Yellowstone Day 3

On our third and final day at Yellowstone we wanted to do the northern loop of the Park. This area is known more for its amazing views, wildlife, and wide open vistas than some of the other areas of the Park. We stopped first to take a quick look at Gibbon Falls.

After that quick stop, we continued onto Norris Geyser Basin, which is the Park’s hottest, most dynamic geyser basin.

This area also includes Steamboat, which is the world’s tallest geyser. Steamboat is not nearly as predictable as Old Faithful, but they are able to predict when it will erupt within a day – three days or so. We were there within its eruption timeframe and there were so many people settled in to wait for it! As you can probably guess, we were not those people. We gave Steamboat a quick high five and moved on… patience is not our strong suit.

We enjoyed the hike around Norris Geyser Basin; we even invented and tried a special Geyser jump to encourage the Geysers to erupt, lol.

After Norris Geyser Basin, we headed towards Mammoth Hot Springs. There was a Visitor Center there and the boys were ready to turn in their completed Junior Ranger booklets. There was also an elk hanging out right in the middle of all the action!

After this stop we drove through the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, which had phenomenal views and got up to about 10,000 feet in elevation. We stopped at the Lower Falls after this.

One of the most exciting parts of the day was when we spotted a bear! The picture is not that great, but it was closer than the other bear we had seen.

And some more elk…

We finished the day with the boys swimming in the freezing cold lake at our RV Park. The lake was absolutely beautiful, but only warm enough for 1 (Dax) and 3 (Trent) jump(s) in! They hopped into a nice warm shower immediately afterwards.

Dusky wanted no part of jumping into a freezing cold lake!

Here’s his glamour shot from the previous day that I forgot to add… isn’t he handsome?!