After Work Adventures #3: Ribbon Lake

I haven't been going out and doing stuff lately. It's the laziness. I'm over the whole "living in Yellowstone National Park". I've seen it all. . . 

(That was my attitude last week)

Screw being lazy! My new goal: go out and do something after work everyday. There are 22 million acres to explore. The only hard part is finding somebody to come with me... For this adventure, I dragged John along. 

We hiked to Ribbon Lake. It's 2 miles there and 2 miles back (4 total) - really easy. There were several things that attracted me to this hike: 

1. Half a mile of it is along the Canyon
2. It's in woods that haven't been burnt (tall pretty trees)
3. If you go half a mile past Ribbon Lake, you can see a river that cascades into the Canyon (a 1200 foot drop)

So, John and I ventured off to Artist's Point and started walking... The view was amazing. It no joke looks like this for half of a mile: 

Absolutely Gorgeous... 

Of course, we have to stop and take the cheezy "facebook profile" pictures...

I have a confession to make. I've been lying this whole time. I am not in Yellowstone. I'm really living in Hollywood with some big hot shots who are really good at editing and blue screens. I think it's kind of obvious in these photos. My editor must have been slacking... 

Okay, that was a lie. These are real photos - but I do think they look tremendously fake.

I really enjoyed this hike. It's perfect - it has all the elements I love - rivers, trees, mostly flat with some small hills, and an end designation (compared to a hike that goes along a river) . There's a couple of bridges on the hike - one of them was very crooked:

After 2 miles, we made it Ribbon Lake! And! I didn't take any pictures of it... whoops. I was too excited about the 1200 foot cascade. O yeah, for y'all that don't know what a cascade is - it's basically a waterfall that descends over a bunch of rocks. 

So, we passed Ribbon Lake (actually we walked around it for a bit and then realized we were on Wapiti Lake trail... whoops) and found the Canyon again. We could hear the sound of the cascade but couldn't see it. The sun was really bright - here's an epic picture of John looking for the cascade: 

Bingo! We found it: 

But we were running out of day light time so instead of trying to get a better view, we headed back and promised ourselves that we would return within the next few days. 

I think my hair looks awesome in this picture: 

(I'm pretty sure the camera was still on sunset mode)

O yeah, also along the trail there was a bubbling pond- there are thermal features all over Yellowstone but I'm still surprised when I see a pond that is bubbling. I thought I saw a dead wolf in the bubbling pond...

...but it was just a log

Canyon is the coolest. This may not be the best picture (the sun was setting) but check out the colors: 

Ribbon Lake was a great hike. I have plans to go back tomorrow and I am very excited. I had to cancel plans with Mike who was going to give me a personal self-defense lesson but he said we can reschedule.