Yellowstone Day 3: North Rim of Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone to Mammoth Hot Springs

 9.12.2023

West Yellowstone, MT

Mileage:  The truck took the trip

The Grand Loop Road in Yellowstone basically forms a figure 8.  If you look carefully at the map above you can see it.  The last two days we have toured the lower half of the 8.  Today we toured the east side of the upper loop with and added trip to Lamar Valley which is the road that leaves the top right on this map. 

We ended yesterday on the South Rim of The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.  We started today doing the scenic drive along the North Rim.

We walked a short distance from the parking lot to the brink of the Upper Falls.

Lookout Point

Inspiration Point

This Giant Boulder was dropped here by a glacier.  Cool how the trees have grown up around it.

We then stopped for a picnic lunch in Canyon Village.  The next section of the drive was the highest in the park going through Dunraven Pass.  The elevation here is around 9,000 feet.  Admittedly I closed my eyes for parts of it.

We stopped at a beautiful Pullout.  Still looking for the name of it!

Look carefully in the images below and you can see a Pronghorn.  This one is just at the base of the rocks.

This one is laying down near the pine tree.

Lamar Valley is famous for finding wildlife.  We saw more bison and a couple of pronghorns.

The Lamar River

The 2022 floods in the park destroyed the Northeast Entrance Road.  An older road is now being upgraded to replace the road that was washed out.  We drove through this construction site to get to Lamar Valley.  Once again I was glad we were in the truck with a high clearance.

Pronghorn and relatives of the giraffe.  We saw a couple along the way.  The pictures where the animal is small were taken with my iPhone.  The zoomed in ones are with Kenny's camera.

We made a brief stop to see a petrified tree.

In this picture there is what I think is a coyote.  Comet was barking like crazy and we were getting ugly stares from other photographers.  I was trying to hold his muzzle while taking a picture.

We stopped at Undine Falls.  Notice the black lava rock behind the falls.

Our last stop of the day was the Mammoth Springs Visitors Center.

There was a large elk hanging out between two of the residences there.

Comet wants to know if we are really doing the driving thing again today.