Heading South. This is the north entrance of Yellowstone, from Gardiner, MT. The original entrance and the only one open all year round. Not much in Gardiner, the Yellowstone River bisects the town, river rafters come paddling in under the bridge, past downtown, to the north end to get pulled out, all of this activity is about 200' below street level.

We started our day with a drive to our planned big hike, down to the Hellroaring Creek. Map says 4 miles, more like 5, with close to a 1000' elevation change overall, and just 600' of the elevation change in the first mile (down on the way in so it was UP on the way out, BAD PLAN). This was the big hike of our vacation, Mel thought it was going to be my last, especially when we got to the last mile going out.

Start of our trip, Mel on the trail. Part of our trip crossed the Yellowstone River over this suspension bridge.

Made it down to Hellroaring Creek, had a snack and started our climb out. Two rangers on horseback were installing signs on the trail, we talked a bit. Mel gave them some comments about being like highway workers, one holds the sign while the other one digs through the rocks. He's no dummy.

After our hike, we were both pretty drained. Like I said yesterday, this vacation stuff is hard work. We took a drive east and south to Mike's favorite part of Yellowstone, The Grand Canyon of The Yellowstone. It is just so impressive, fantastic scenerey, so big, and you drive right up along the edge of the canyon in so many locations.

A couple of impressive views looking south through the canyon, some areas are 1200 feet down.

Picture below of the lower falls at 308' drop.

Pictures below of the upper falls at only 100' drop. What is so impressive is the volume of water that roars through these two falls constantly. It seems almost everywhere you look on the Yellowstone River, there are rapids after rapids, rarely any smooth water, and what there is of that is not very smooth.

After leaving the falls area, we had seen an elk on the way in so Mel decided it was worth a hike up the hill to check again, Mike said no way to any more uphill hikes, so she shot this pic of a beautiful bull elk laying in the meadow just above the road to the falls.

On the way back to Gardiner we had seen some elk in Mammoth Springs yesterday so we had hoped they would be back. They did not dissapoint, except that there were no bulls, just some cows and calves laying in the front yard of the homes in town here.

Finally our exit into Gardiner after another successful day in Yellowstone. This is the Roosevelt Arch, dedicated in 1928 to mark the north entrance.

Hope all is well with everyone, thanks for visiting the blog, hope you are enjoying it.

M&M.