continue my Yellowstone entry. ok a quick recap, day 2 in Yellowstone we travel from the west entrance and headed north east, to Norris and Mammoth Hot Springs. Mammoth Hot Springs is just too big to visit every famous spot in the area for this trip, so we just visit the star, which is the Mammoth hot spring and some of the spring terraces around the area.
Well there is 3 options to park your car. One can park in the Upper terrace area, just off the road, or drive in and stopped in every individual attractions ( but parking space area really limited) and option 3 is to park at the lower terrace which is along the way to Albright Visitor Center
and this Liberty Cap is also one of the attractions in that area which is at the lower terrace area
Palette Spring
this does remind me of Dresden's Christmas market....oh their fruit cake :D, yum
nature's colors is just amazing
panorama view of Palette Spring
Boon with Palette Spring
we then headed to Albright Visitor Center, it's like a small town here, there are hotels, restaurants, souvenir shops...etc. the Mammoth Hot Springs are
our morning ramen breakfast has long digested, it was already 2/3pm when were reached here
lunch break at the visitor center area. Price was reasonable,
my $9 fish and chips and $5 chili dog
after a hot meal we did some shopping and headed to see the Grand canyon of the Yellowstone
view from along the way, the river flowing underneath is the Yellowstone river.
beautiful landscape.
I'm not sure what;s the name of this stop, there was no sign and it was raining quite heavy we were abit lost when we were trying to find the Tower Roosevelt
anyway we just enjoy the nice view
about 50million years ago, volcanoes in Yellowstone and surrounding area started to erupt, burying the land under volcanic rock. These ancient Eocene volcanoes left their mark with the dark vertical cliffs that stretch up from the Yellowstone river. The volcanoes erupted for about 10 million years and then stopped, all was quiet as wind ,water and ice eroded the ancient volcanic rocks for millions of years
approx. 1.5 millions years ago, there was another eruption to the south of here . The volcano released a flood of lava the course of that followed the course of and ancient river bed as it flowed. The rapid cooling of this lava resulted in the tall straight column that resemble a crooked picked fence.
capping this columnar is an icing of glacier till deposited by a melting ice cap from the last cooling period about 14,000 years ago. Finally as the ice melted , the Yellowstone river settled in its current course and began to carve the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone
source of information what i just so professionally explain was from here ...hehe hey i didn't made it up
cool looking stone hill along the way
look pretty alien to me
view of the valley @ the alien rock hill area
next we stopped, Tower fall
Tower falls
view along the way from Tower Fall to Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone
it was along this road that i almost hit a deer....it was raining and luckily i was driving very slow and this deer just hopped out of no where ....... luckily no body was hurt. Alwasy always drive according to the speed limit...it's there for a reason. Another drama was we saw a car skidded off the road infront of us from the opposite direction. thank god the car didn't skidded down the slop
even with dark clouds the place still look amazingly beautiful
after a 37miles of driving from Mammoth Hot Springs to see the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone @ Brink of Lower falls, just a short drive from the Canyon Village
there are many viewing point in this area but time was limited we choose the easiest one @ north rim to see the Lower falls, the trail take about a nice 15 minutes to descend to the viewing area,
in 2104 there was a 8 year old girl, was hiking with her family member along this trail( Brink of Lower Falls), as they made it two-thirt of the way down the trail to the observation platform, she was reportedly stepped off the trail. She lost her footing and feel 550ft into the canyon.
The trail is quite narrow and has No guard rail, the view is absolutely stunning but as I've learned before from my travel to Huangsan, China,
"if you to see the view, don't walk! and if u want to walk ,don't look at the view!"
always remember that!!!!
Yellowstone river
and that is the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.....it is very yellow...hehe
trail from south rim from opposite
Boon @ Lower Falls
us and the Grand canyon of the Yellowstone
this viewing area is just beside the top part of the fall
we then hike back up to have a better view of the whole Lower falls
this man is incredible, carrying 2 babies and still manage to do some hiking....salute!!!
eagle's nest
another viewing point of Lower Falls @ North rim drive lookout point.
i think it's a great spot to see the Lower Falls, there is also a trail going down for a bottom view of the Lower Falls.... at this point we were too tired to go another trail. plus the view up here is good enough for us
zoom in on Lower Falls, we were there on the right side
it was raining earlier but luckily it stopped at the right time for us to take pictures with this awesome view
another incident in 2006 where a woman lost her balance while taking a photograph and fell in the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone
it's a long way down. scary.....it's nice to have great pictures but is it worth dying for???
Yellowstone is a very beautiful place but, it's also a very dangerous place. It happy vacation can turn to a ugly nightmare in just a matter of seconds, so make sure to respect and pay attention to all the warning and advice from the national park rangers and signs!!!!
this Yellowstone canyon is really different from the Grand canyon
no queue to take a picture with this sign!!!
out last stop in Yellowstone,
we only had 2 days in Yellowstone, time was limited but we did manage to see everything that we set out to see.Waking up before the sun come up and to driving back to the hotel when the sun goes down.
Don't Rush!, it's impossible to visit every single attractions in Yellowstone in one visit, just take your time and enjoy the view
It was an incredible experience for me, I've never seen such beauty as I've seen in Yellowstone, from it's geyser, to it's canyon, it's one of a kind. This place does deserved to be in one's bucket list. I'm so happy that we are back home safely in one piece to tell the tail and have good memories and tons of pictures of this beautiful place to share of course! :P
next to Arches National Park
~ ciao for now ~
