How do You See Yellowstone?

One section at a time!

Yellowstone is amazingly huge. The advantage it has over Glacier is the number of routes that can be taken to get to various parts of the park (Glacier has one main road through the center of the park).  So while there are many people and cars within the park, traffic is never truly at a standstill, unless of course, there is a wildlife sighting along the road.

The loop around the perimeter is called the “grand loop”.  It is 214 mile route of 2 lane roads.  Not doable in one day.  Fortunately, there is road that bisects the park about midway. 

Day 1 we explored the Northern ½ of the grand loop. Our first stop was the Madison information station. Goal – obtain a hiking book or map.  A former park ranger and his wife wrote an excellent trails book and included maps....sold! I sat in the navigation seat, made note of trail head signs as we roamed the grand loop, looked up the hike and assessed it's viability for later in the week. Dave’s goal and wish for the day was to see a Bison (more to come). 

The ecology of the Northern loop is diverse – wandering through forests, grasslands, and canyons. While on the Northern loop, we stopped at Mammoth. This is one bodacious geyser that has a history going back to the mid to late 1800’s.  The geyser lives up to it’s name. Above is just a small glimpse of the geyser.

The road across the northern part of the park is devoid of geysers, at least any that can be seen from the road.  It is a bit of forest and a lot of grasslands. Dave’s wish was granted as a bison stopped traffic by using the road for its personal path to the next feeding ground.

From Tower to Canyon (NE part of the park), there is s beautiful canyon with grand waterfalls. This area is called the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.  It was afternoon by the time we got to this part of the park. Afternoon in Yellowstone is like the witching hour.  It is one busy place with nary a parking spot to found at the various sites. Amazing!

At Canyon, the road bisects the grand loop and takes us back to the West Yellowstone and back to our camp.  Yes, please! Rest up for Day 2.

Day 2 of exploration was via the Southern loop. 

The majority of the geysers, including Old Faithful, are located in the Southwest.  The east side includes the Hayden Valley, summer home of Bisons.

This was truly a day of identifying the "come back to" spots. But first, we stopped to enjoy Old Faithful.  There was quite the crowd awaiting the show. It was a short, but powerful show.

On to the Hayden Valley! We were rewarded with a large herd of Bisons on both sides of the road. These two were away from the herd, as they headed away from a hot pool.  

Back to camp to get ready for our hike the next day - Fairy Falls.