"YNP is the main attraction...."

(CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE)

6:58 am - Tuesday - 59º F, 66% humidity, wind 4 mph out of the north northeast....heavy cloud cover with an 80% chance of rain today.

So Monday was our third day off since we have arrived and we planned to make the most of it, and that we did.  We began with somewhat modest plans for the day around 11 am, but as the day evolved we kept adding one thing after another to the list.  By the time we arrived back home at 6 pm we had covered a lot of ground.  The first thing on our list of things to do Monday was to hike a portion of the Rescue Creek Trail which begins just a mile south of the north gate.....

We hiked to the point where the red arrow is placed....about 1.5 miles in

.....this is a pretty long trail, and we had determined before we began the hike to only hike about 1.5 miles in making it about a 3 mile out and back hike.  By the time we began the hike it was approaching 11:40 am......

.....we stopped briefly on the bridge which spans the Gardiner River to take our first 'usie' of the day.....this creek has been running at full capacity since we arrived 11 days ago......

 You can see the bridge we crossed in this picture

.....the initial portion of the trail crosses a sun parched plain, and the double track trail across it seems impossibly long......

Glad I brought my 100 oz. Camelback®

....we came across some flowering cactus.....there was actually quite a lot of this cactus......

.....eventually we did cross that plain, gained some elevation to drop into this much greener valley.......

.....eventually we reached the 1.5 mile mark where we could just barely make out the Yellowstone River in the distance.....

The Yellowstone River is just below the red arrow....:-)

.....when we turned around we could see the town of Gardiner and the Roosevelt Gate.........

......we were back in view of the Gardiner River by 12:30 where I captured this great panorama shot..... 

.....next up was taking another 'usie' at the sign along the Gardiner River marking the half way point between the North Pole and the Equator....I think this is the second such picture we have taken over the past few years.....the last one was a couple of years ago in Oregon, also next to a river.....

......we've been working on our bronze level 'Yellowstone Adventure Guide' designation, and one of the things we need to complete the requirements for bronze is to visit another Delaware North General Store, so we decided on the spot to drive back to the Roosevelt Lodge to get our paperwork signed by one of the employees there, and then have lunch in the lodge.......

Sipping a glass of huckleberry lemonade

....I ordered their Elk Sliders to go along with my huckleberry lemonade......TLE had a trout dish.....the Elk Sliders were sooooo good!

On our way back we once again added one more thing to our to do list and stopped off to view the 'petrified tree'......apparently one of the volcanic eruptions a few million years ago covered the area in ash resulting in the petrification of some redwood trees which once flourished here......

.....originally there were three redwood trunks, but souvenir collectors had mostly destroyed two of the three trunks by 1906 when a fence was finally put around the remaining trunk.

About half way back to Mammoth Hot Springs we stopped at the 6900' elevation mark to capture this wonder view of the valley below......

.....and the ubiquitous Yellowstone River running through it.......again adjectives fail to provide an adequate description of the beauty which surrounds one everywhere in YNP........

.....the final stop on our way back to Mammoth was this self guided tour along a long circular boardwalk (the boardwalk is to protect the flora).......

.....as we came back around to the starting point we could see a storm building in the distance.....

......the wind and the rain caught up with us just as we parked the VW back at the Newell....it was a brief squall lasting about 20 minutes, and then the sun returned until sunset.

We had another wonderful day exploring YNP, and still cannot believe we have just barely nicked the YNP surface of things to see.  A friend who has worked in YNP previously gave us good advice recently.....she said "Remember, the job is not the main attraction....it is living in and exploring Yellowstone National Park that is the main attraction.....".  Each day we remind ourselves we are not here for the job, we are here to experience Yellowstone!

Thanks for stopping by!

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