Our plan for Day 2 was mainly a hike to the summit of Mt. Washburn and then to see as much of the Tower-Roosevelt area as possible.. We had planned on possibly even skipping the Lamar Valley area but the day before a man had told us that he had seen a lot of wildlife there so we decided to go ahead and see it and we even made it all the way to Mammoth Hot Springs that day. We work up early, at like 5:30 or so, and started our day. Our initial plan was to do the hike first thing, but it was still pretty cold and and we didn't think pictures would turn out great due to the lighting so we decided to do a little sightseeing first.
It was great being out before everyone else was out on the road.
Our drive through Lamar Valley
These little things liked to pose
Tower Falls
We decided to take a little hike at Tower Falls that lead to the base of the falls. When we got there it was washed out so there was no way to get there!
Here's the washout though!
Colt was wanting to see a black bear, and right when we left Tower Falls to head back to Lamar Valley in hopes of seeing one, there was one right off the road.
Then we went a little ways down the road and there was another one. A guy in his car started backing up to take pictures and scared this one so he ran off almost as soon as we saw him.
On the walking trail going up to Wraith Falls
I think it was a lot longer than a 1/2 mile up there though.
Undine Falls
Mammoth Hot Springs
Norris Geyser Basin
This is Steamboat Geyser and it has got up to 3x's the height of Old Faithful and is the tallest geyser. It's unpredicatable though and it's eruptions range anywhere from 4 days to 50 years.
Virginia Cascade
We finished our loop for the day and it was still early so we had lunch in Canyon Village and took a much needed nap before we started our 6.4 mile hike up Mt. Washburn.We started around 3:30 and finished around 7:45 or so.
On the way up and down the mountain he came out to play and show out a little.
Towards the top of the mountain there was a little bit of snow on the ground still
Almost there
Big horn sheep trying to get up the mountain. It looked like they had babies with them and they kept slipping trying to go up the mountain in the snow.
We got in trouble by the park ranger at this point in the trip. This is a point that is by the summit and evidently, according to a tiny little sign that they had printed that we didn't see, you are supposed to stay on the trail due to fragile vegetation. Well, we got off the trail and went to the top. Then I decided I woud just go down the front of the mountain because it was shorter and that's when the park ranger showed up. Colt said he had thought he had seen someone looking at us with binoculars and evidently he did! Luckily we weren't the only ones that got in trouble though. Another guy got in trouble for starting to ski down a mountain that wasn't allowed.
It was so windy up there you could barely stand.
This is taken from the point that we were not supposed to be on looking over to the summit. At the summit of Mt. Washburn is the fire watch tower where a park ranger lives.
I think this was about the time that I was peeking over the hill and got scared because a sheep was staring me right in the face!
The summit
The book you sign when you make it to the top 
Sheep going down the mountain
A beaver
I thought this looked like a perfect Christmas tree. We did see basically an exact replica of our current Christmas tree while we were there.
Little baby beaver
It was such a fun hike and a must do if you go to Yellowstone. Afterwards we went back to Canyon Village bought a few more snacks, had some ice cream as our main dinner (and Colt had PB&J a little later) and called it a night.
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