waterfall – NATIVE LENS

By Marc Bowen

My wife and I had an enjoyable trip to Yellowstone with my parents. It had been two years since we were there last. The park is only about 80 miles from our home, about a two-hour drive. You would think we would go more often.

The Mesa Falls Scenic By-Way

On the way there we stopped at Lower and Upper Mesa Falls. My parents said its been about 35 years since they last drove the Mesa Falls Scenic By-way. It is a beautiful drive and worth the visit to see both falls and visitor center.

uppermesafallsREEDIT — Photo by: Marc Bowen

Big Springs, Island Park

We also stopped at Big Springs in Island Park. It was the first time any of us have been there. Big Springs is a first-magnitude spring and produces over 120 gallons of water each day. It’s also the head waters of the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River. Beautiful place but we forgot our mosquito repellent and had to out-run them most of the time we were there.

The Seagulls were out in force and used to being fed by the tourists.

West Yellowstone

We arrived in West Yellowstone, checked into our room and then visited the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center across the street. Interesting exhibit although I would rather see the animals free instead of caged. I do understand the Discovery Centers mission and the center is well set up and informative.

Our evening was spent in the Park.

If you haven’t been to Yellowstone you should know that the buffalo (or bison if you’re not a native of Idaho or Wyoming) are the most plentiful of the animals in the park and although they look as tame as cattle, more visitors are injured by them than by other critters. But I wouldn’t blame the buffalo. It’s the stupid humans who think they can back up against them and take a selfie while the animal eats grass. It used to be when I was a kid it was the bears causing the traffic jams in the park. Now its the buffalo. Best to just be patient and enjoy the show.

We took the Firehole River loop and enjoyed seeing white-water and waterfalls.

FireholeFalls — Firehole Falls – Photo by: Marc Bowen

Firehole River Gorge — Cascades of the Firehole – Photo by: Marc Bowen

We then continued on down the road to the Lower Geyser Basin which is the largest geyser basin (11 square miles) in the park.

Evening seemed the perfect time of day to visit not only because of the great light and cooler temperature. We noticed a huge line of cars headed out of the park when we were headed in so that by the time we reached the basin, crowds were pretty small.

Fountain Paint Pot Trail, Lower Geyser Basin

A good share of this trail is paved and the rest is all boardwalk.

YellowstoneGeyser3 — Photo by: Marc Bowen

YellowstonePool2 — Silex Spring – Photo by: Marc Bowen

FountainPaintPot — Fountain Paint Pots – Photo by: Marc Bowen

RedSpouter — Red Spouter – Photo by: Marc Bowen

LowerGeyserBasin — Clepsydra Geyser – Photo by: Marc Bowen

Mammoth Hot Springs

The next day we drove up to Mammoth Hot Springs at the north end of the park. It’s a beautiful drive and there are many places to stop, stretch your legs and see something new.

Mammoth Hot Springs is a large complex of hot springs on a hill of travertine and is adjacent to Fort Yellowstone and The Mammoth Hot Springs Historic District. We chose to stop at the lower terraces and I walked the board walk there enjoying each of the springs along the way.

RenaeMammothHotSprgs — Lower Terraces boardwalk – Photo by: Marc Bowen

MammothHsprings7 — Looking across Lower Terraces to the town of Mammoth Hot Springs – Photo by: Marc Bowen

We only spent parts of two days in the park and just scratched the surface of the beautiful canyons, alpine rivers, lush forests, hot springs, numberless wildlife and gushing geysers that await visitors here. Every time I visit I am always amazed at the size of this park. Yellowstone is huge, covering 3,500 square miles. Lots to see and less time to visit then we would have liked but we had a wonderful time and look forward to our next visit!

By Marc Bowen

First Attempt

Yesterday morning I drove to the Darby Canyon parking lot arriving about 7:30am. It rained the whole drive there. The night before I had checked the forecast saw the forcast for rain but it was supposed to quit raining around 7am. Well by 7:30 it was still raining hard, no sign of stopping and the road in was very muddy. No other cars were in the parking area when I arrived. I decided I would tip my seat back, set my alarm and sleep an hour. If it was still raining hard I would head home and try again the next day. One hour later it was still pouring so I started the car and was heading out of the parking lot just as a big gray moose stepped out in front of me, looked at me than trotted across the road and into the trees. That was cool. I’m glad I was able to stop and enjoy the sight of this huge, beautiful animal moving across the road in front of me.

Getting There

It wasn’t raining this morning when I left home but the skies were overcast. I left home around 5:30am, arrived in Driggs about 6:30am. About halfway between Driggs and Victor I turned left on 3000 South. From the Darby Canyon sign there is about four miles of pavement and nearly five miles of dirt road to the Darby Canyon parking lot. The road wasn’t as muddy as yesterday and I arrived at the parking lot about 7:00am.

DarbyCanyonParkingLot — Photo by: Marc Bowen

Again mine was the only car in the parking area. There was definitely a wet chilly feel to the air as I got my gear ready, locked my car, took inventory and made sure I wasn’t forgetting anything. I stashed my car keys in a safe place ( ruin my day if I lost them along the trail somewhere).

The Trail

Location – South Fork Darby Canyon
Hike (R/T) miles – 5.2
Elevation gain – 1800 feet
Difficulty rating – 8.80 (moderate)

**above info provided by TetonHikingTrails.com

DarbyCanyonWindCavesTrailhead — Photo by: Marc Bowen

The trailhead begins at the edge of the parking area. This trail prohibits the use of bikes as the area is designated wilderness. The wilderness marker is just up the trail a ways.

DarbyCanyonWindcavesTrail — Photo by: Marc Bowen

Within the first quarter-mile I came to a clearing where I could see Darby Creek and the snow-line not too far up the mountain side. I was pretty sure I would be hiking in snow sooner than later. Even though I had my doubts about being able to get all the way in to the wind cave I was determined to go as far as I was able. The air was fresh, cool and clean and it was wonderful to be on the trail again regardless of the outcome.

I crossed this bridge over Darby Creek just as it began to rain a little. (above photo)

Standing on the Darby Creek bridge I shot this image looking upstream.

A few turns in the trail later I arrived at the boundary sign for the Jedediah Wilderness and a slippery crossing of South Fork Darby Creek.

SouthForkDarbyCreekCROP — Photo by: Marc Bowen

I carefully took this shot (above) while laying across two poles over the water of the stream.

WindCaveTrailDarbyCreek — Photo by: Marc Bowen

Just up the trail I entered a small gorge and began a rather steep climb. The trail climbs about 1200 feet in about a mile and a half as it enters South Fork Darby Canyon.

(above) Panoramic looking down into the gorge.

Video clip below of the gorge

Another shot into the gorge (above) and you can see into the main canyon beyond where the trailhead is located. From this point on just about every switchback had deadfall that hadn’t been cleared from the trail yet. I had to climb over , under or around much of it. It was mostly on the steep northwest facing slope. Everything was wet so it made for some careful traversing.

(Above) where the trail wasn’t wet and muddy it was covered in snow. I only saw one set of human tracks and a pair of what I assume were dog tracks ahead of me, probably several days old. There were also a fairly fresh set of moose tracks heading up the canyon. These sets of tracks were a good thing for several reasons. One, it gave me an idea where the trail was in areas where the trail was covered in snow. Two, the snow had a hard crust on it but was melting underneath so by observing where the moose chose to place it’s feet I could tell whether the surface of the snow would hold my weight or not.

Some slopes were fairly bare of snow with just some random patches. I took a break on the edge of this switchback to drink, eat a snack and put my outer jacket shell on as it had begun to rain. It wasn’t pouring so I didn’t put my heavy poncho on. With the jacket I was still able to access my camera (with rain cover) attached to the front of my backpack shoulder strap.

DarbyCanyonWindcaves1 — Photo by: Marc Bowen

(Above photo) looking up the canyon from the east rim. The wind cave can be seen near the top of the other side of the canyon.

DarbyCanyonPanoCROP — Photo by: Marc Bowen

This (above) is the halfway point of the hike. From here the trail continues south and then forks to the right around the top of the canyon and back to a series of switchbacks heading up toward the cave.

WaterFallDarbyCanyon — Photo by: Marc Bowen

Water runs out of the mouth of the cave and down the cliffs below (above)

There was still plenty of snow between me and the wind cave. I could already see from here that if I was lucky enough to make it all the around to the wind cave it would be too treacherous to try to get up to it and inside. Snow was piled deep in front and raging water running underneath.

Below is a video clip showing both the cave and the waterfalls underneath.

I was able to make my way a little farther along the canyon rim but at this point the trail went underneath a slide of deep snow and no more tracks that would indicate where the trail was. The tracks here are my tracks as I carefully walked farther along. But it was steep and I kept breaking through the crust into deep snow up to my waist. I got a bad feeling about going any farther so decided this was where I would turn around and head back down the mountain.

DarbyCanyonWindcavesTrail2 — Photo by: Marc Bowen

Hiking back down the trail.

As I neared the part of the trail that drops back down into the main canyon I noticed water from snow melt coming down the mountain on the otherside of the canyon.

Found this orange fungus in the canyon bottom and thought I would take a pic to see what it was later.

I met several groups of hikers headed up the trail as I headed down. Some asked questions about the trail ahead and I warned them about the deadfall and deep snow.

Even though I was unable to get all the way to the cave it was still an enjoyable hike. I didnt mind the rain, mud and snow. My whole purpose today was to get out and hike and satisfy my wanderlust. Finishing this hike was secondary.

Tag: waterfall

Trip To Yellowstone National Park