Yellowstone: Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, drive to Mammoth

We stopped for lunch before continuing on to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. From there, we drove north and then west to Mammoth Hot Springs. That drive was beautiful!

Picnic lunch

Beautiful area where we had our picnic.

Sarah up a tree at lunch.

Andrew, Ben, Matthew and Luke climbed as well.

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. You can see why the park got its name! We listened to a Ranger talk at this location.

Sarah and Andrew at Artist Point.

Couple pictures of Me and U at Artist Point. It is very picturesque with the Lower Falls and Canyon in the background.

Me and Cheryl-Lynn

Panoramic of Lower Falls and Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

We hiked a short distance to brink of the Upper Falls. It was impressive to see the water come pounding over the waterfall. I love the rainbow!

The kids enjoyed scrambling on the rocks.

Matthew

Sarah

An osprey nest high on a pillar near Lookout Point.

U at Lookout Point with the Lower Falls.

Close up of the Lower Falls.

Matthew with a view down the Canyon at Grand View. It was absolutely gorgeous! We took a number of pictures of the Canyon here and thought it looked almost surreal.

View as we drove from Canyon to Tower.

We thought the rock columns on the side of the road were quite interesting here. (Say "hi" to the Adams' van.)

More of the vertical rock columns on the other side of the valley.

We saw a mama bear with three bear cubs down in the valley. Here's a picture of the mama. One of the cubs is in the picture, although it's hard to see.

Here's the mama with all three cubs. One cub is behind the large log in the foreground--you can see its head and ears. Another cub is to the left of the standing tree on the right of the picture. The third cub is climbing the tree and you can see its head on the left side of the tree. I was driving and saw the cub climbing the tree--so cool!

Same picture as above with bears highlighted to make it easier to see.

The area through which we drove was gorgeous! This is between Tower and Mammoth.

As we drove into the Mammoth area, there were a lot of elk quite close to the road.