Day 7

Friday, June 1, 2018

The final five remain in the Hypemobile – Will, Sierra, Jonathan, Noah, and Heather, all cozy in a a one-room airbnb. Happy June! It didn’t really feel like June though in Gardiner, with chilly temps in the high 20’s in the morning. Some might say it was brick. Will and Sierra did a final run at altitude around the town before embarking on the final day in Yellowstone. First stop was Tower Falls, where Jonathan decided to wash his sneakers caked in mud from the previous days adventures. The rain didn’t slow us down!

After a heartwarming lunch near Yellowstone Lake and the Yellowstone Hotel (and trying huckleberry fudge ice cream for the first time!), we visited Artists’ Point overlooking the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. After seeing an epic stand-off between a bison and a grizzly, we parked to hike up to Point Sublime. On the hike, we passed by Clear Lake, where we saw a Black Bear walking just across the lake from us! The hike was muddy and slippery and Noah had the bear spray ready the entire time, but it was all worth it for the views at the top. Some of us got a little too close to the edge and had to be held back. The weather turned on our way back down and it started to rain. Then, it started to hail. A lot. The last mile of the hike ended up being a sprint through an open muddy plain getting pelted my hail and the biting cold (some of us only had shorts on). Cold and exhausted, it felt good to be back in the car again. Shoutout to the Hypemobile— battered, muddied, cracked, and with a replaced tire, it pulled through when we needed it most. We continued to drive around, until we found a prong-horn that Jonathan valiantly spent 40 minutes filming and got almost within an arms length distance of. Safe to say someone made a new friend.

Our last stop in the park for the day was Lamar Valley to film some Bison across a river, and we saw a rainbow! Truly icing on the cake to an action-packed day. Really never a dull moment. We ended the trip having seen every type of notable wildlife in the park except for a wolf— we even saw a rabid chihuahua! Our natural adventures finished for the day, we drove back to Gardiner, had dinner, explored Jardine (SKETCHY) and went to sleep in our tiny cabin. Amazing last day an Yellowstone, hard to believe it’s been a whole week!