Yellowstone
Grand Canyon of Yellowstone River, pictures do not justify the grand scale of EVERYTHING!!
Overload with “ WOW, did you see that, look look, that is just out of this world, colors, colors, slowdown there is an animal on the road…!!!”
Again… where to start…as it is me… start with the practical stuff…
You can do Yellowstone easily with your own town car. Book yourself into comfy Lodge in the park and drive the days from wonder to an other wonder! If you want to go in with your camper van its really useful to have a car with you as well as the roads are full of cars and carparks all over are very full, so stopping and parking every 10-20min gets tiresome driving a RV around and there are lot of traffic jams!! Fact!
Keep eyes open for the next wonderful thing that is coming up!
Daily Yellowstone tourist schedule works the way of… ha ha… yes it’s me…everyone leaves hotels/campground in their cars early in the morning… (everyone is on the road as you drive everywhere.. no other way to move around and see anything, maybe with a buss load of other tourists ( busses are not allowed on all the sights ) and everyone comes back to the lodgings early evening. Bring your own lunch, the food around the park villages is not worth of buying. If you arrive to your campground during the day time it will be 95% empty and by 6pm it’s so full you can not turn around ;)
If you see a traffic jam, count the cars!
4-6 cars stopped on the road means buffalo or deer somewhere off the road nothing too drastic
10-15 cars stopped on the road and Park Ranger is present, means its probably a bear or two somewhere with in 1/2 mile, take a deep breath and be ready to be stuck for 10-20 min, you might see the animal.. bring your binoculars …
20-30 cars stopped on the road and 2 Park Rangers are present is a wolf or someone has “run over a tourist” on the road, be ready to be stuck 20-30 min
On the happier side of things.. The Park is very much “built” around large numbers of people and things are very well organized around wild life and tourists.
This actually was out and back road.. so … we were all there because we wanted to !!! Close to Biscuit Basin (west side of the park), go morning time as in the afternoon the bison is over the river and far away.
Upper falls of Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone
We visited the park end of May. It was kinda early for the summer season as it is all up in 7500ft + , nature wakes up later than on lower altitudes. Seasonal campgrounds were still closed and lot of the hiking trails were blocked off cause bear frequenting.
Dogs are “not” welcome in reality as you can not walk them anywhere with you. Yes they are welcome to stay in the car while you see things but…. no” official” off leash places.. you can walk around the campgrounds with your dog?!! ugh… It’s all very understandable as wildlife does not need to be messed around with domestic dog smells!!
The Park has 5 entrance roads and has “Two Loops” to drive around. The Northern ‘Loop” has more of the water falls an and grandness of the countryside, we saw bears on the road from Mammoth Hot Springs to Tower-Roosevelt road on north road. South “Loop” has the geysers, herds of Buffalo, and deers, rivers for fly fishing etc.
Again… picture does not describe the place. Mammoth Hot Springs, North West corner
This angel just bounced out of the bushes to front of me.. DRIVE SLOWLY !!!
I booked our campgrounds well in advanced cause I had no idea where/when/how things are and work in Yellowstone.
We stayed 3 nights in Bridge Bay campground that is the biggest RV ground inside the park. Book though xanterra.com ( its a big corporation company that owns lots of things) Campground is next to the Yellowstone Lake and basically in the middle of the park. Great spot but be ready to have neighbors close by and bear proof food storage. Very well organized campground.
Rhona run on legal and not so legal grounds for her!! Yellowstone Lake
From Bridge Bay campground Ian rode his bike and I drove south with the kids to West Thumb which is amazing Geyser Basin. Easy to access and amazing..
An other mind blowing geyser spot is Black Sand Geyser Basin on the south loop as well. Both of these places are about 20 miles away from the Old Faithful.
Moved to Madison Campground, west part of the park, book through Xanterra.com. Spot for the “locals” who come to Yellowstone year after year to spend the summer… good location to see the Old Faithful and the Lodge. There is an app for the eruption times.. ha ha… so you do not have to waist time waiting around.. !!
Totally worth it! Old Faithful !
For the last but not the least we moved to Tower Fall campground on the north east side of the park. It was the most primitive campground of the lot but great little spot. That I booked through recreation.gov and was full as all the other campgrounds!
North loop
Yellowstone gets over 4 million tourist a year, so be prepared to be a tourist and bring in some patience. In my mind you need about 3 FULL days to see most of The Spots, it will be 3 full days in a car driving from one spot to an other!! To do deeper dive into stuff and hike some of the amazing hikes there you will need much more than that… Grand Tetons NP is just 25 miles south of the Yellowstone park and I’m bummed that we missed it!
North loop
Roosevelt Arch, is located on the North West entrance to the park.
We arrived to the park though the West Entrance as the North Entrance was closed because of snow. We saw and experienced so much during our 5 days and loved every minute of it. On our last night there at Tower Fall campground we got bunch of rain during the night and that stopped me to take the North East road out of the park. North East road apparently is stunning and goes up to 10 000 ft elevation but they will shut the gates if they get any snow during the summer. The biggest packs of wolfs are located around that road.
We both took the North West road out and it did not disappoint with views.. it follows Yellowstone River towards Livingston MT.
Go and experience Yellowstone, it’s very much worth it.
Take your time and do not rush, please!
We are off to Billings to clean up the rig and take in all that we have seen in last two weeks in Glacier and Yellowstone! Then start our journey across the planes in East Montana and North Dakota on our way to Duluth MN
