Norris Geyser Basin and Canyon Village

It was fifty-four degrees in the motorhome when Ted got me up this morning and forty degrees outside when we left at 8:00. We stopped at McDonalds for breakfast before entering the park. We didn't stop until after we reached Madison and turned north following the Gibbon River toward Norris. Our first stop was at Terrace Spring, a short walk near the highway. These two semi-large, flat springs were bubbling and steaming in the cold air.

On to Gibbon Falls with lots of incredible stonework, we walked down the walk to get good views and photos of the beautiful falls. The falls drop eighty-four feet over the rim of the Yellowstone Caldera. Beryl Springs were right beside the road but difficult to see from all the steam and then it was on to the Artists' Paint Pots.  The sign said it was a third mile but it sure seemed longer. The walk in was through young lodgepole pines that would make great Christmas trees. Once into the thermal area, the colorful earth was steaming and there was quite a climb up to where the blooping and spitting paint pots were. The thick, bubbling mud looked like paint and was fun to watch. I could have stood there all day watching it. In the distance were gorgeous tall mountains magnificent against the bright blue sky.

Paint Pots.

Artist Paint Pots Trail.

Norris Geyser Basin was the next stop and the park was getting busy so we had to wait quite awhile for a parking spot. This area is said to be the hottest and most active cluster of geysers in the park. Hot spring waters have flowed for over a hundred fifteen years here making Norris Geyser Basin the oldest known continuously active geothermal area in Yellowstone. We went into the small bookstore for a stamp and then into the log museum build by the CCC in the 1930s. Behind the museum is a great view down into the Porcelain Basin. The half mile plus walk down and around the basin passed numerous small geysers, boiling springs and colorful communities of heat-loving microorganisms called thermophiles. The colors on this walk were exceptionally beautiful. The tallest geyser in the park, Steamboat Geyser, is located in this area but we didn't take the mile and a half walk to see it as it only erupts every five to ten years.

After leaving Norris we headed east toward Canyon Village taking a three mile side trip on the narrow, one-way Virginia Cascade Road where we saw another set of falls tumbling sixty feet down the cliffs. By the time we got to Canyon Village, we were hungry so bought a sandwich and chips which we split and shared a picnic table with a couple from Santa Cruz, California. We then went into the Visitor Education Center. It was one o'clock ant the first film was just starting so we went in and tried to listen as the really annoying child behind us would not be quiet despite his parents whispered urgings. We looked at the exhibits and went to the second film sitting in the back row.

Canyon Village (elevation 7918') is near the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, a ragged trench cut through the forests of central Yellowstone. The yellow-sided canyon where Yellowstone gets its name is between eight hundred and twelve hundred feet deep, up to four thousand feet across and twenty miles long. We took the North Rim Drive stopping at different viewpoints to see the upper and lower falls at one hundred nine feet and three hundred eight feet respectively as well as the beautiful yellow cliffs and rock formations along the way.  Somehow our photos don't show the yellow as it appeared to us. There were many viewpoints that you could climb down to but we didn't go down any and were happy to view it all from the rim. At one stop we overheard a guy pointing our where and eight year old girl had fallen eight hundred feet to her death just two days before. Yikes! How sad. I am definitely staying behind the barricades.

Osprey Nest with Three Fledglings Just Below Center.

After reaching Inspiration Point, the furthest overlook, the road continued back to Canyon Village where we then drove to the Brink of the Upper Falls. We walked down to the platform beside where the falls drop down and could see another platform hanging on the cliff across the river which Ted climbed down to a little later. We drove to the South Rim Drive and parked. I was beat so Ted climbed down to the two viewpoints on the Uncle Tom's Trail to see the upper falls and the lower falls. The upper falls was what we had seen and to view the lower falls there were three hundred twenty-three steps down to the viewing platform where you are about a hundred fifty feet below the brink of the falls.

328 Steps Down into Canyon.

Taken from 250 Steps Down.

It was a tired fifty miles back to the campground where the only wildlife we saw was a fawn that jumped out in front of us within the last mile of home.