After I ate breakfast and all, We were ready to go. Here was THE plan for this day.

1. Turn left at the Madison junction and stop at the Gibbon falls Overlook
2.  Do the 2 Norris Canyon Trails, 1. Porcelain loop trail, 0.8 miles 2. Back bend loop trail, 1.5 miles
3. See the Lower falls and Upper Falls.
4. Go to Hayden Valley at around 3-4 to see animals

So, we went straight as usual, we took an unfamiliar left at the junction, and headed toward Gibbon Falls. On the way there I looked more carefully at the right, because this was unknown territory, and there may have been animals that we haven’t seen yet. But the car was going too fast and I couldn’t spot anything. Then just when I was about to give up, we reached, the Gibbon Falls river. NOT FALLS.

There was this trail that led down to the river, and on the way there, there was a sign that said BEWARE OF BEARS, enter at your own risk. And that’s precisely what we did, enter at our own risk. And we reached the river, in no time at all. The water was moving really fast, and my mom thought that there would be fish in the water. But there wasn’t. I touched the water and it was freezing cold. It was even colder than the water I touch when I go to the beach!

After my dad took a few pics, we were back in the car, heading toward Gibbon Falls. At Gibbon Falls there was a lot of crowd, I wasn’t surprised because the first day also had a lot of crowd. We walked on the road until we reached the Lower Point Overlook, where we got a perfect view of the falls, then the Higher Point Overlook, where we didn’t get a good view. But, at least at the Lower Overlook, the Waterfall looked amazing!

The next stop of the day was the Norris Canyon Geyser Basin, which contains the highest erupting active geyser, The Steamboat Geyser! I was looking forward to seeing that Geyser, other geysers in the area and the Hot Springs in the area. At the Norris parking lot there was a sign and like the river sign it said, PARK AT YOUR OWN RISK. When the Steamboat Geyser erupts it could unleash rocks and minerals that could harm your car. And once again we did it with our own risk.

Before we would start hiking I wanted to check out this small visitor center. There a Park Ranger was saying that the last major eruption of the Steamboat geyser was just 7 days ago! Imagine, if we were there on the 31 of May, we would have seen something that would only happen every 4 days-50 years!!! We started with hiking the Porcelain Loop Trail. It included various geysers and one spring (The Porcelain One). My favorite geyser on this hike was the one that was chugging like a Steam Engine. My mom even mistook that geyser as the Steamboat Geyser! All the other ones were similar and weren’t too impressive.

Then we had finished the Porcelain trail and had started on the Back Bend loop trail, first we weren’t seeing any geysers, we were seeing trees on the right and left side of us. But soon enough the Geyser area came about again, and once more we saw a bunch of similar springs and geysers.

After a while we reached the Cistern Spring. Fun Fact about the Spring: Whenever the Steamboat geyser explodes, the Cistern spring empties out completely. Just after the Spring, I saw the Steamboat geyser! When I saw it there was only smoke rising up from a hole in the ground, so I couldn’t imagine what it would look like when it explodes. Since it erupts any time from 4 days – 50 years, we weren’t planning to wait, like we did for the Grand Geyser yesterday. So we just continued with the trail.

That was it for the Norris Canyon Basin area! It was around 1 pm, and we all were hungry. Since there was not tables or benches in the area, we decided to head to the Canyon Visitor Center Area to eat lunch. When we reached and found a table in the area my mom pulled out our lunch, Sandwiches. I finished eating the Sandwich and my dad told me I could get Ice Cream from the General store! There was no Mint Chip Ice Cream, so I picked my 2nd favorite flavor, Rocky Road. And it tasted sooooo good. Even my mom got an Ice Cream. Its flavor was Mountain Berry.

I licked down the Ice Cream, and was ready to do the Lower Falls hike. The hike wasn’t far from the visitor center, and we reached pretty quick. And according to the main sign, the hike was a mile long, downhill. First it went Downhill like this ———-> and then it went downhill like <————-. And that was basically the whole hike. It was steep, and you did have to watch you’re step, but it was all worth it when you would see the final result.

We were so close to the falls, and when you see the water fall down, it’s hard to even know how many gallons of water are going down every second. If that isn’t cool enough, there was a full rainbow curving from one end to the river to another. IT WAS AMAZING, because I have never seen anything like it before. This was one of the highlights of the trip.

When we had, had enough of the falls (Which was a long time) we headed back up to the parking lot, where the Upper Falls Trail Head would be. This time, it was going uphill instead of downhill. because of this it was a little harder to climb. But eventually we all could do it. (Even if we stopped a Trillion times for my mom to catch her breath.)

The Upper Falls Trail went through the forest, and once again we saw the sign that said BEWARE OF BEAR. Then as we hiked uphill, there was this screeching noise. And my mom freaked out because she thought it was a Bear rubbing his/her back against the base of a tree. Turns out it was only a tree that was about to fall, but was denied by another closer tree. When the wind comes it scraped against the other tree and makes that noise “SCREEEEECH.” Shortly, after the “Bear” encounter we reached another parking lot. There was one problem though, there was one hike that went straight and another that was a little bit in the distance on the left. Since nobody was going on the one straight ahead we decided to do the one on the left.

There was no sign saying that this was the Upper Falls Lookout point, but there was a lot of crowd heading down the trail. So we assumed that the Falls must have been where the people were heading. The Upper Falls were there, and it was similar to the Lower Falls. There was a full rainbow and there was a lot of water going down. Then we hiked back through the woods, and toward the parking lot, where my dad parked the car.

It was around 3 when we reached the car, and that was around the time we would see animals. But before we would head to Hayden Valley, we had to see another famous landmark in Yellowstone, we had to see the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone! To see the Grand Canyon, you had to go to Inspiration Point. It was only a short drive away, so we reached there in no time. The view was spectacular! You could see how the river had carved the Canyon over the years. And we were also at such a high altitude!

While we were driving toward the Valley, I saw a sign saying Hayden Valley, so we all knew that we had reached. As we drove through there were hills and plenty of acres of free, roaming grasslands on either side. There were only Bison on the land, even though the article said that we would see numerous animals in this region. There was a lake up ahead, and my dad stopped to see, if there was any living creature on the lake. There was! And it was a new animal! The Trumpeter Swan! There were 2 Trumpeter swans and numerous Swan babies in the Lake. It was easy to notice them because they are almost fully white.

After the joy of seeing a new animal, we were eager to see more. But sadly, there was nothing except Bison roaming the lands when we finished the drive through Hayden Valley. Luckily we would get one more chance to see animals this day because we were going back to West Yellowstone. And the fastest way was to go the same way we came. Even with our second chance, we couldn’t see anything except Bison, until the end of the Valley. At the end of the Valley we saw one lonely elk that had big and long antlers. It was so close up that I got a great view and picture of it!

During the ride back to the hotel, I checked the right (Like always) and my mom checked the left. When we were close to Norris, my mom spotted a female Elk on the left, and took a picture of it. The next 45 minutes of the ride, we didn’t see anything. And that was the end of day #3, One of the most thrilling day of the trip!