Day 4

At last another Yellowstone slide! I kind of forgot that I hadn't finished these yet! This slideshow is of our fourth day in Yellowstone. This day's objective was to drive across the north side of the park, down the West side, and about half way to the East entrance. We stopped for lunch near the entrance to the trail head of Avalanche Peak, where Dad, Tyler, Sam, and I were planning to spend a few hours hiking. Trail length was roughly 4-miles for the round-trip. The elevation gain was about 2100 ft, which got us to 10,568 ft elevation. First 20 minutes or so were a little rough on the lungs, before we got used to it. So we just stopped when we had to, drank water, and scared the bears away by singing country western music (but that's a different story). Mom and the girls, meanwhile, went and built sandcastles by Yellowstone Lake. :) A fun day for all! The hikers finished their hike a bit ahead of schedule, however, and found themselves momentarily stranded, since the lake was 30 minutes away and we still had an hour or so until the time we'd asked Mom to meet us back at the trail head. Since our lunch area (and, more imporantly, the facilities) was only about 1 mile down the road, we decided to start walking, instead of waiting. As we neared our destination, we ran into a buffalo, right next to the road! Not wanting to disturb or otherwise upset the fellow, we tiptoed to the other side of the road and kept going. As we were juuuust about to our lunch area, our big, friendly, most-welcome van drove into view. Mom had left early, and was coming to our rescue. Rounds were made once again at the lunch-area facilities, and all were happy to rest their legs on the long drive home.