Cave Falls, Yellowstone

One of my only summer goals was to hike in the "secret corner" of Yellowstone. We'd heard about it from friends a long time ago, and had just never made it over there. So, last weekend was time to go! It's about a 2 hour drive from our house, and there's no guard house or long line to get in, just 17 miles on a gravel road.

This corner of Yellowstone is only accessible to the rest of the park by foot, but it's supposedly known as Cascade Corner because of the rivers and waterfalls found there. Visible just a few steps from the car were the first falls, Cave Falls.

We took a trail to the "beach" to see them closer and feel the misty spray. At 207 feet, it is the widest waterfall in Yellowstone.

 Then we went to the overlook to see the view from up high. Very peaceful.

The Fall River is aptly named, as it was pretty much continuous rapids above the falls. The trail followed it pretty closely through the forest, so we had a white noise of roaring water and a fresh pine scent as our companions most of the way.

The picture above of Hadley chewing her hair (a lovely new habit!) was at the confluence of the Fall and Bechler Rivers. The Bechler was much calmer and we soon came to a spot where the kids wanted to get in and explore, although the water was deemed much too cold to actually stand in for any length of time.

Owen dubbed it "Crawfish Alley" because we saw several good sized crawfish among the rocks. And they were bright orange! Weird, but beautiful. We didn't catch any in the net, but it was nice to relax by the water and take our dusty shoes off for a bit.

For the sake of time and exploring further, we pulled the kids from the river and got back on the trail, which broke off from the river to go through an eerie lodgepole forest. It was out of a fairy tale, and the endless number of tall, skinny trunks almost had a dizzying optical effect as you became surrounded.

Eventually the trail came back to the Bechler River, where we saw swans.

We made it to Bechler Falls (and a little farther) before we decided to turn around. According to the sign, it was only 1.3 miles between waterfalls, but it felt much longer!

The kids' motivation was more water play at the beach by the car. 

They found a little sandbar with water that was shallow (read: warm) enough to be tolerated by bare feet.

It was perfect! Shallow and warm-ish for wading, sand for digging, and rocks/sticks for building a little dam in the shallows. We spent quite a while there just enjoying it and not having to rush anywhere. Mission accomplished!