So now it’s Thursday, time to break camp at Grant and move a bit north to Bridge Bay Campground. We would have preferred to go to Canyon Campground, but it closed for the season a couple of days ago. BB will be the next best bet as a base for exploring the upper loop. Plus, it has full sun sites, so we won’t have to worry about recharging the batteries. We got ourselves set up, after changing sites due to inadequate space in the first one, and took off on the scoot for the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Without a camera.
Not to worry. There are plenty of photos available online to document what we saw, most of them a lot better than I can take. So, what you see in this post are cadged from the internet. Thanks, photographers!
On the way up just out of BB, there was a lot of haze coming across the lake from a fire that was burning on the east shore. We were hoping that it wouldn’t affect our eastern exit in a couple of days. Once past the lake, the haze disappeared and the skies were a perfect blue. The drive up this way follows the Yellowstone River north towards Canyon Village. Wow. For sheer beauty, this is hard to beat. And, it had bison! More on that later. Suffice to say for now that encountering 2,000 lb bison, up close and personal, without the benefit of a steel car around you, is, uh, exhilarating. Yeah, that’s the word I’ll use for all that rapid heartbeat and sweaty pits!
At the Canyon, there are north and south drives, and we did them both, each with great views. This truly is a “grand” canyon, with sheer walls v-ing down to the river far below. We had read about a ranger walk along “Uncle Tom’s Trail” to a view of the falls, so we headed to the meeting spot at the trailhead. The name has nothing to do with H.B. Stowe, but rather for a pioneer tour guide at the turn of the last century.
Them tourists were made of stern stuff!
Ranger Dan was Tim Conway with a mustache and goatee, doing his best to ease off his Boston accent. Like the other rangers we dealt with, he was passionate about the park and almost evangelical in his zeal to protect and display it.
While we might not have had to use ropes and ladders, the hike down nevertheless was a doozy. Part of it is via steel mesh stairs and bridges. They were strong enough, but you could see right through them to the great void below.
My acrophobia kicked in big time, and I was squeezing those railings until they bent. Oye.
But the viewpoint, once we got there, was well worth the terror. The falls lived up to their billing. Tons of water was coming over, even in mid-September. That’s a testament to the huge winter this year. There was a notch in the rocks that formed the lip of the falls, and the water flowing through the “V” was a bright green in contrast to the white water everywhere else. Very cool effect. Oh, for my camera. Curse you, Duracell charger!
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