Yellowstone Hike - Artist Point, Lily Pad Lake, and Clear Lake Loop

 Rating: 🌲🌲🌲🌲

Length: 3.4 miles (or thereabouts). Elevation gain: 383 feet

This is us at the beginning of the hike. As you can see, everyone looks pretty happy and healthy. It stayed that way through the hike! For the win! I gave it four stars with Claire in mind. In the middle of this hike were some smelly hot pots! And, that about gagged Claire. So, four pine trees. 

The truth is: I have never hiked in Yellowstone until this trip. And, I have visited Yellowstone numerous times. I think I will make it a tradition. It was a great time, minus a few heart stopping moments on cliff edges. (I don't do heights well.) We saw beautiful lakes, random deer, and buffalo from afar. Picturesque. 

The seven Wetzels and one Leak headed off down the trail after viewing the beautiful waterfall, as seen above. The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is truly breathtaking. Literally. 

The beautiful walls of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. And, it is pretty deep. Turns out. 

Some of the Wetzel children lack fear of heights. I do not know this feeling. 
This is Vaughn. He is not afraid of heights.
Here are four Wetzels looking over the edge. Yikes!
Claire, Ben, Carynn, and Vaughn leaving the edge behind. Yay! 

After we left the edge, we headed for some very nice lakes. 
Me at Clear Lake. Appropriately named. 

We didn't stay for pictures at the lake. As you can imagine, the mosquitoes were fierce. After the lake we came upon some hot pots. Those were a surprise. The smell must have been bad because we didn't take any pictures of those. But, it was fascinating to see. One particular hot pot seemed to be drying up. You could see where the boiling water once was, mainly because everything was dead or looked like it had been boiled in a pot for a long time. So interesting. 
From nearest to farthest: Leti, Reina, Ben's hat, Vaugh, and Jillian. They are taking in the view.

Which turned out to be a very fearless deer. 
Carynn, Leti, and Claire on a slightly muddy part of the trail. 

I decided this looks like a modern day scene from the Sound of Music. Not quite the Swiss Alps, but still very pretty. If only they would have been singing. 

This trail also included story time with Claire. I was amazed at her imagination. Her and Carynn knew this story about giants so well that I thought it was from a book I had not read. It wasn't. It was from Clarie's imagination, with some tips from Carynn. The only time the story stopped was at the hot pots. This was because Claire had to hold her nose, and it is difficult to tell a story while holding your nose. 

We made it back to our destination while seeing three buffalo from afar. We crossed the road and Ben, Vaugh, and Leti ran to get the van, which happened to be a little farther down the trail. All in all it was a great first hike in Yellowstone! 

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