

 

On our way back to our campground, we saw some pretty amazing animals. There were several herds of buffalo that we had to stop for as they were in the road. We also came across people who had stopped to watch a GRIZZLY bear with her two cubs. The buffalo were within several feet of us, and we probably got a little closer to the bear than we should have (200 feet or so?). Very cool experience to have on our last visit.

We got to the camper early, and I made a beef stew in our Instant Pot at the request of Scott. It was cold and rainy, and with him not feeling well this was the perfect meal. We watched a movie, and I took this down time to update my National Parks map to add in the ones that we have done so far! It’s cool to see our collection growing as we go on our adventure together!

 

Next on our trip, we leave the state of Idaho and our favorite campsite so far and head waaaaay north to Glacier National Park in Montana!