Last Hike of the Summer

August 17, 2007

(I think)

I finally got these pictures off of my camera today. I knew this would be the last chance I would have for a hike this summer, so off I went. I am going to have to get you better details later, because I don't remember the name of the hike, but I do remember it had two selling points. The first one was called "Mossy Falls," and the second was an overlook. (Check out this tree that grew over the trail. It actually has another tree growing on top of it!) The hike was a pretty good distance, but beautiful, and I saw more animals on this hike than any before. Mostly just rabbits and frogs, but still, it was enough to scare me to death a couple times. The other thing about this hike was there was a lot of steep up and which wouldn't be a problem except that my fall in Yellowstone left me a little skiddish. There was one hill that took me a good 15 minutes to get down. But, it was good for me.

I got to the place where Mossy Falls was except...it wasn't. It appeared the creek had already dried up for the summer and all that was left was a bunch of black mossy boulders. Oh, well, there was still the lookout, right? I climbed up to the lookout and guess what I saw....trees. Yes, the trees had overgrown the lookout, and you couldn't see a thing. There was a lovely bench there though which I sat on to eat my lunch. Another hiker came along and rested there as well. After chatting a little while we discovered that we had a lot in common. He had family in the Boise area, went to BSU. He also had lived in Wyoming for awhile and had attened UW (the REAL UW, right dad?). How crazy is that? He was even getting ready to fly down to Boise to attend the BSU/UW game! It was a nice suprise for the end of the season.

Now, I'm just looking forward to next summer.

Oh, and keep a look out for my pictures from Mexico coming soon!

Yellowstone #7 - Yellowstone Lake

This is the last one! Phew! Thanks for your patience!

So, the evening after our hike we took a boat tour on Lake Washington. It was one of those tours where the tour guide tries to be funny but no one laughs, well, sometimes we laughed. Anyway

we learned some interesting things. Like there is a shipwreck on the lake. (Sorry about the reflection on the glass.) The boat was built by this guy who was actually pretty evil, and the boat was basically a floating "den of iniquity." He also captured the animals in the park and made a zoo and then didn't take good care of the animals. The rangers eventually ran him out and burned his boat.

You could also see one of the major forest fires, or at least the smoke from it.

Yellowstone actually has several forest fires every year. Most of the time, though, they are in the lesser inhabited areas of the park so you never hear about them.

Well, that's about it. The next morning we were up before the sun because I had to catch an afternoon flight out. We did get to see a beautiful sunrise, though.

I hope you enjoyed my Yellowstone pictures. Let me know what you think!

Next up, my last hike of the summer and then Cabo!