Yellowstone Adventure 2017 - Day 28

  Got up early because I wanted to get a jump on the tourists and hike the Grand canyon of Yellowstone. I gathered my hiking gear and showered and headed for breakfast. Today's breakfast was my favorite, biscuits and gravy. This fact will play a big part in my day.
 After breakfast I gathered my gear and headed north to the Grand canyon of Yellowstone. The canyon has two sides, the north rim and the south rim. With the Yellowstone River flowing down the middle. It has two major falls, the upper and the lower. I decided to hike where I have not before and that is the south rim starting at artist point and headed higher in elavation to a place called somber point. The hike is not particularly long maybe 4 miles round trip but it is the increase in elevation that I worried about.
  I reached the parking area close the artist point and found the parking lot had only a few tourists at 8:30 in the morning. I put on my day hike backpack and even though it was 55 degrees I decided not to wear a sweatshirt. I figured after about a half an hour of walking I would warm up quickly.
  I headed first to artist point and got some pretty good pictures and videos of the lower falls. Artist point is named such because it is one of the best places artists have set up to create paintings of the lower falls and the Grand canyon of Yellowstone. We sell many pictures in our store that were created at that spot. I then headed up the trail to somber point. Now you need to understand that the trail skirts the south rim with no guardrails. A person can venture off the trail pretty much and onto rocks jutting out over the canyon. I took advantage of this fact several times as I hiked the trail and took a lot of videos that I uploaded to Facebook. The views of the canyon with the Yellowstone roaring well below were fantastic. With each step I climbed higher and higher along the south rim and father and farther away from tourists. It was sure peaceful hiking that early. The weather was great and the sky was clear. At about half way up I came to a junction where I could hike to a couple of lakes or continue on to somber point. I decided to veer toward one of the lakes and see if there were any animals linguring about. I reached Lilly Pad lake after about a half mile and stood on the banks looking around. It was quiet but no bear in site. So after a few minutes I back tracked to the junction point and continued to somber point. Climbing just a little higher, and man were my legs feeling it, I reached Somber point. This area gave you a very high view of the canyon and the river. Quite a great reward for the hike effort. After a few minutes of just admiring the view I started down. After a few minutes the biscuits and gravy I had for breakfast was how should I say? Trying to go through me like Grant went through Richmond. It took me only a little while before I knew I would not make it down the rim and to the facilities. My only recourse was to veer off the trail and head about an 1/8 of a mile away and do something I have never done before. Yes just like a bear I got to experience pooping in the woods. With no toilet paper in my backpack, there will be in the future trust me, I had to sacrifice a bandana. Thank goodness no grisly came by but then again the condition I was in I did not care much.
   The walk down the trail and back to the car went well and I must have passed 40 tourists who were just taking the trail. Glad I got an early start.  I decided to head to the upper falls to get some pictures and videos. The place was packed by this time and I had to wait my turn to get to a viewing area to see the falls. The water was running fast and furious. So much power in a river.  After the upper falls I headed to the canyon village to take a look at the store that is our main competition. The Canyon general store was huge. Much bigger than our store and a lot wider isles. They even have a sandwich counter on one end and a snack bar on the other end. I talked to a couple of workers and walked around looking to see if they had different merchandise.  Leaving the store I walked next door to their Adventure store where they sell hiking equipment and shoes. That store was also very nice and well maintained. They even had glider swings in front to sit on.
  Leaving the canyon village I got gas and headed to Hayden Valley to find a spot to eat my PB&J lunch. I found a great spot that gave me a great view of a massive bison herd. A bison even walked by my car as I was eating. It is rutting season now and boy are the bison moving like crazy. Many dust clouds were seen as the bison rolled in the dirt and many bison could be seen chasing one another. A lot of activity going on in the herd for sure.
  I headed back to the dorm and was able to upload a ton of videos from the hike. After dinner I decided to take a stroll around the Geyser basin. Right now I am writing this sitting on a bench in front of Grand Geyser. It is supposed to go off in about a half an hour, give or take 30 minutes.
  Well you all take care and if there is one thing we learned today that is to pack water and Charmin toilet paper. Later taters.