Mt. Washburn reaches for the sky on the west side of the Yellowstone Canyon, and was still snowcapped on this hike in mid-June. The area below Mt. Washburn, on the west side of the river, is closed to human travel for much of the year. The closed bear management areas have been a real boon to the efforts to protect the great bear and to restore its numbers in the Yellowstone ecosystem. While many people decry the closures for keeping them out of specific areas, it's important to remember that Yellowstone is a huge place, and for every closed valley or mountain slope, there are ten comparable areas that are open to human travel and use. In this area, even though Antelope Creek and some of the Washburn Meadows region are off-limits for much of the year, the Specimen Ridge side of the Canyon is wide open hiking country, with comparable habitat and scenery. It's a small price to pay to keep the wild country truly wild. If a person feels that they just absolutely have to visit the closed areas, they can put forth the effort to go in late in the season, when the Antelope Creek management area is again open to human travel.

Bottom photo: The Tower Falls complex from across the canyon. The Falls are in the dark side canyon on the right (north) side of the photo, just out of sight around the bend.