Yellowstone 2019

Bozeman, MT is just a couple hours’ drive from Yellowstone National Park. We headed out from our “home base” of my aunt and uncle’s condo early in the morning. Spending the night at one Yellowstone’s historic cabins, this would give us about a day and a half to explore the park. Is this enough time to thoroughly explore the park and see everything there is to see? Absolutely not! But we did get to see most of the major attractions and felt we got a good taste of what Yellowstone is all about. In order to have the best experience, it is best to plan ahead. We spent time looking at maps of Yellowstone to determine the best driving route that would help us see the most that we could in the limited time we had to explore. There are a lot of travel guides and blogs where you can read advice people have about when to arrive, which entrance to take in order to accomplish specific goals, which sites are must-sees, etc. We ran our plan by my uncle and aunt as well for their approval, since they have been to Yellowstone many times. While they did not go with us, they were happy to share tips.

Day 1

We decided entering through the West Entrance made the most sense for our plan of getting to see most of the major attractions. This would be Ryan’s first time at Yellowstone, over 20 years since my first and only visit there, so we wanted to see all the things Yellowstone is famous for…including Old Faithful! The West Entrance puts you in much closer driving distance to Old Faithful and the main geyser basins than the other entrances do. And sure enough, it didn’t take us too long before we had our first geyser sighting!

First, we came to the Fountain Paint Pot group of hydrothermal features.

We learned that there are a variety of hydrothermal features, not just geysers. Here they are as explained on the National Parks Service website (click the link to read more):

Next, we came to Great Fountain Geyser.

We took a short hike to Fairy Falls.

Then, we stopped at Grand Prismatic Spring, where we were warned by another visitor: “Don’t even try to stop at Old Faithful! There is no parking anywhere!”

We did not listen and tried anyway. We succeeded! Due to our small rental car, we were able to fit into the last space, which was much too small for most of the bigger trucks and RVs that were the norm around the park. The visitor’s center by Old Faithful has a display with the upcoming times that Old Faithful will erupt. We had just enough time to grab a couple of bison burgers at their lackluster cafe! Then, we found a spot to sit and wait for it to make its appearance. As you can tell, it’s pretty much impossible to get a photo of Old Faithful with no other tourists in it, so expect a crowd. But it’s worth it! Definitely impressive!

While there are more hydrothermal features around Old Faithful that can be viewed from a boardwalk path, we chose to head on.

As we headed away from the majority of the major hydrothermal features, we crossed the Continental Divide and soon came to Yellowstone Lake. At this point, it was much less crowded than around the geyser basins.

While we could see Mud Volcano from our car, we had had enough hydrothermal experiences for the day at that point and just drove past. Instead, we enjoyed the peace and quiet in the Hayden Valley, where we spotted several bison (or “beefalos” as Ryan calls them). We were impressed by how vast and open this area was. Definitely not something that can be captured in a photograph!

As we continued, northward, we left the southern loop to connect to the northern loop. There was a lot of great scenery, and also some windy roads. But evening was approaching, and so was the rain, so we didn’t make many more stops. We needed to make it up to the north side of the park to get checked into our cabin at the Roosevelt Lodge. We made one more stop at Tower Falls, which is very near Roosevelt Lodge.

We got checked into our cabin, which is simple, but convenient. Then we went to have dinner at the lodge just as it started pouring rain! Good thing Ryan borrowed a raincoat from my uncle!

I ordered the Blue Corn Tamales, and Ryan ordered a Bison Burger. I have to say, we were a bit disappointed in our food, especially for what we paid for it. My tamales were a bit dry. Ryan’s burger was fine, but expensive. Dessert was good. I had the chocolate lava cake, although it had some fancy name like “geyser cake” or something, and Ryan had the huckleberry cheesecake. We were happy to have our own bathroom in the cabin (not all did) so we wouldn’t have to run through the rain to go to the bathroom at night.

Day 2

My breakfast in the morning was also good, but way too much food! I had huckleberry pancakes (because huckleberries are everywhere). We checked out of our cabin and then decided to find a good trail before starting to head back to Bozeman. I was interested in seeing the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, so a ranger at the visitor center recommended doing part of the North Rim Trail. It was definitely an interesting hike, with a lot of different scenery along the way, including the canyon, falls, and fumaroles. For the first part, we were hiking along with lots of other people who wanted to get great views of the falls, but after Artist’s Point, we started seeing fewer and fewer people. Eventually, we were on our own walking down a shortcut path to get back to the trail head, when we noticed some trees that looked like bears had been scratching them! We were sure glad we rented cans of bear spray, and we started talking and singing very loud on that last stretch of trail. We made it out safely without any bear encounters, though, and were able to return our bear spray unused!

We worked up a huge appetite, so we enjoyed our food at a little in-park diner, although once again, it really was a bit lackluster and over priced.

Finally, it was time to head towards the North Entrance, and out of the park. We did stop for photos along the way, including a stop at the petrified tree (which Ryan thought was hilarious) and a short hike where we viewed a lot of the wild sage and wildflowers. We intended to stop at Mammoth Hot Springs before heading out, but it was extremely crowded in that parking lot, and we decided if we wanted to make it back for the block party in Bozeman, we had better head out instead. However, we have a good sighting of a couple of hilarious elk as we left (which we originally thought were moose).

We did see quite a few wild animals, including an actual moose, marmots, and bear cubs, but most of the time I did not take pictures because they wouldn’t have turned out very well. Some people were really careless when they saw wildlife and would actually get out of their cars and chase a black bear cub, trying to get a photo. You usually know if there is a wildlife spotting if traffic is suddenly backed up where you wouldn’t expect it to be.

Anyway, it was an amazing experience, but we had just one night to regroup and plan our route to Glacier National Park the next morning. More about that later!