Today we set out with the intention of hiking the North Rim Trail in the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. Grandma went ahead with the girls in the direction of the sign that said, of all things, “North Rim Trail,” and the boys and I caught up with them while Clark was still doing whatever-it-is-that-he-was-doing in the RV. Upon my arrival on the scene, I learned that Grandma had purchased a laminated fold-out card which depicted the shapes of the hoof prints and poop piles (referred to as “scat”) of Yellowstone wildlife. Unfortunately, the trailhead had very few hoof prints but was scattered with scat. We had identified the ownership of all manner of elimination… to bears, moose, elk and bison…. Which, of course, reminded me, “Where’s Clark?” Is he really STILL in the RV or did he take an entirely different trail?
I was almost all the way back to the RV when I called his name a couple of times, and then I heard him rather testily call back. Then, next thing I know, there he is walking back from another trail that started very close to the one we were on – carrying all kinds of stuff, including a jacket, camera, movie camera and tripod. After confirming with him that the hike he had planned to take us on that day was on the trail from which he had just returned, I suggested that I would double-back to get Grandma and the kids and that he might want to grab a backpack for all of his gear… you know, perhaps a 3-mile hike up hills, through gulleys and amongst wildlife might just warrant a backpack?
Finally we were all on the right trail, and getting very good use of our waterproof hiking shoes since the trail was wet and muddy. But the great thing about a muddy trail, of course, is lots of tracks! We found a good sampling of bear, wild boar, elk and bison tracks… and I have to say that they were harder, but much more pleasant, to identify than scat… I’m just sayin’.
We also came across a great herd of bison off a bit in the distance, and continued down to Clear Lake which had clearly been visited fairly recently by a bear since there was a wet mud bear print on one of the stones very close to the lake.
Then, as we continued on, we found a mule deer that was very at ease with us staring at him for a while and snapping a few pics. In fact, the mule deer was so at ease that he wasn’t even bothered by the jingle of Grandma’s “bear bell”….
A method many espouse around here to keep bears away but, no matter the case, the constant rhythmic jingle-jingle-jingle kind of makes you feel like you’ve brought Santa along for the hike.So all of this was great stuff except for one thing…. we still hadn’t seen any of the things that we had set out to see (huge waterfalls and charging streams, among them) because, as we discovered well into the hike, we were NOT on the right trail after all. We were on the Wapiti Trail – the trail which Clark’s book said led to the North Rim Trail - but, in fact, it was taking us in the opposite direction. Oh no… Grandma was right Clark!!! At this point Clark was in I’m-going-to-make-this-all-better-somehow mode and was convinced that the Wapiti Trail would eventually loops us around to the North Rim Trail; meanwhile Grandma was in let’s-just-walk-back-the-way-we-came-and-go-follow-the-signs mode. So the rest of us went into hey-let’s-just-sit-on-this-log-and-have-a-drink-of-water-and-maybe-a-little-snack-too mode…. You know, and watch to see who wins.
Just then, a couple of hikers veered off their own course to warn us that they had just sited a bear that was way too close to the trail – and the portion of the trail that we would have to take to go back the way we came. Whew…. a tie-breaker! So we just continued on Clark’s way, all under the belief that getting more lost was probably still better than getting eaten by a bear.
And the good news is that, eventually, but a very long time later, the trail did end up looping us back to the trail we had wanted to take from the beginning, and we saw a very beautiful waterfall.
The bad news is that there was a great deal more to see on the original trail, and we were all just way too exhausted to even consider it…. except for Clark who was still itching to conquer the trail we had originally intended to hike. And he was clearly under some delusion that the rest of us would eventually agree to keep going if only he kept repeating, “but it’s only another 7 miles!” over and over again. Um, not so much. Anyway, rather than say no, we all just agreed that it was time to take the 1-mile hike back to the RV for a bit of a break and something to eat, and that we would get to that original trail later (with all but one of us understanding that “later” meant “tomorrow).We ended up driving to Mammoth Hot Springs from there to have dinner at a little grill next to the General Store, but we decided to take our time getting out of the RV since a bison had decided to scratch himself on a post just outside the store…. and very near our RV.
As our Yellowstone Jr. Ranger Trainees informed us -- virtually in chorus – you have to stay 100 yards away from bears and wolves, and 25 yards away from the other animals. So that’s just what we did…. And so when Mr. Bison finally decided that he was done scratchin’… he ambled on, and we made a break for it to get some grub.
After dinner we made our way up to the Mammoth Hot Springs area for a relatively short hike – it was just a couple of miles, all on a wooden boardwalk, since walking directly on the ground anywhere near a hot spring is extremely dangerous. The crust can be unexpectedly thin and brittle, and you can easily fall into a now newly-formed hot spring (thanks to the force of your own boot) with scalding hot liquid that contains extremely high amounts of sulfur and silica (…and I must have seen at least 30 signs warning hikers that many people have suffered permanent injuries or died by doing just that!). 
We had to climb a lot of stairs to get to the highest elevations of the hike, at which point the rolling boil of the hot springs became even more intense and, for reasons I cannot fathom, the boardwalk had no handrails at this point – Yikes! 
Excellent Wyoming…. Can you suit us up with some bucking broncos too to make this whole will-I-or-won’t-I-fall-into-the-scalding-hot-springs experience that much more exciting?! Ha.
After the hike, we doubled back to the General Store, and Steve and Katie grabbed hot chocolates for everyone while Grandma and I suited the rest of the crew up in their pajamas so they could fall asleep during the slow-moving 30-minute drive back to Canyon campground.
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