The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone is one of those places that you have to see to get the full effect.  Pictures just don't do it justice!

We drove to the South Rim first to check out the Upper and Lower Falls.  The Upper Falls you can see from a viewpoint on the plateau and as you can see it is lovely!............

 Then we walked a bit further on the rim to see the Lower Falls (the one you see in all the brochures etc of Yellowstone) and upon arriving at Uncle Toms Trail decided to take it to descend to the bottom of the falls.  It is mostly a steel staircase, 328 steps, very steep but awesome!!

 View of the falls on the way down.......

Reached the bottom!

 We look happy now but we had to go back up!!

 That was a good cardio experience!!

We walked further along the rim to the Artists Point.......

Along the way we had a bison come straight at us on the trail!  So we moved aside as much as possible to let him pass!  Then we saw a small herd in a clearing off to our right away from the rim basking in the sun.

 Below are some views from Artists point.

 Just beautiful!!!

 On the way back the herd that was in the little clearing decided to walk on the trail!  They were unsure about us and we were definitely unsure about them!  We could not get out of their way with out falling into the canyon!  We stopped along with other folks on the trail and watched and the bison stopped and as you can see, these two had a little skirmish.......

 This big guy had to rub on the tree.......

 but after several minutes they turned around and headed back to the clearing!  What an amazing encounter!!!!

 After getting back to the jeep and on the road we had to wait for this guy who also decided to use the road!

Yes he moved into our lane right in front of us!

 We drove over to the North Rim where we did a short hike between points........

 and checked out this osprey nest down below us in the canyon with two youngsters on it!

What an amazing day!!!!!