We made it!
The front of the cute cabin we stayed in
It doesn't really get more outdoorsy than staying in a cabin with woodsy decor right?
The beautiful view from our front porch, minus the road
We ate pancakes for breakfast
And then headed off for our first day of hiking in Yellowstone!
This is the first scenery we saw....not very inviting
Then we saw this beautiful water, and wanted to take a swim. But it's about a thousand degrees-you can't really see the steam coming off the top of it.
We hiked off the beaten trail, or boardwalks in this case, and went up to "Solitary Geyser"
We even saw this on the way up! Would our dream of seeing real bears come true?!
It certainly was a solitary geyser. It also did not erupt like the sign said it would.
This geyser was pretty sweet. It would explode every few minutes
Later that night we went for a drive up a HUGE mountain. I got car sick and really scared on the windy gravel road. But the views were totally worth it.
The city girl's version of hiking boots
I do not know what is going on with my hair
There was even a glacier, and Austin made a snowball. In the middle of July.
The next day we went on a much more ambitious hike along the North Rim of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. It's 6 miles round trip, but 11 if you hike down at each viewing point. Most people drive to each scenic spot, but we walked it all!
Things didn't start out so great though. Here's the trail we hiked on for a mile before we realized we were going the wrong way. We're ambitious hikers, just not too good with the maps.
Here's where we were supposed to start
I'm so excited that we're back on track
Our first view of the beautiful canyon
The view from the hike down to Brink of the Upper Falls
The view up the canyon from hiking down a mile and a half of switchbacks to Brink of the Lower Falls
And the view down
Next stop, Lookout Point
That's how far we had hiked from the Brink of the Lower Falls. We were started to dread the hike back, seeing how far away it was.
Then I made Austin do this side hike. The trek down to those boardwalks is the second hardest hike down into the canyon. The first hardest is a set of over 500 stairs.
I was cheerful on the way down... but we were very sorry that we veered off the regular trail once we were hiking back up that monstrosity
The last leg of the hike was through some very secluded and kind of scary woods.
This part looks like a Christmas tree lot.
It seemed like we would never make it, and it was about a hundred degrees outside. But then there it was....
Do you feel inspired?
When we hiked all the way back, we got lost on the last mile. But Austin said it was worth it because we saw this huge buck.
After about five straight hours of hiking in the hot July sun, we were glad to get back in the car.
And I drank about eight of those water bottles.
THE END.
