Day 10 - Staycation Saga - Part 3 - Yellowstone Canyon

From there we went to the Yellowstone Canyon falls. We started on the south Rim and had a great lookout of the Upper falls.
We took some good pictures and then drove further down to Artist Point where we had a great view of the canyon and the lower falls. This is also called the “Grand Canyon” of Yellowstone. It is pretty. From there we went and did the North Rim (A one way trip starting at the upper falls and ending at canyon village as of April 2009).

This is our view as we hiked to the point.

From a spot through the trees farther down the trail.

Artisan Point

This is a view of the lower falls and the 'Grand Canyon'


This is looking down the canyon away from the falls.

This is the canyon beyond what can be seen in the picture above.

We skipped the hike down to the upper falls and drove straight to the lower falls. (The lower falls are the falls that most of Yellowstone pictures are taken in front of and are very spectacular. The view at the bottom of the hike is VERY much worth the hike back up) From here we took a 3/8 mile hike 600 feet into the canyon so that we could stand at a lookout that is right on top of the brink of the falls! It is such an awesome place to be. It is incredible to think that about 37,000 gallons of water spill over those falls every second. Wow!

Here is a shot of the falls. If you have motion sickness, consider yourself warned.

View of the Canyon from the top of the lower falls. Literally the top of the falls.

After a nice hike back up out of the canyon we went on to Inspiration point. From here you can't see the upper falls, but you can get a glimpse of the lower falls. It is a beautiful spot, because you can see out over the entire canyon.

This is a view up the canyon towards the falls.

This is a view down the canyon away from the falls.

Then we finished the one way loop and stopped in at Canyon Village about 8pm. It is crazy that the sun is still so high in the sky, because by this time in AZ it is already starting to set on the horizon. As we were coming home we decided to take the riverside drive and it was a good thing because we got to get up really close to a deer that was feeding along the riverbank near dark.

We then drove home and there was a beautiful sunset for us to watch.

We arrived home about 9:30pm, had some dinner and Shari went off to bed about 11pm. I am so proud of her because she doesn’t stay up late very often. (The problem is, I’m getting used to it and when Ammon goes back to work on the 15^th of June, he’s going to be getting up at 5:30 am. This doesn’t allow for much sleeping time. I’ll probably just go back to sleep after he leaves, but with so much to do, that’ll not be in my best interests!)