Located off of US 41 just outside L'Anse, MI (about an hour away from Marquette), there's an unassuming turnoff to a parking lot filled with cars. Today, our adventure crew consists of Kari, Kayla (her sister and my friend/now roommate!), and Kari's newest addition to the family, Kindi, a precocious 4-and-a-half-month-old lab/border collie mix whose name means "squirrel" in Swahili (even though she was actually named after a gorilla at the Louisville Zoo). A battered map shows that "Canyon Falls" is located on a single, straight-shot trail about a mile away.
Read MoreOur first stop of the day was to see (besides Old Faithful) one of the most iconic features of Yellowstone: its Grand Canyon and staggering waterfall. Yellowstone River, the longest undammed river in the continental United States, carved this canyon through erosion about 10,000 to 14,000 years ago (making it relatively new in geological terms). The canyon walls are painted in yellows, oranges, and reds from the iron compounds in the rock--as the iron is oxidized, the rocks rust.
Read More