Tuesday, June 15 to Thursday June 17, Yellowstone National Park

We planned 7 nights in Yellowstone National Park, three nights at Canyon Village and four nights at Grant Village. Before we get into the details, let me describe this park a bit. Yellowstone is huge and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is even larger. We will stick to just the park in this post.

Yellowstone is generally wild. Most of the park is backcountry and as such not really accessible to us as a family at this stage. We stuck to the major road through the park. This road is set up like a figure eight. From this road you can reach amazing natural wonders such as the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, the Grand Prismatic Spring, Norris Basin, Old Faithful, and Mammoth Hot Springs. Each of these locations is separated by 30-60 miles or so. The entire loop is 140 miles with a speed limit of 35-45mph. Each of the major attractions have restrooms and some (like Mammoth Hot Springs and Old Faithful) are small towns with restaurants, stores, gas and housing.

There are several entrances to Yellowstone, with the East entrance near Cody used considerably less. But this entrance yields an amazing approach to the park. You travel through a valley filled with ranches, but also many neat rock formations. I should mention here that we purchased the Gypsy Guide for Yellowstone and the narration begins on the approach to the park. If you haven’t heard of Gypsy Guide, look them up! Yellowstone is a perfect park to utilize this app. Once inside the park, we pulled off the road for a quick breakfast in front of two streams traveling down a mountainside, merging at our pull off. From there we went over Sylvan Pass and the kids ran up a scree slope to reach a pile of melting snow. They thought it was hilarious to be out in the snow, sledding in their Chacos. After the Pass, we heading down to Fishing bridge at Yellowstone Lake and got our first glimpse of the Tetons.

After a brief stop at Fishing Bridge, we headed for our campground at Canyon village, stopping at Mud Volcano to hike a bit, seeing Dragon’s Breath our first hot spring! Yellowstone is full of hot springs, geysers, fumeroles, and mud pots as this part of the world lies over a “hot spot.” Hot spots are regions where the crust is thinner and so magma exists closer to the surface. The Hawaiian islands are caused by a hot spot and so is Yellowstone. Arriving in Canyon, we found that it was actually a very hilly region and although we could bike from our campsite in Loop J (191) down to the camp store, laundry, and showers, that was pretty much all we could bike with the kids. I biked to Inspiration Point and around the roads near the Canyon, but bikes are not allowed on the trails and there are just too many cars for biking to be worth it.

Wednesday June 16 was our Mammoth Hot Springs day.  Knowing that the crowds were going to be crazy, we got up early and made for the town of Mammoth. Since Dunraven Pass was closed, we had to make our way towards Norris, then up to Mammoth. We arrived by 9am and found a spot for our RV right in the center of town across from the visitor center.   After a breakfast we hiked to the top of the lower terraces.  On the way back down we saw that the baby elk that was sleeping up the boardwalk on the way up, was now awake and separated from her momma by the boardwalk. The ranger was trying to get the baby to go back under the walk but it was taking a while and we left before seeing them reunited.  It was another hot day – mid-80s, so we drove out to Lamar Valley to have lunch at the trailhead for the unmarked trail leading to the petrified forest along Specimen Ridge.  We scouted out the hike making note that it would be fun to do next time.   We stopped at the Forces of Northern Range interpretive trail, which was definitely nice to do with the family.   On the way back to Canyon, we had to drive back through Mammoth and Norris as the road directly to Canyon was closed. The drive was a bit harrowing with big drop offs and no berm.  We stopped at the Obsidian Cliffs just south of Mammoth and saw the obsidian in the rocks.  Also stopped at Roaring mountain.  As this was now a full day, dinner was at Norris Basin, and we walked the small porcelain loop – which is really 2 small loops. There were geysers and springs and a beautiful lake in the woods along a mile trail to the Norris campground.  I think I would like to stay at Norris one time!

Thursday was our second full day at Canyon. We woke up and had breakfast at our campsite, and then drove down to Canyon Village.  There we parked in the enormous parking lot and hiked a trail between the lodges and the North Rim.  It was about a mile long.   At the North Rim, I took the kids out to Grand View and up a few viewpoints to see the waterfall.   From there we hiked down about 300 feet to get a bit closer to the waterfall.  All 4 kids did it!   Chris even managed a bit out on Grand View.   We headed back to Norris Geyser basin and a few more loops in this region.  This Trail had the loudest fumerole in the whole park.  Next we headed out of the park to West Yellowstone and bought a camera, some fudge and had Macdonalds for a late lunch/dinner.   Then we headed to Old Faithful, saw it explode twice and walked a bit around Geyser Basin.   Kids saw a bison right off the walk, so close that Caroline saw the red in the eye.  We drove home via West Thumb and arrived back at Canyon well after dark.