I am aware of the fact that over a month has gone by since the last trip recap, but I have had this on my to-do list and so today I shall proceed. Life has been pretty busy at home, even without the usual concert schedule (mostly because I still managed to take on more work, which is both great and not great.)
We woke up at Bridge Bay Campground again, for our last full day in the park. Our plan was to go early to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and hike the South Rim to Clear Lake Trail we had done about 5 years before.
You can’t get from Bridge Bay to the Canyon area without running into a bison jam though.
Or without seeing one just out standing in his field. This one had some branches stuck on his horns, how embarrassing for him.
We easily found the place to park (I remembered it from the previous time) and set off on our hike. I believe it was supposed to be about 5 miles RT or so. The beginning was beautiful, with great views of the Falls, Canyon, and the Yellowstone River. Some of the path seemed different than before and I think they had rerouted some of it and fixed up other parts. Also Uncle Tom’s Stairs were closed, but I had decided after last time that I was done climbing up and down those stairs anyway. (It’s not the climb, it’s that they are open metal stairs along the side of a steep cliff near a rushing River.)
This was the sort of view along the way.
Now, this was one of the more crowded hikes, as we figured. We did have masks on for the crowded parts, though not enough other people did. Another note: if you are a hiker or a walker, don’t take the shortcut paths that the park service has worked so hard on marking with signs NOT to take, take the slightly longer way so they can grow out the vegetation and stop the erosion. I get so annoyed when people can’t just walk around, especially when it is really clear you are supposed to.
We saw a little deer along the way as well. I think it was a few here, but only one in my photo. I suppose one of the downsides of waiting over 2 months to write a blog post is that I’m going, hmm, how many deer were there, was this near where I stopped to pee in the woods? and truthfully, who knows. Maybe Louie has pictures, but he is just as behind at going through them as me!
The South Rim trail meanders along the South Rim of the Canyon. (And yes, there is a North Rim which we visited the previous year and weren’t planning to bother with this time.) You can drive and park at various lookouts but it’s much nicer if you are able to just walk.
There are varying rumors and stories of how the name Yellowstone came to be. One is because of the yellow rocks by the Canyon area. I would buy it!
You can see we are getting farther from the Falls.
Selfie! I believe this was at Artist Point, the most popular lookout along the South Rim.
Next the trail meanders into the woods and heads towards Lily Lake (and then Clear Lake).
The trail also goes by a variety of thermal features. It wasn’t as magical this time through, probably because we’d already seen them, and also it was getting HOT! and it was very sunny.
There were some people annoyingly camped out along the lake, not camped literally, but they had chairs and were just hanging out for whatever reason, and they were sitting in a way that they tended to be in almost any photo you tried to take. Which is super obnoxious when you are still 2 miles from the parking lot!
Anyway, Clear Lake is green and is pretty acidic due to the thermal activity and whatnot. I’m not a geologist, but it’s something like that.
Then we walked through the blinding sunlight to get back to the parking area. We decided after that to walk to the Brink of the Upper Falls since it had been closed the previous year for construction. It was a neat little walk because it went over what used to be a bridge taken by cars but was now just a footbridge. The bridge was built in the 1890’s first as a wooden arch bridge and then was replaced by this one in 1914-1915. It is no longer used by cars—I know I read somewhere when it was replaced for car use but I can’t find it now.
Anyway, it was a fairly short walk (less than a mile?) to the Brink of the Upper Falls and we were glad we popped over. You can also imagine the Brink was crazy busy, probably the most crowded place we had been.
After that we headed south. We didn’t have any more specific plans but thought it would be fun to drive to the South entrance of the park so that we would have driven every mile of the main roads during our 10 nights here.
We made some stops along the way at random places.
I think this might have been Lewis Lake or another Lake and I looked up and realized the trees were just like that!
As we got further south we could see the Tetons and suddenly regretted we hadn’t decided to spend some time there. Don’t get me wrong, we loved our Yellowstone time, but there are always more places to visit, and now we want to see the Tetons again. I think another year, after COVID is done will be better, as it’s a smaller park with more people crowded into a smaller area.
After getting all the way south, we headed back up north towards Bridge Bay again. There was a gravel bar along the Lake that Louie wanted to check out—it was a long gravel bar that you could walk along.
Anyway, we finally got back to our tent site and we were early enough that we took showers with our portable shower set up.
We had an early night, with a nice fire first to burn up all the wood.
The next morning we packed up and headed out. Our end of the day stop would be out the Northeast Gate of the Park, a cabin in a tiny town called Silvergate. But first, some stops along the way, of course!
We had to go by Mammoth again in order to get out of the park through the north (the more direct route was closed due to construction). We went into Gardiner again if I recall and thought we’d get another smoothie but the place wasn’t open yet. We also checked email and such and then headed towards our hike destination for the (early afternoon) day. Slough Creek Road. People said it was a great road for seeing wildlife in the morning and evening, but it was the heat of the day. Oh well.
I wasn’t feeling too good by now for whatever reason, maybe too many peanut butter sandwiches and peanuts, but we decided to do the hike—it was an out-and-back, and we were only planning to hike about 4 miles. The hike could continue for miles and miles and one could backpack, and we definitely saw people in the parking lot returning from and getting ready for such hikes.
In any case, I was a little crabby for this hike: it was hot, I was tired (we both were) but you know what, the scenery sure was beautiful! So we hiked along, and at one point a guy was coming towards us and he stopped and was telling us that there was a young black bear that had been on the path and he managed to scare it off the path finally by throwing rocks towards it and he thought it wasn’t following him anymore. I was confused by what he saying at first and asked did he want us to hike with him but he said, no, he was just telling us, that we might see it, and if we got the Ranger cabin and didn’t see it we probably were fine. Okay! So Louie wasn’t sure if I’d want to continue, but I figured, well, we’ve got our bear spray, that guy didn’t seem too scared, and he said the bear wasn’t bothering him too much. So off we went, singing and talking to make noise.
This may have been some of the most gorgeous scenery in the park. Well, with the exception of the Lake Yellowstone area.
So we saw the cabin, and that was basically where we planned to turn around. We hadn’t seen the bear yet, and I thought, well, maybe we’d better do our plan and turn back in case going on meant we DID see the bear. We also ran into a father-son hiking team and were telling them what we’d heard but they already knew and had had a bear story of their own. Well, we went on our separate ways, and we turned back, and then suddenly, Louie saw the bear, up on a ridge right near the trail. So we stopped and watched, and then lost him for a minute, and then he was right up on the trail ahead of us.
So we had choices to make, do we stay nearby to keep an eye on the bear, who seemed to be slowly meandering down the exact path we needed to take, or did we stay 100 yards away, but then we might lose track of the bear and inadvertently get closer again? We decided to stay as far away as we could keep him in sight. We figured the bear knew we were there, but the bear didn’t seem bothered by us, so we wanted to keep it that way. We kept talking and saying nice things about him while walking down the path slowly. Finally after what seemed like an eternity, the bear had gone off the path quite some distance, so we slowly walked by (and then walked backwards for some time) until we felt a safe distance had passed. It was scary but thrilling!
Here’s a video of it!
We finished up the hike then, telling a few more hikers we passed about the bear so they would be ready, and then got back in the car. We headed through Lamar Valley again…it was getting gloomy with rain looking likely, so we decided to head out to Silvergate, with the idea we might come back in later. Along the way we saw that a couple on a motorcycle had left a small bag at a parking pullout as they left and we tried to get their attention to tell them. Louie was honking and we were waving, and we almost caught them but they sped off. We felt bad for them, and we felt bad because people around us might have thought we were jerks…we may have yelled at them just in front of a bison jam, but then we never did get them to understand, and then we felt bad all around: that a motorcycle couple would think we would be angry at them and honking for that reason, that we missed enjoying the bison jam because we were trying to get their attention to tell them they left a bag on the ground, and ugh, just tired and probably the aftermath of seeing the bear.
So we went to the Grizzly Lodge in Silvergate, and checked in to our cabin. Their COVID protocol seemed to be to sort of avoid people but not wear a mask. It was a bit strange. We also met an old couple who seemed nice enough but told us that there weren’t any restaurants in Silvergate open past 5 pm and also the man was wearing a MAGA hat, which didn’t make us feel very good. It turned out he was lying or mistaken and that in fact there was a nice restaurant right next to the hotel than served dinner until normal dinner hours.
Our cabin was cute, but wasn’t really a cabin as I was imagining as it was right next to the hotel.
We got cleaned up and then went for dinner at the Log Cabin Cafe. We ate outside and we felt okay about this because we could see that the tables were well spaced out. The rain seemed to have either passed through or missed us, so it was a nice evening, except for some mosquitoes.
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I had the trout dinner and it was delicious. This was the first time we had eaten at a sit-down restaurant since Atlanta in March, and it was really nice to have somebody bring your food and drinks and then take your dishes away!
The next morning we ate breakfast there and it wasn’t quite as good due to the service. The server was overwhelmed (I think they must have been understaffed) but we still got a decent meal outside, but it started pouring right after we ate and I’m sure some outside people got wet.
We had originally thought we might go back into the park but once we left we were done. It was time to move on and start heading home.
Okay, I’m going to stop there and leave one more post to get us home. Keep your eyes peeled, it won’t be long!