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We all got up with the sun rise again (yeah, right!) to get a good start on the day. The night was possibly colder than the previous night and the morning sun was more than welcome. After a quick and simple breakfast we got in the car and started on the Grand Loop Road again heading north for the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Rather worryingly a crack that had appeared on the car's windshield on the drive up to Wyoming had gotten slightly larger over night, probably because of the cold. There wasn't much we could do other than keep an eye on it so off we went due north. This time heading in the opposite direction to Old Faithful, northeast.

Before the Grand Loop Road had turned away from the Yellowstone Lake we spotted another white-tailed deer, this time with a mighty stag, grazing on the side of the road. We pulled up to the side of the road as quietly and discreetly as a car can, and snapped a few photos. No sooner had we started driving again Seth spotted something in the distance. A great big hulking brown mass casually strolling along the side of the road in the morning sun. This was our first buffalo of the trip, and unsuspecting of the sheer quantity of buffalo we'd soon see over the next few days, we were all tremendously excited and took a bazillion photographs. I obviously knew these things were going to be big but even our photos can't get across the presence these mighty beasts carry. It is after all the largest land animal in North America. Typical of Clare, almost all of the thousands of Yellowstone bison acquired names throughout the trip.

The words buffalo and bison are quite freely interchangeable when referring to these majestic creatures, although technically it is only distantly related to the two 'true' buffalo species in the world. However, etymologically speaking both words mean pretty much the same thing, bison being the Greek for ox, and buffalo deriving from the French bœuf, meaning .. ox. As of the summer of 2010, America's last wild buffalo population was around 15,000, about 3,000 of these being within the confines of the Yellowstone National Park, which are also considered the only continuously wild bison herd in the whole United States. This herd is descended from a remnant population of 23 individual mountain bison that managed to survive the mass slaughter of the 1800s by hiding out in the Pelican Valley. This is a small number when compared to the tens of millions that used to roam wild across North America.

Sadly today there is an ongoing buffalo slaughter under the Interagency Bison Management Plan, frequently justifying themselves by arguing that 3,000 buffalo is too many and exceeds the ecological carrying capacity of Yellowstone's habitat. However, a recent study using scientific modeling suggests buffalo "have not reached a theoretical food-limited carrying capacity of 6,200 in Yellowstone National Park.". Interestingly the Wyoming State flag is simply just the silhouette of a buffalo, and furthermore the creature's iconic status within American folklore lead it to feature predominantly on the early 20th century $10 bill no less.

Anyhow, after deciding to leave the poor guy alone we drove on and soon came across more bison chilling out on a grass clearing in the woods, just across the road from a stinking sulphuric fumarole spewing rotten smelling boiling hot steam out of the ground. Thinking that we'd clearly had our day's fill of bison we were astounded when we very quickly reached the beautiful Hayden Valley, and saw buffalo after buffalo after buffalo, grazing on the plains and drinking from the river; the Yellowstone River that leads from Yellowstone Falls, where we were headed to, to Yellowstone Lake, where we had come from. Hayden Valley is apparently one of the best locations to view wildlife in all of Yellowstone, and the valley floor along the river was once an ancient lake bed from when Yellowstone Lake was much, much larger.

It took several hours to get to the Grand Cañon area but with scenery this beautiful, weather this glorious and wildlife this captivating who's complaining? Driving away from the plains of Hayden Valley and into the forested hills of the Canyon district, our first stop was Artist Point. We turned right off the main road and over a bridge taking us directly across Yellowstone River, and carrying on north we reached Artist Point by about 10:30am. Artist Point is an outcrop on the rim of the Grand Canyon with a fantastic view of Yellowstone River's Lower Falls, a 94m (308ft) drop, almost twice as high as Niagara Falls! The Grand Canyon itself can reach up to 275m (900ft) deep and nearly a kilometre (half a mile) in width. The canyon is also approximately 20 miles long and 10,000 years old.

Various minerals tint the canyon walls a variety of shades of yellow, orange, brown and pink; The colors in the canyon are also a result of hydrothermal alteration. The rhyolite in the canyon contains a variety of different iron compounds. When the old geyser basin was active, the "cooking" of the rock caused chemical alterations in these iron compounds. Exposure to the elements caused the rocks to change colours. The rocks are oxidizing; in effect, the canyon is rusting. The colours indicate the presence or absence of water in the individual iron compounds. Most of the yellows in the canyon are the result of iron present in the rock rather than, as many people think, sulfur.

Back in the car and back over the bridge over the Yellowstone River we drove northwest to the start of the hike we wanted to do, the Seven Mile Hole trail. Definitely the most strenuous trail we attempted during our stay, although not quite seven miles. No, eleven is actually more like it. And in the heat of the August sun, I would most certainly go along with the Rough Guide's idea that this trail constitutes as 'difficult'. The trail starts at a glacial boulder that was dumped there by a glacier wandering through the area 15,000 years ago. Parking near the boulder, the trail started by taking us east through the pine forest. The first mile or so was mostly level walking through this shady forest, and before long we were following the canyon's north rim catching fantastic views of the gorge's yellow cliffs.

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is where the park got it's name from. Although unlike in other areas of the park, the yellowing of the rocks is not due to sulphur, but to iron and hence why the rock's colours range from this striking yellow to deep reds, sunburnt oranges and brilliant whites. After the first mile there was a clearing in the trees where a panoramic view of the Silver Cord Cascade marks the boundary between the end of the easy, level, shady forest stroll and the beginning of the steep 430m (1,400ft) descent into the canyon. The Silver Cord Cascade's thin ribbon of water drops 400m (1,300ft) making it Yellowstone's highest cascade.

We left the canyon's rim and headed into the forest, over brooks and makeshift bridges and under the cool shade of a pine canopy for another mile and a half, where we started to descend rather steeply. This would be the difficult gradient typical of the next three miles of thick and peaceful forest. After a couple of sweaty hours the beautiful green Yellowstone River came into view with a few frothy rapids and steam rising from small patches of thermal activity. At this point the trees thinned quickly and the slope steepened dramatically. The loose, gravelly soil wasn't the easiest to walk on as we navigated the switchbacks down the side of the gorge past the fumaroles to the water's edge.

Putting our feet into the refreshing liquid, forested cliffs before and behind us, the green river on our left and right with both a cool ease and mysterious intent, and tucking in to our picnic of Goober peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and trail mix was a treat worthy of the Gods after that exhausting trek. We chilled as long as we could but the inevitable 5.5 mile ascent back up the gorge in the August sun was looming over us. A mix of dehydration and heat exhaustion meant it was a particularly fatiguing journey and took us a few hours to get back to the car, but luckily (for me) the super-fit, unfazed Melinda was doing all the driving.

On our way back to camp we stopped at the Yellowstone River's slightly less impressive Upper Falls. You can pull in off the road to a small car park from where you can walk down some steps for a few minutes to reach the brink of the falls. As we walked down a woman passed us and described the steps as particularly strenuous. She had no idea where we'd just been. Apparently this brink marks the junction between two lava flows, the higher a hard rhyolite lava flow and the lower a weaker glassy lava that has been more heavily eroded. Whilst certainly not as impressive as Lower Falls, the fact that you can get right to the edge of this 35m (110ft) cascade among the incredible scenery means that it's still definitely worth checking out. Some guy thought it was even worth climbing past the barrier and onto a rocky outcrop that dangles directly above the rapids beneath to catch a better view.

Despite being absolutely exhausted by this point we still had enough sunlit hours of the day left to get one more thing checked off our list, the Mud Volcano and Sulfur Cauldron on the Grand Loop Road between Canyon and West Thumb. The thermal features at MVSC are mostly mud pots and fumaroles because there isn't really all that much water in the area. The steam vents called fumaroles occur when the ground water boils away faster than it can be replenished, and because the vapors are rich in sulfuric acid the rock breaks down into clay. In 1978 Yellowstone experienced a series of mild earthquakes, and the soil in this area reached 93°C (200°F )! We perused the cooking hillside's wooden boardwalks checking out Mud Cauldron, Mud Geyser, Sizzling Spring, Churning Cauldron, Black Dragon's Cauldron, Sour Lake, the Gumper, Grizzly Fumarole, Mud Volcano and Dragon's Mouth Spring. Before we left we managed to get really close to a young deer and snapped some cool pictures.

This evening was Clare's turn to man the campfire, and a splendiferous job she did, too. ♥

The pictures that either Clare or I took

Grant Village Campsite

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R&C Photos Inc.

are labelled R&C. The pictures that either Seth or Melinda took are labelled M&S.

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