In all the visit’s we’ve made over the years to Yellowstone National Park, we’ve always seen plenty of wildlife. Though we’ve seen large mammals in all parts of the park, by far, we’ve seen the most along the eastern section of the Grand Loop Road.
Large numbers of buffalo can be seen from – and, often, on – the road in Hayden Valley, though we’ve seen them all along the route from Yellowstone Lake to where the road starts to climb towards Dunraven Pass. Bears and wolves can sometimes be seen in the same area, though we’ve yet to see a wolf and it’s been a long time since we’ve seen a bear there. We have seen quite a few of the wolves’ younger cousins, the coyotes. From Dunraven Pass past Tower Falls, we’ve seen bighorn sheep a number of times.
There is a bit of thermal activity along this route. The lower potion lies within the bounds of the caldera of the Yellowstone super-volcano.
The lower part of the route follows the Yellowstone River, parting from it at Canyon Village and then returning to it near Tower Falls. At Canyon, the river tumbles over two falls, the Lower Falls the more spectacular of the two, as it thunders into the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.
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Yellowstone References and Resources:
Yellowstone is one of the most popular destinations in the U.S. and there are a lot of available resources, including books and DVDs as well as internet resources. I’ve included links to a few reliable resources below and have more on my Yellowstone page at Haw Creek.
The northeast part of the park has few of the thermal features so prevalent in the rest of the park. This section is more mountainous than some of the other parts of the brush, with striking vistas of a wilderness of high peaks and deep valleys. Vegetation ranges from grasses and sagebrush to aspens and pines. All of the wildlife found in other parts of the park may also be seen here.
Our route for this video is shown in darker red on the map. The dotted line represents a one-way dirt road – well maintained, and a favorite of ours – that crosses the Blacktail Deer Plateau.
With each visit we generally make the whole Grand Loop Road. Doing the whole loop all at once makes for a long day – and it truly is impossible to see everything in a single day.
If you’re a camper, my recommendation would be to stay at either Madison Campground or Canyon Village Campground. These are in the middle part of the long sides of the Grand Loop Road. This will eliminate a lot of repetitive travel over the same areas. In 2011, we stayed at Fishing Bridge for a week. It was plenty of time to see everything. However, we spent a lot of time just in transit, much of it in the Hayden Valley or nearby, caught up in excruciatingly slow traffic, generally caused by buffalo – or people slowing down or stopping to see the buffalo.
If you want to stay in the park, whether you are camping or staying a lodge, make reservations very early. The reason we ended up at Fishing Bridge instead of one of our preferred campgrounds was that we didn’t plan far enough in advance. Six months in advance may not bee soon enough.
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Yellowstone References and Resources:
Yellowstone is one of the most popular destinations in the U.S. and there are a lot of available resources, including books and DVDs as well as internet resources. I’ve included links to a few reliable resources below and have more on my Yellowstone page at Haw Creek.
During our 2007 Yellowstone visit, we made it to three thermal areas on mornings that were quite cool – Artists Point Pots, Norton Geyser Basin, and Mammoth Hot Springs. Cool mornings make for interesting photographs in thermal areas.
At Norton Geyser Basin, I was quite pleased with all of the wonderful photo opportunities that I had had during our walk. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until we had made it all the way back to the parking lot when I noticed the message on the LCD screen, “No card in the camera.” This was worse than the old SLR cameras where you would discover after thinking you had shot a roll of film, only to discover that the film had not been engaged on the takeup spool properly and not a frame of film had been exposed. In the case of film, the pictures that were “lost” would be limited by the number of photos expected for a roll – for, me generally 24 or 36. Digital media, on the other hand, is limited by the capacity of the storage device, in this case an SD card. I probably had “snapped” 100 to 200 images that never got saved, because I had left the card in the computer.
I haven’t made that mistake since then. The other way that I have lost opportunities for pictures is when I forget to charge the camera’s battery. Now, with my new camera, I have a spare battery that is always charged before we set out. It certainly has been beneficial already, when, on at least two occasions, the battery in the camera ran out of juice when we were out doing, seeing, and picture taking.
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Yellowstone References and Resources:
Yellowstone is one of the most popular destinations in the U.S. and there are a lot of available resources, including books and DVDs as well as internet resources. I’ve included links to a few reliable resources below and have more on my Yellowstone page at Haw Creek.
West Thumb Geyser Basin is situated on the shore of Yellowstone Lake’s West Thumb, a submerged volcanic caldera within the larger Yellowstone caldera. It was created about 162,000 years ago when a magma chamber bulged up under the earth’s surface, which it cracked along ring fracture zones, releasing the magma as lava. Once emptied, the chamber collapsed and, later, the caldera was filled with water, forming an extension of Yellowstone Lake.
The boardwalk trails at West Thumb provide easy walks that let visitors take in the beauty of the deep thermal pools and Yellowstone Lake.
While we’ve visited West Thumb Geyser Basin over the years, before 2007 we had not looked at the Yellowstone Lake Hotel, a few miles to the northeast. The hotel is one of three hotels in the park constructed by the Northern Pacific Railroad. Originally built in 1891, it was re-designed, expanded, and remodeled in 1903, 1922-23, 1928 and 1894 to 1990. The building is a “relatively plain clapboarded Colonial Revival structure with two large Ionic porticoes facing Yellowstone Lake.1”
Yellowstone References and Resources:
Yellowstone is one of the most popular destinations in the U.S. and there are a lot of available resources, including books and DVDs as well as internet resources. I’ve included links to a few reliable resources below and have more on my Yellowstone page at Haw Creek.
We probably visited the Old Faithful part of the park more often this trip than any place else. We saw Old Faithful erupt at least four times that I can think of. We also made dinner reservations for one evening. Another day we hiked up to an overlook where you can view the eruption. Unfortunately the eruption occurred before we got all the way to the overlook, but we were able to get a good view of it.
Old Faithful is, without a doubt, the most popular location in the park.
The Old Faithful Inn is a fascinating hotel over a hundred years old. We stayed there one time back in the late 70s in the fall.
Reservations for lodging and camping – for those campgrounds where reservations can be made – should be made as far as possible in advance. In 2011, we waited too long to decide on our travel plans and campsites were not available in the campgrounds we preferred. We had to settle for something else.
Yellowstone References and Resources:
Yellowstone is one of the most popular destinations in the U.S. and there are a lot of available resources, including books and DVDs as well as internet resources. I’ve included links to a few reliable resources below and have more on my Yellowstone page at Haw Creek.
Since we were camped near West Yellowstone, we traversed this part of the park several times. There are a lot of thermal features here, but we didn’t make it to all of them.
Some of the more popular destinations in the park get very crowded as the day goes by, even in September when the season is starting to wind down. One secret to getting in at those places without having to fight traffic and/or search for a parking spot is to get there early. It seems as though a lot a folks are late risers when on vacation – or they are just taking their time.
In Yellowstone, like many other places, early morning is a good time for photos, especially on chilly mornings in areas that abound in thermal features.
Yellowstone References and Resources:
Yellowstone is one of the most popular destinations in the U.S. and there are a lot of available resources, including books and DVDs as well as internet resources. I’ve included links to a few reliable resources below and have more on my Yellowstone page at Haw Creek.
During our visit to Yellowstone National Park in 2007, we stayed in a campground near West Yellowstone, Montana, so, each day, no matter where we were going in the park, we traveled along the Madison River on our way in and, again, on our way back to the camper. Sometimes it was clear, sometimes, cloudy, but always a beautiful drive. One morning, the day I photographed the mists over the river, the temperature was several degrees below freezing – winter was just a few weeks around the corner.
The rest of the video slideshows from Yellowstone 2007 are arranged by regions of the park and will be posted here every three days over the next three weeks, followed by those from Grand Teton National Park, Canyonlands National Park, and Arches National Park.
Yellowstone National Park has long been a favorite of ours. I first visited in 1963, back when bears were a very common sight. Our first visits there as a family came in our second year of marriage, tent camping with a six month old with temperatures falling into the mid 30s at night. When we lived in Idaho from 1977 to 1980, we visited many times and have been back numerous times since we moved to Arkansas. We also spent a week in the park in 2010.
Yellowstone References and Resources:
Yellowstone is one of the most popular destinations in the U.S. and there are a lot of available resources, including books and DVDs as well as internet resources. I’ve included links to a few reliable resources below and have more on my Yellowstone page at Haw Creek.
While in Montana in September 2007, we had plans to stop in Lewistown to get set up with a satellite internet system. The installer, Ron, had an extra RV spot at his home for friends, complete with hookups and invited us to stay there for a few days. The satellite system was a new model and there were a few wrinkles in getting it set up right.
Ron was a member of an on-line RV forum I participated in. Retired, Ron did satellite system installs for other forum members at one price no matter how long it took.
While there, we shared supper with Ron and his wife several times in their house and once at the Black Bull Saloon and Steakhouse in Hobson. We also took in the 2007 Lewistown Chokecherry Festival and the What the Hay “hay art” contest that stretched over 21 miles in Judith Basin County between the towns of Hobson and Windham. As, well they took us on a couple of other drives out into the Montana countryside.
“What the Hay” is now also called the “Montana Bale Trail.”
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Lewistown, Chokecherry Festival, and Montana Bale Trail information:
The music is “Back to Back” by Whitey Morgan and the 78’s, YouTube audioswap.
While we had been here before, in 2001, we had just been passing through on our way to Glacier National Park and had made reservations at a hotel in Great Falls for one night.
In 2007, though, Great Falls was a destination for a family visit. A brother, his wife and two sons were living there.
While visiting with family, we also saw some of what is left of the falls, went to a farmers’ market, saw an autocross competition, visited Giant Spring State Park, spent a little time at a horse auction and stopped at the Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail Interpretive Center.
(Music: Land of Promise, Terry Devine King, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, YouTube Audioswap)
We we camped for two nights at a campground just outside of Billings, Montana. We hadn’t decided on what to do or where to go on our “non-travel” day. Looking at the map, the Beartooth Highway looked like it might be interesting. While it was a ways to go, we decided to check it out.
In hindsight, I have only one regret for taking the drive that day and it’s only that I wished we were camped closer to the beginning of the climb into the Beartooth Mountains, perhaps somewhere around Red Lodge, where the Beartooth Highway begins. Other than that, the drive, said by some to be “the most beautiful drive in America,” was well worth it.
The Beartooth Highway is the section of U.S. Highway 212 between Red Lodge, Montana and Cooke City, Montana. It traces a series of steep zigzags and switchbacks, along the Montana-Wyoming border to the 10,947 ft (3,337 m) high Beartooth Pass. The approximate elevation rise is from 5,200 ft (1,600 m) to 8,000 ft (2,400 m) in 12 mi (19 km) in the most daring landscapes.
When driving from the east to the west, the highest parts of the Beartooth Highway level off into a wide plateau near the top of the pass, and then descend to where the Beartooth Highway connects to the Chief Joseph Scenic Byway near Cooke City, which forms the northeast gateway to Yellowstone National Park. En route, one passes numerous lakes typical of the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness Area which borders the highway along much of its route.
In all the visit’s we’ve made over the years to Yellowstone National Park, we’ve always seen plenty of wildlife. Though we’ve seen large mammals in all parts of the park, by far, we’ve seen the most along the eastern section of the Grand Loop Road.
West Thumb Geyser Basin is situated on the shore of Yellowstone Lake’s West Thumb, a submerged volcanic caldera within the larger Yellowstone caldera. It was created about 162,000 years ago when a magma chamber bulged up under the earth’s surface, which it cracked along ring fracture zones, releasing the magma as lava. Once emptied, the chamber collapsed and, later, the caldera was filled with water, forming an extension of Yellowstone Lake.
Yellowstone References and Resources:
Ron was a member of an on-line RV forum I participated in. Retired, Ron did satellite system installs for other forum members at one price no matter how long it took.
Festival and the 