Our plan for the second day in Yellowstone was to hike to Knowles Falls via the Blacktail Deer Creek and Yellowstone River Trail. It looked as if there were fishing opportunities in Blacktail Deer Creek, Yellowstone River, and Crevice Lake. The hike also took us through several completely different areas of the landscape. The first two miles of the hike was over grassy, rolling hills with absolutely no trees at all. The wildflowers in this area are supposed to be spectacular in June and early July. We were just a few months late for that display :-).

The second two miles of our hike followed Blacktail Deer Creek as it descended 1,100 feet in 2 miles, with about 900 of those feet dropping away in the last mile and a half. I did fish several short sections of the creek, and caught a very small brook trout (I suppose I will go ahead and admit that it was about 5 inches long). But I was saving most of my fishing until we hiked back. When the creek dropped into the canyon, the trail entered a Douglas Fir forest that was not disturbed by the 1988 fires at all. The trail continued to drop until we reached the Blacktail Deer Suspension Bridge shown in the picture to the left.

This picture was taken from the middle of the bridge, looking out over Blacktail Deer Creek. After crossing the suspension bridge, the trail continued for another .2 miles to the junction with Yellowstone River Trail. I fished again for a short time in Yellowstone River, and on my second cast I caught a 12 inch Mountain Whitefish, one of Wyoming's native fish. I didn't catch anything else during this stop, so we continued another .4 miles to Crevice Lake. But because of the fairly steep slopes down to the lake and the vegetation around the shore, Crevice Lake didn't offer any convenient fishing spots at all.

So we continued another 1.5 miles to Knowles Falls. By this time we had crossed into Montana, and were probably the farthest distance from Tucson that we were during the entire vacation. Well, I hate to admit it, but I was pretty dissappointed when we finally arrived at Knowles Falls. We had hiked over six miles to get here, and the falls were far less than spectacular. Then to add to my disappointment, I noticed that storm clouds were starting to gather just over the mountains, and they were beginning to look somewhat threatening. So we only rested at the falls for about 20 minutes before starting the hike back.

By the time we crossed back over the suspension bridge, Beth and I were started to get real worried about the storm clouds. There wasn't much chance I was going to be doing any fishing on the way back. We had started out early that morning, so we were both still carrying warm clothes, and I wasn't too worried about getting cold. But it was getting cooler and neither of us really wanted to get wet, so we were extremely motivated to hike out of the canyon at a very fast rate. Our adrenaline carried us right out of the canyon, back to the grassy hills where we realized that we really didn't have to worry anymore about the storm, we were only 2 miles from the car. But I'm afraid the rapid climb ruined my knee for further explorations during the vacation. And once we relaxed a little upon reaching the grasslands, our legs felt very heavy for the last portion of the hike. We were exhausted by the time we returned to the car, covering a little over 12 miles in about 5 1/2 hours (and that includes time spent fishing and resting along the way). We laughed and joked about the entire experience for the remainder of the day, and despite the fact that so many things didn't turn out as well as I would have liked, I'll still remember the hike fondly.

During the drive back to Mammoth, we pulled over at the Undine Falls Viewpoint. It was a real nice waterfall, and of course the first thing that entered my mind was "why didn't Knowles Falls look this nice?" It just didn't seem fair that we hiked so far to see a very dissappointing waterfall, and other tourists could just get out of their cars to see this one. Of course, some of the more spectacular falls were still to be seen. There wasn't much left to do that evening but have dinner and get some sleep. Even I didn't have any trouble falling asleep at the end of our seventh day of the vacation!

Our last morning in Yellowstone started with a short hike through the Lower Terraces, which was detailed on our Yellowstone National Park (Mammoth Hot Springs) page. And after visiting with the elk one last time (they didn't seem threatened by my bugling at all :-), it was time to leave Mammoth.

The wind and some rain had blown in with the storm the day before, so when we left Mammoth the Miata's top was up for the first time on this vacation. We encountered rain at various times throughout the day, so the top stayed up the entire time. Most of the pictures that remain on this page were taken on our last drive through Yellowstone before leaving the park. We drove through Tower, Canyon Village, Norris, and then Madison before leaving the park through the West Entrance. The following images show some of the highlights of this drive (only one of these images could NOT have been taken during this drive, check out the Yellowstone map to try and figure out which one, or a careful examination of the images will give it away as well).

There were a number of hot pools along the Firehole Lake Drive. This one is the pool the drive is named after, Firehole Lake. I liked this picture since the steam rising from the hot pool seems to blend with the clouds building up over the mountains. The Great Fountain Geyser is also seen along this drive, which usually erupts about every 10 hours in a series of distinct bursts that occur over a period of an hour.

Tower Creek tumbles 132 feet over Tower Falls and then flows into the Yellowstone River. This picture was taken from the overlook near Tower Falls General Store. Despite my knee problems that were re-aggravated by the BlackTail Deer Creek hike, we couldn't resist hiking the half-mile trail which descends about 200 feet (61 meters) down to the base of the falls. The series of switchbacks ends amidst wet, slippery rocks and dramatic views looking up at the falls.

Tower Falls gets its name from the volcanic pinnacles towering above the falls, which are shown clearly in the picture on the left. Beth didn't take many pictures on this trip, but she did spot this excellent shot of Tower Falls on the right, and refused to move until I let her have the camera. I'm glad she did, it is one of my favorite pictures from Yellowstone! There were reports that bears had been seen frequently in the Tower Falls area, but I didn't mention that to Beth, otherwise she might have been whistling all the way down the trail ;-).

A 2.5 mile one-way loop beginning at Canyon leads first to a short spur road to Inspiration Point and then ends near Lookout Point. Inspiration Point provides incredible views of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and the multitude of colors found in the canyon walls. Unlike the Grand Canyon in Arizona which was formed principally by the eroding action of the Colorado River, this canyon is the product of volcanic eruptions, glacial ice and floods, hydrothermal decomposition of rocks, as well as the erosive action of wind, rain and the Yellowstone River.

This is a view of Lower Falls from Lookout Point. Lower Falls plunges a total of 308 feet, then flows through the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Like Tower Falls, there is a trail that descends into the canyon for a closer viewpoint, but we chose to just enjoy this one from the overlook. "I sat there in amazement while my campanions came up, and after that it seemed to me that it was five minutes before anyone spoke" - explorer Charles Cook upon first seeing the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

Between Madison and Norris you drive along the Yellowstone caldera's northwest rim. A Caldera is a large basin shaped volcanic depression formed by the explosion or collapse of a volcano. At Yellowstone the caldera, 30 miles (45 km) across, 45 miles (75 km) wide and several thousand feet deep, was filled by later lava flows to make a high, nearly flat plateau. Gibbon Falls cascade over Yellowstone's caldera wall.

We left Yellowstone National Park and had lunch in West Yellowstone, Montana. To many people, West Yellowstone is known as the place that sets nationwide records for the coldest winter temperatures in the United States. Our final destination for the evening was Twin Falls, Idaho following a short stop at Craters of the Moon National Monument.