May 2024 – From the North Rim

American Locations 12 – Grand Basin

We took this trip to Yellowstone and surrounding areas in the summer of 2019.

In the morning we drove south on Grand Loop Road to south on Hwy. 20. A beautiful drive along Yellowstone Lake took us to West Thumb, where we turned northwest onto Hwy. 191. This took us to Grand Basin, where Old Faithful was located. We parked in the lodge lot and joined the crowd awaiting the next scheduled eruption.

It was steaming when we got there. I guess it steams like this all the time.

We didn’t have to wait long.

After, we wound around an intricate maze of boardwalks that took us to other notable hot springs.

Such as deep blue ones. With such hot water it’s amazing how clear they can be.

Minerals running down the hillside into the creek that winds through this area have leached the rocks all different colors.

Some of these springs are boiling hot.

Some looked like a small volcano.

This weird one looks like it has ice on top.

This is looking back at the lodge, which sits beside Old Faithful.

A few other than Old Faithful erupted while we were there. Whenever that happened it drew a crowd, as you can see.

We came across this critter while there.

By this point we had covered about half of the Grand Basin boardwalk and decided to take a break.

Next Location – Black Sand Basin & Fountain Paint Pots

American Locations 11 – Mud Volcano

We took this trip to Yellowstone and surrounding areas in the summer of 2019.

Once we had seen enough of Yellowstone Canyon, we drove back to Canyon Village to see the visitor center and to eat lunch at the cafe. Then it was back to park at our site and take a nap. That afternoon we drove south down the Grand Loop Road to hike the Mud Volcano boardwalk.

.There were all kinds of formations where heat was steaming up out of the ground.

Across the road was the Yellowstone River, which this section of the Grand Loop Road follows.

Once we’d had enough, we drove on south to Yellowstone Lake to Bridge Bay Campground, where we parked and walked a little ways around the lake.

While passing through Heyden Valley on the way back to our campground we saw a single bison along the river.

We drove back to our site and crashed for the rest of the day.

Next Location 12 – The Grand Basin

American Locations 10 – Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

We took this trip to Yellowstone and surrounding areas in the summer of 2019.

First thing the next morning we walked around the campground to familiarize ourselves with the layout. The campground was huge, over 270 sites set in a dense grove of Ponderosa pines, a really beautiful place. Just outside the campground is Canyon Village, which has everything you need, such as camp store, visitor center, several restaurants, outfitters, laundry & showers, and rangers giving demonstrations, such as when and how to use bear spray. Later in the morning we drove to nearby Brink of the Upper Falls and hiked a steep trail.

To a viewing platform from which we could see far up the Yellowstone River above the falls.

And far down the canyon after the falls.

Which put us directly on top of the Lower Falls.

We hiked back up to the motor home and drove to several other viewing points. From this one we could see just to the right of the falls the viewing platform we had hiked down to.