Morning by the lake. The space heater by our door has kept the little log cabin pleasantly warm, though the windows are covered in a layer of frost. After a breakfast of fruit and donuts, Jane and I step out into the blue world and pile into the car to catch our first sunrise in Yellowstone. Driving north, we follow the course of the Yellowstone River past where it leaves the lake at Fishing Bridge, through the woods, past little hot streams that hiss and smoke as they empty into the current. Near the Mud Volcano geothermal group, we stop the car and walk down through the trees to a rocky outcrop over the river; the sun rises over the valley to our east, behind the tops of the pines and the skyward plumes of steam.
In the light of day, the mist lying over the land dissolves and disappears as we enter Hayden Valley, a plain of crisscrossing creeks and green meadows formed over the ancient bed of a much larger Yellowstone Lake. Herds of bison graze placidly in the grassy flatlands on either side of the road. At Trout Creek, we watch as a coyote, panting, chases a young doe across the water and beyond a rocky bluff; I am more entranced, however, by a lovely oxbow bend in the creek, where will we return the following day for sunset. Further north at a turnoff on the valley floor, a wildlife spotter calls us over to his mounted scope; he has spotted a rare grey wolf, one of the few reintroduced to the park in the past few decades, lounging on a hillside to the west of the road. It lets out a low, somber howl, but its packmates - if they are near - give no response. Leaving the valley, the road climbs through the trees to re-join the Yellowstone River at the most dramatic portion of its course.
The Canyon of the Yellowstone is 24-mile gash in the earth formed by the Yellowstone River as it makes the steepest drop on its journey cross-country to join the Missouri River. The result is an immensely beautiful corridor of rocky pinnacles and oxidized rhyolite deposits, capped by the torrential veil of the Lower Yellowstone Falls at the canyon's head. We leave the car on the South Rim and walk to Artist Point, a rock balcony that juts out from the canyon wall, affording a classic view of the falls and the winding canyon upriver. To our north, the Washburn Range rises imperially toward the big sky. The few tourists on the North Rim (a water main break has cut the Park Loop Road and made the northern half of the park much less accessible for the first few days of our trip) are tiny specks on the opposing canyon wall. We take a few photos together on the balcony, then set off walking along the canyon rim, toward the falls.
Soon after leaving the road, the South Rim Trail climbs and follows to contour of the canyon wall. Though we are in late May, spring has just barely arrived in the Mountain West, and the trail is largely still a snowbank packed several feet deep. Along the most exposed stretches of the climb, where the canyon to our right drops dizzyingly away to the roaring river several hundred feet below, a wooden fence provides an almost laughable veneer of security - a vain piece of amusement park in an utterly wild place. Ignoring the fence, Jane and I hug the inner edge of the trail, tiptoeing our way along the icy snow, and sinking our feet, step by step into the safety of old bootprints. We reach a gorgeous, snow-free outcrop nearly above the Lower Falls, and sit for a moment to admire the cataract of snowmelt as it rushes into the canyon below.
Beyond this spot, the trail devolves into a snowfield several feet deep and layered with ice. We bend over to read a trail map peeking through the snow to the level of our ankles, which indicates that Uncle Tom's Trail (the famously steep iron staircase that leads down the canyon and to front of the waterfall) is closed, as if we needed any more convincing to stay away from the canyon edge. We turn upslope on the trail, emerging at a parking lot closed for construction. One of the construction workers chastizingly tells us that we shouldn't be there for our own safety, and nearly turns us back into the woods before we point out the illogic of making us descend the snowfield for our own safety. He lets us walk out to the road, where a couple from Florida is kind enough to let us hitch a ride in their van back to Artist Point.
Our misadventures on the canyon rim at an end, Jane and I drive back toward the lake, munching on spicy Southwest trail mix and tangerines as we pass through Hayden Valley once again. We stop briefly to walk the boardwalk at the Mud Volcano thermal area, where several pools of vaguely interesting but decidedly unexciting mud froth and bubble and spew at us. We return to the Lake Hotel shortly before noon, stopping first in the hotel café, where I devour a turkey sandwich and Jane a bowl of minestrone. After lunch, we take a brief stroll along the lakeside to the general store, where the presence of an ice cream counter is duly noted. Satisfied with this finding, we return to our cabins and settle in for a cozy afternoon nap.
In the late afternoon, we set off again, driving east along the lake to a trailhead at Indian Pond. We follow the meadow path around the edge of the ancient blast crater, skirting around a male bison grazing at the water's edge. As the trail dives into the woods surrounding Storm Point, Jane becomes antsy, urging me to stay close and chafing a bit at my frequent stops for picture-taking. On the north shore of the lake, we are in prime grizzly country, and the prospect of startling a bear in the woods during breeding season is not a pleasant one. It would certainly be a fitting, but unfortunate and fleeting, end to our marriage for one of us be devoured by wildlife during our honeymoon. Fortunately, we are kept company by another hiking family - a father with his two girls, whose shouts of glee ring loud and clear through the pine forest. At Storm Point, we walk out onto a grassy promontory fringed by sand dunes. We sit for a moment on the rocks atop of the point, with Yellowstone Lake stretching away in every direction. "This is a really big volcano," I murmur. Jane is too busy keeping watch for bears to worry about vulcanism. We set off walking along the sand dunes, dodging around another bison grazing in the meadow. Back through another stretch of pine forest - we are startled more than once by the sound of a falling tree branch, or the snap of a twig - and we arrive back at Indian Pond.
In the car, we stop by Fishing Bridge for dinner on the road. I have a tuna salad sandwich; Jane gets turkey and cranberries. We wash these down with strawberry milk, then sit for awhile on the porch outside the gift shop with an ice cream bar, killing time before sunset. As the daylight begins to fade into gold, we climb back in the car and return to the east, to top of Lake Butte, where film to see the sun setting over a sea of burnt trees. I set up for a timelapse while Jane along the road with the spare camera. As the camera snaps away over the following hour, we excitedly try (with our one bar of WiFi here in the Wyoming backcountry) to download an email from Reuben, our wedding photographer, who sent us some previews from our wedding day. As the sun disappears beyond the western edge of the caldera, we pack away the tripod, driving back to our cabin at the lake in the growing dusk.
