Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

This is my absolute favorite area of the Yellowstone National Park.   Granted,  I loved all of the other areas,  but since I love waterfalls and canyons,  this was my favorite.  We spent an entire day in this area (September 20, 2012) ---and I'm sure I have a zillion photos... I don't know how many posts it will take for me to get through this 2nd day at Yellowstone --but today's post only includes a small portion.

We started at Lookout Point (on the NORTH RIM) ---and then hiked down to my favorite view point,  RED ROCK POINT.   From both lookouts, you can get a terrific view of LOWER FALLS.   I included a great picture of the canyon on my new PHOTO BLOG (click HERE to visit or re-visit that photo).

If you have never been to Yellowstone,  you need to know that there is a North Rim and a South Rim.  We did them both --starting at the North Rim...  There are three waterfalls in that area, and we saw all three of them.  For more information about the Canyon Area at Yellowstone,  click HERE.  If you want to see a small map of where we were, click HERE.

The picture above shows a picture of the sun early in the morning as we drove from our motel in West Yellowstone  to the canyon area.   I love seeing the steam rising from the water.

The picture above shows George and me at Lookout Point --with a view of Lower Falls in the distance.  It was fairly cool that morning --but warmed up as the day went on.  Be sure to click on the photos to see them larger.

Beautiful Lower Falls of Yellowstone;    This marvelous waterfall is 308 feet high.  We had hoped to see a rainbow at the bottom of the falls --but the lighting wasn't quite right.  We did however,  see a rainbow along the rocks when we were on the Uncle Tom's trail on the south rim (which I will share with you in another blog post).  This picture was taken from the RED ROCK POINT area.

Here is a collage showing the STEEP trail down to RED ROCK POINT.  This is a hard trail (although not as hard as Uncle Tom's) ---but it is definitely worth the hike down in order to get a better view of the canyon and Lower Falls.

While we were hiking back UP the steep trail of Red Rock Point,  I spotted a pretty little bird along the trail.  This is a Clark's Nutcracker.... Thanks to friend, CHRIS, for helping me identify this little bird...

Here's George as we hiked the RED ROCK POINT trail.

And here I am ---along the same trail... Going down was a piece of cake --but climbing back up wasn't!!!!! ha

Here's a collage of the canyon taken along our way that day.  In the bottom picture on the right,  you can see up the hill toward the next area we visited, GRANDVIEW.   The canyon photos from Grandview and from Inspiration Point are AWESOME--but that will be another post.

Here is another picture of George and me.  This one was taken at the RED ROCK POINT Overlook.  You can compare it with the picture of us above taken at Lookout Point.  See how far down we hiked?????  Gorgeous view here though!!!

Finally,  I'll close with a collage of Lower Falls.  The top photo on the right shows another overlook (Brink of Lower Falls).  We opted not to take that hike since it is hard to get good photos of a waterfall when looking from the top down...   I love the bottom left photo since it shows the distance and also shows more of the canyon in that area.

Hope you are enjoying my Yellowstone photos.  They are a little detailed --but if you ever go there,  you'll have to take this info as your 'travel guide'....

Have a wonderful weekend, and stay WARM wherever you are.  Spring has come 'officially' --but Ole Man Winter is hanging on BIGTIME in our area... It's been so COLD here... Geesshhhhhh!!!!

Hugs,

West Yellowstone on Dwellable

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