We had woken the last three mornings with it being quite cold, very unlike the mornings before we had arrived in Yellowstone. This morning we set off for a walk before it got too warm and initially I was not prepared to part with my hat or jumper.

The walk started gently….. but got steeper quite quickly. We got a good view down onto the road to Mammoth that was such a shock the first time (see previous days post).

The path flattens out a bit and then zig-zags steeply up providing more views down towards Mammoth. We think the rocks here are called ‘Cathedral Rocks’.

The view from near the top – you might be able to make out the RV parked by the road – its the largest vehicle in the car park.

We were strongly advised to take ‘bear spray’ (basically high-strength pepper spray) with us in case we encountered any bears. The most scary wildlife we encountered (other than some 8-year-old kids from a church group) were some squirrels and butterflies:

Then we went on to look at some waterfalls, rapids and gorges…

Again we found in the geology the same columns that we saw at the Devil’s Tower – an outflow of lava must have spread here and cooled forming the same column structures:

Some of the gorges are quite deep…

Moving on again we got held up in a ‘bison jam’. They really are quite happy to stand in the road and stare at a car for half-an-hour or more. Not much anyone can do about it but wait for them to move out of the way.

Eventually we got to the ‘Sulfur Caldron’, which was quite large and smelly. Much bigger than Sufatara (near Naples which we saw last October).

The Dragon’s Mouth in the mud volcano area was quite impressive – its a geyser within a cave that pumps out waves of water and clouds of steam every 10 seconds or so…

Then we got back into the RV, and finally headed south out of Yellowstone for the last time, heading down to the Grand Tetons national park. We couldn’t get into the biggest RV park there, but found a smaller one that had some space, but it was a tight fit! They usually only took RV of 30′ or less.

On the way to the RV park, we did see the moon rising over the Tetons as the sun set… it was quite pretty: