Thursday 23 August

Mammoth Hot Springs

We decided however that we had enough time to head toward Mammoth stopping at a short walk to a waterfall on the way. The waterfall was a little underwhelming probably due to the extremely dry summer. Mammoth itself was, however, anything but underwhelming - the hot springs there were stunning and thanks to it being the evening were not overly busy. I had never seen anything like it before and the mineral deposits from the springs were stunning. Even after seeing most of the other major tourist areas I would still rate this as my favorite geothermal area. Was truly a stunning introduction to Yellowstone.

Friday 24 August

Tower Falls and Mount Washburn

The next morning we were up early and heading to Tower Falls. This was a pretty decent waterfall but unfortunately the trail to the bottom was closed so we could only see it from the top overlook. It was still rather nice though. Next we hiked up Mount Washburn. This didn't require too much height gain but as we weren't yet used to the altitude it still wasn't overly easy. After getting some rather nice, if windy, views from the top we headed back done, our descent being somewhat delayed by a bear. Personally I was quite pleased to see it as it was still a way off and I didn't feel threatened. I'm not sure Jen though quite the same way! After a while the bear wandered off the trail and we were able to complete the hike.

Friday 24 August

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

The afternoon was spent exploring the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and the Upper and Lower Falls. Truly stunning and definitely some of the best waterfalls I've seen. We were eve lucky enough to see a rainbow in the spray. We spent quite a lot of time wondering to the various overlooks and seeing both falls from several different angles. We even stumbled across a smaller waterfall, which we didn't know existed, while walking from one side of the canyon to the other. Realising time we moving on we drove to one more overlook before heading to the visitor's center to get our back country permit for the next day. We mistimed this a bit and the backcountry office was already shut (albeit shut early) so we drove / hiked to another couple of overlooks before calling it a day in anticipation of an early start the next day.