Chapter 11: Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park

America’s first national park is just as alluring as it was when John Colter of the Lewis and Clark expedition first spied it in 1807. Colter’s descriptions of spewing hot springs and boiling mud were unlike anything the public had ever heard of, and modern visitors still have the same reaction to Yellowstone’s incredible geography. Once inside Yellowstone, most travelers see Old Faithful and the Grand Canyon but never venture far enough to see its geyser basins up close. It’s an otherworldly journey worth making.

Active Pursuits Thermal features steam, bubble, boil, and hiss throughout Yellowstone National Park. See these curiosities and others on day hikes such as Geyser Hill Loop and Fountain Paint Pot Trail. The popular Lonestar Geyser Trail accommodates hikers and cyclists, follows the Firehole River, and doubles as a cross-country ski trail in winter. Fish for cutthroat and other trout species on the Yellowstone River just below Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon, a 1,000-foot-deep, 24-mile-long gorge carved in yellows and reds.

Flora & Fauna For many, the primary reason for visiting Yellowstone is its wildlife: bear, bighorn sheep, bison, elk, river otters, and moose all wander, often within roadside view of travelers. One of the park’s largest elk herds grazes near Mammoth Hot Springs, while bighorn sheep maneuver over rocky precipices near Mount Washburn. North America’s largest free-roaming bison herd grazes near the Firehole River and in the Hayden Valley, an area also known for its grizzly and black bears.

Where to Stay & Eat The best hotels in the park are the Old Faithful Inn and the Lake Yellowstone Hotel. Some of the finest food from the park includes bison prime rib and stuffed trout. The beauty of the famous Old Faithful Inn’s log construction, its elk antler chandeliers, and proximity to Old Faithful make this restaurant a good choice. Camping and cooking supplies are readily available in Mammoth Hot Springs, Canyon Village, Grant Village, Old Faithful, and Yellowstone Lake.

The Gateway Towns: West Yellowstone, Gardiner & Cooke City

West Yellowstone: 91 miles SW of Bozeman; 30 miles W of Old Faithful; 320 miles NE of Salt Lake City. Gardiner: 79 miles SE of Bozeman; 163 miles SW of Billings. Cooke City: 127 miles SW of Billings

West Yellowstone

By making itself the headquarters for snowmobilers who want to travel the park’s roads in winter, West Yellowstone—just outside the park’s west gate—has created a year-round tourist economy and attracted an ever-growing number of big hotel chains. The quiet fly-fishing town that once was is no more: The shops are chock-full of curios, and the streets are clogged with tour buses and, in the winter, rumbling snow machines.

One could argue that West Yellowstone made its Faustian bargain with tourism long ago, when the Oregon Short Line’s Yellowstone Special train first arrived in 1909. Originally called Riverside, then Yellowstone, the town was grudgingly renamed West Yellowstone in 1920 when Gardiner residents complained that tourists would mistakenly believe the town was the park. Name aside, this place is more about shopping than about nature, and its biggest attraction is the zoolike Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center.

Essentials

Getting There The West Yellowstone Regional Airport (www.yellowstoneairport.org; 406/646-7631) is in Montana, where the airport sits just 1 mile north of town (and the west entrance) on U.S. Hwy. 191. The airport has commercial air service seasonally, June through the end of September only, on Delta Connection/SkyWest, connecting through Salt Lake City. If you’re driving the 91 miles from Bozeman to West Yellowstone, take U.S. 191 south (a pretty journey along the Gallatin River) to its junction with U.S. 287 and head straight into town. From Idaho Falls, take I-15 north to U.S. 20, which takes you directly into West Yellowstone, a 53-mile drive.

Visitor Information Contact the West Yellowstone Chamber of Commerce, 30 Yellowstone Ave., P.O. Box 458, West Yellowstone, MT 59758 (www.westyellowstonechamber.com; 406/646-7701).

Getting Around At the West Yellowstone Airport, Avis (www.avis.com; 800/230-4898 or 406/646-7635) and Budget (www.budget.com; 800/527-0700 or 406/646-7882) offer car rentals. Yellowstone Taxi (www.yellowstonetaxi.com; 406/646-1118) provides local service.

Getting Outside

Most people arrive here on their way to the park, but there is no fence along the park’s boundary, so some of the best wild country is actually to the west. If you like fishing, the rivers—the Gallatin and the Madison, particularly—are among the best in the country. The following tackle shops offer the full gamut of guided fishing trips and instruction: Arrick’s Fly Shop, 37 Canyon St. ( 406/646-7290); Bud Lilly’s Trout Shop, 39 Madison Ave. ( 406/646-7801); Jacklin’s, 105 Yellowstone Ave. ( 406/646-7336); and Madison River Outfitters, 117 Canyon St. ( 406/646-9644).

Frommer’s favorite Yellowstone Experiences

Witness the World’s Most Famous Geologic Alarm Clock. Old Faithful is known for its reliability, but it’s slowing down a little with age. Still, about once every 90 minutes, give or take, you can watch her blow, making her the most predictable geyser on the planet. While you’re there, get a good look at the beautiful and historic Old Faithful Inn.

Escape to the Backcountry. If the packed benches at Old Faithful give you the impression that Yellowstone is overrun, venture into the backcountry for a dose of true wilderness. It will restore your spirits and perhaps your belief in national parks. Get advice from a ranger on how to travel safely in bear country, and then have it mostly to yourself—most of the three million annual park visitors rarely leave the roadways.

Get Hooked on Yellowstone Trout. There is some fine fly-fishing water in and near the park. Try the Madison, the Gibbon, and the Firehole rivers, or troll the lakes for cutthroat, brown, rainbow, and brook trout. When a big trout slaps the twilight surface of the Yellowstone River, Izaak Walton smiles in fly-fishing heaven.

Have a Howling Good Time at Lamar. Since wolves were reintroduced in Yellowstone in 1995, they have surprised biologists by making frequent morning and late-afternoon appearances along Slough Creek and in other parts of Lamar Valley. This especially untamed area in the northeast corner of Yellowstone is loaded with wildlife: bison, elk, coyotes, and grizzly bears.

Make Like Teddy and Be a Rough Rider. At Roosevelt Lodge, visitors relive the Old West by taking organized rides on horseback, stagecoach, or wagon. A more adventurous alternative is the Old West cookout; you will arrive by either horseback or wagon for hearty meat-and-potatoes grub.

Learn Something at the Yellowstone Association Institute. You can take classes on everything from bears to butterflies at the Yellowstone Association Institute, which inhabits the old Lamar Buffalo Ranch in the park’s northeast corner. It’s a friendly, communal way to get a more intimate knowledge of the ecosystem.

Sleep on a Historic Pillow in the Park. Old Faithful Inn, dating from 1904, is a log cathedral within view of the geyser. Relax with a drink on the second-floor terrace, or climb the timber lattice that holds up the great roof. Original rooms may not all have private bathrooms, but it’s still the nicest place to stay in the park. Ask for suite no. 3014 or room no. 229 to watch the geyser erupt from your room.

Come winter, cross-country skiers hit the trails (see “Winter Sports & Activities”). Ski rentals are available in West Yellowstone at FreeHeel and Wheel, 40 Yellowstone Ave. ( 406/646-7744), or Bud Lilly’s, 39 Madison Ave. ( 406/646-7801).

Despite a quota system in the park, snowmobiling is a huge draw in West Yellowstone, where sleds are more common than cars on snowpacked winter streets. In addition to driving the machines on the snowpacked roads of Yellowstone—where speed limits are strictly enforced—you can take the trails in surrounding national forests with fewer restrictions. There are tricks to riding on backcountry snow, so if you’re inexperienced, rent a guide as well as a machine. All the major hotels and motels in West Yellowstone arrange snowmobile rentals that include gear, and there are numerous independent operations offering rentals and guides, including Yellowstone Arctic/Yamaha, 208 Electric St. ( 406/646-9636), and Yellowstone Adventures, 131 Dunraven Ave. ( 406/646-7735).

Expect to pay $250 to $300 per day per snowmobile, plus about $225 for a guide (required), and unless you have a helmet and winter gear to protect you from subzero wind chill, plan on spending another $25 for clothing. Also popular are snowcoach tours, offered in vans equipped with tanklike treads to travel on snow. Check with Yellowstone Alpen Guides Co., 535 Yellowstone Ave. ( 800/858-3502), or with snowmobile outfitters, who often offer snowcoach rides as well.

Seeing the Sights

Beyond the attractions below, families interested in firefighting will want to drop into the National Smokejumper Center, just east of the chamber (www.smokejumpercenter.org; 406/646-7557). In a cluster of relocated historic log structures, kids can take part in a Junior Smokejumper Program at 9am in summer to learn about smokejumpers’ tools, tricks, and training to fight fires in inaccessible corners of the wilderness.

Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center Those who haven’t the patience to search out and observe the free-ranging wildlife of Yellowstone might want to try this not-for-profit educational center. The interpretive center gives a detailed explanation of the history of wolves and grizzlies in this country, along with the difficult and controversial efforts to revive them in the wild. This is a closer look than you’ll likely get with animals in the park, but did you really come to Yellowstone to look at grizzlies imported from Alaska in an enclosure?

201 S. Canyon St. in Grizzly Park. www.grizzlydiscoveryctr.org. 800/257-2570 or 406/646-7001. $11 adults, $9.75 seniors, $5.50 children 5–12, free for children 4 and under. Summer daily 8:30am–8:30pm; shorter hours in winter.

Yellowstone Historic Center ★ Located in the historic 1909 Union Pacific depot, this is the only museum that focuses on Yellowstone’s cultural history, providing an interesting look into the ways of the park’s first tourists, with scads of memorabilia, postcards, and concessionaire ephemera. There are also displays on the historic Yellowstone railroad and other transportation, covering epochal events such as the 1959 earthquake that created Quake Lake and the 1988 fires, along with a mounted grizzly bear known in his animate days as “Old Snaggletooth.”

At Yellowstone Ave. and Canyon St. www.yellowstonehistoriccenter.org. 406/646-1100. $5 adults, $4 seniors, $3 children and students, free for children 2 and under. Mid-May to late May and early Sept to mid-Oct daily 9am–6pm; late May to early Sept daily 9am–9pm. Closed rest of year.

Yellowstone IMAX Theater This theater is next door to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center, and together they form the centerpieces of a real-estate development on the edge of the park, which includes several new hotels. Regardless, the IMAX concept works pretty well here—there are things an airborne camera can show you on a six-story-tall screen that you’ll never see on your own two feet. A film called Yellowstone plays fairly often, with swooping views of the canyon, falls, and other sights.

101 S. Canyon St. www.yellowstoneimax.com. 888/854-5862 or 406/646-4100. $9 adults, $8.50 seniors, $6.50 children 3–12, free for children 2 and under. Summer 8:30am–9pm, shorter hours in winter. Call or check the website for exact show times.

Where to Stay

Make your reservations early if you want to visit in July or August, or if you’re going to spend Christmas or New Year’s here. If you’re smart, you’ll come in the fall, when there are plenty of empty rooms and better rates, and spend your days fishing the Henry’s Fork or one of the other great streams in the vicinity. Rates for rooms often reflect the seasonal traffic, and prices fluctuate. Unless noted, all these establishments are open year-round.

You’ll find chains like Comfort Inn, 638 Madison Ave. (www.comfortinn.com; 406/646-4212), with summertime doubles for $129 to $229; and Days Inn (www.daysinn.com; 800/548-9551 or 406/646-7656), at 301 Madison Ave., with summer rates of $119 to $189 for a double. There are three Best Western affiliates, ranging from about $160 to $220 a night for a double during the summer. Call 800/528-1234 or go online to www.bestwestern.com for information and reservations. The One Horse Motel, at 216 N. Dunraven St. (www.onehorsemotel.com; 800/488-2750 or 406/646-7677), is a top-notch independent across the street from City Park, with doubles for $79 to $129 a night. Another good inexpensive option (with more character than the chains, to boot), the 1912 Madison Hotel, 139 Yellowstone Ave. (www.madisonhotelmotel.com; 800/838-7745 or 406/646-7745), has historic rooms for $59 to $99 for a double or $33 for a bunk in a dormitory, and newer motel doubles for $79 to $139. Another option with historic cachet—and a one-time favorite of broadcasting legend Charles Kuralt—is the Parade Rest Guest Ranch, 10 miles north of West Yellowstone at 1279 Grayling Rd. (www.paraderestranch.com; 800/753-5934 or 406/646-7217), in a serene setting near Hebgen Lake. Rates are about $190 per day for adults and $70 to $150 for kids, all meals and horseback riding included; lodging runs only $160 double per cabin.

Bar N Ranch ★★ One of the oldest brands in Montana, the Bar N is an excellent lodging option in West Yellowstone. Located on 200 acres of unsullied ranchland with 2 miles of the Madison River and a fishing pond, the lodge is an image of the New West, with a great river-rock fireplace and a knotty pine banister leading up to the rooms upstairs. The lodge rooms mix equal parts Ralph Lauren and Old West, exuding a simple but rich style with antler lamps, hardwood floors, and jetted tubs. The cabins are one- and two-bedroom units arranged in a half-circle around the lodge, with decor that echoes that of the lodge; all of them have fireplaces and private outdoor hot tubs.

890 Buttermilk Creek Rd. (P.O. Box 250), West Yellowstone, MT 59758. www.bar-n-ranch.com. 406/646-0300. Fax 406/646-0301. 15 units, including 8 cabins. Lodge rooms $235–$250 double; cabins $290–$365 double; 4-bedroom cabin $465; lower rates late Oct and early May. AE, DC, DISC, MC, V. Amenities: Restaurant; Jacuzzi; small outdoor pool; Wi-Fi (free). In room: TV/DVD, fridge, no phone.

Holiday Inn West Yellowstone ★ This is the town’s best modern hotel. The rooms are sizable and comfortable, well maintained, and regularly updated. At the tour desk, you can arrange fishing and rafting trips, bike and ATV rentals, and chuckwagon cookouts. The Iron Horse Saloon serves regional microbrews, and the Oregon Short Line Restaurant serves Western cuisine, including game and seafood dishes. At the center of the restaurant sits the restored railroad club car that brought Victorian gents to Yellowstone a century ago.

315 Yellowstone Ave. (P.O. Box 470), West Yellowstone, MT 59758. www.doyellowstone.com. 800/646-7365 or 406/646-7365. 123 units. $199–$249 double; $279–$319 suite. Lower rates fall to spring. AE, DISC, MC, V. Amenities: Restaurant; lounge; bikes; children’s program; health club; Jacuzzi; large indoor pool; sauna. In room: A/C, TV, fridge, hair dryer, Wi-Fi (free).

Moose Creek Cabins ★ A 1950s motel complex that got a slick revamp in 2004, Moose Creek Cabins offers comfortable and stylish rooms and cabins in the heart of West Yellowstone. The one-time Ranger Motel—which spent 2 decades as employee housing before becoming Moose Creek—is a good value and one of the better-maintained properties in town. There are stand-alone kitchenette cabins (good for families) and cabin-style motel rooms with queen beds; both are laden with pine and charming individual themes. The proprietors also own a good motel, the Moose Creek Inn, a few blocks away, with double rooms for $100 to $110 and suites for $180 in summer.

220 Firehole Ave., West Yellowstone, MT 59758. www.moosecreek-cabins.com. 406/646-9546. 13 units and cabins. $100–$120 double; $190–$200 cabin. Lower rates fall to spring. DISC, MC, V. In room: TV, kitchenette, no phone, Wi-Fi (free).

Three Bear Lodge ★ Rebuilt from the ground up after a 2008 fire, this woodsy, family-friendly inn is located less than 3 blocks from the park entrance. Those familiar with the old Three Bear will be hard pressed to recognize the slick new incarnation, featuring recycled wood, a striking lobby with a monolithic stone fireplace and scads of taxidermy, and stylish guest rooms. Some rooms are family suites that sleep up to eight people. About half of the rooms survived the fire but were updated as the main lodge was rebuilt. The Three Bear offers snowmobile and snowcoach tours in the winter, as well as van tours in the summer.

217 Yellowstone Ave. (P.O. Box 1590), West Yellowstone, MT 59758. www.threebearlodge.com. 800/646-7353 or 406/646-7353. Fax 406/646-4567. 72 units, including 8 family suites. $159–$219 double. Lower rates fall to spring. AE, DISC, MC, V. Amenities: Restaurant; lounge; exercise room; indoor Jacuzzi; outdoor heated pool (seasonal); sauna. In room: TV, hair dryer, Wi-Fi (free).

Where to Eat

West Yellowstone is a good place to stop for a quick bite on your way into the park. For coffee and baked goods, visit the espresso bar at the excellent Book Peddler in Canyon Square ( 406/646-9358). Morning Glory Coffee & Tea, 129 Dunraven St. ( 406/646-7061), roasts its own beans on-site and offers a low-key atmosphere for getting going.

Beartooth Barbecue ★ BARBECUE A bustling and funky space that plates up some mean barbecue, this is my pick for a casual meal in West Yellowstone. At the bar or a table in the bric-a-brac-laden room (hanging from the walls are sleds, ristas, a traffic light, and sports memorabilia), order a plate of St. Louis–cut spareribs or beef brisket for lunch or dinner (or a sandwich with brisket, sausage, or chicken) and plenty of tangy sauce. The bar has Montana microbeer on draft and serves wine by the glass, but no liquor is served.

111 Canyon St. 406/646-0227. Lunch and dinner $10–$27. MC, V. Daily noon–10pm. Closed Oct–Apr.

The Canyon Street Grill AMERICAN It’s hard not to like an establishment whose slogan is “We are not a fast-food restaurant. We are a cafe reminiscent of a bygone era when the quality of the food meant more than how fast it could be served.” With checkerboard floors and shiny red booths, this delightful 1950s-style spot serves hearty food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Hamburgers and chicken sandwiches are popular, accompanied by milkshakes made with hard ice cream or a famous root beer float.

22 Canyon St. www.canyonstreetgrill.com. 406/646-7548. Main courses $5–$12. DISC, MC, V. May–Nov Mon–Sat 11am–10pm; shorter hours rest of year. Closed Apr to mid-May.

Eino’s Tavern AMERICAN Locals snowmobile out from West Yellowstone to Eino’s (there’s a trail that follows U.S. Hwy. 191) to become their own chefs at the grill here. It’s a novel concept, and it keeps patrons coming back to this casual restaurant with a fine view of Hebgen Lake time and time again. There’s usually a line out the door, but it’s fun to peruse the walls, plastered with dollar bills and other currency, as well as bras and funny photos, while you wait. After placing your order for a steak, teriyaki chicken, hamburger, or hot dog, keep a straight face when you’re handed an uncooked piece of meat. Go to the grill, slap it on, and stand around, drink in hand, shooting the breeze with other patrons until your food is exactly the way you like it. Steaks and chicken come with your choice of a salad (or the place’s trademark “hot potatoes” in winter), and hamburgers come with chips.

155 Eino’s Loop (9 miles north of West Yellowstone on U.S. Hwy. 191). 406/646-9344. Main courses $5.50–$25. No credit cards; ATM on premises. Winter daily 9am–9pm; rest of year Mon–Fri 4–9pm, Sat–Sun noon–9pm. Closed Thanksgiving to mid-Dec.

The Outpost Restaurant AMERICAN Tucked away in a downtown mall, this rustic restaurant laden with Western bric-a-brac serves old-fashioned home-style fare, such as its hearty beef stew, with fork-size chunks of carrots and potatoes. There’s also salmon, steak, trout, liver, and an excellent salad bar. For breakfast, if you’re really hungry, you can’t beat the Campfire Omelet, smothered in homemade chili, cheese, and onions. There’s no video poker, beer, wine, liquor, or smoking, making for a relatively quiet, family-friendly atmosphere. The desserts include pie and a wild huckleberry sundae.

115 Yellowstone Ave. (in the Montana Outpost Mall). 406/646-7303. Breakfast $5–$16; lunch $6–$14; dinner $9–$25. AE, DISC, MC, V. Daily 6:30am–10:30pm. Closed mid-Oct to mid-Apr.

Sydney’s Mountain Bistro ★★ NEW AMERICAN The most upscale option in a meat-and-potatoes town, Sydney’s offers an intimate setting, an excellent wine list, and a menu that balances seafood and vegetarian fare with beef, poultry, and pork. With interesting preparations—such as flash-fried calamari for starters and entrees including sweet-chile salmon and butternut squash ravioli—and a breezy patio complementing the upscale atmosphere inside, this is my pick for a special meal in West Yellowstone.

38 Canyon St. www.sydneysbistro.com. 406/646-7660. Dinner $15–$38. MC, V. Daily 5–10pm.

Gardiner

Of all the towns that stand sentry on the roads into Yellowstone, Gardiner is the prototype gateway community. This is partly due to the historic stone Roosevelt Arch that marks the entrance through which the earliest visitors passed into the park. This is the only park entrance that’s open to auto traffic year-round, in order to keep a connection open to Cooke City, which in winter can be reached only through the north entrance.

Gardiner sits at the junction of the Gardner and Yellowstone rivers (the town’s eight-letter name has been attributed to a 19th-c. spelling error), still looking like the gritty little mining town it once was. Nobody puts on airs in the coffee shops and bars, and nobody raises an eyebrow when a bison or deer wanders through town.

Getting There From Bozeman (the nearest jet-service airport), take I-90 26 miles east to Livingston, then take U.S. 89 south 53 miles to Gardiner.

Visitor Information Contact the Gardiner Chamber of Commerce, 222 Park St., P.O. Box 81, Gardiner, MT 59030 (www.gardinerchamber.com; 406/848-7971). Across from the landmark Roosevelt Arch is the slick new headquarters of the Yellowstone Association (www.yellowstoneassociation.org; 406/848-2400), a restored historic building by renowned architect Robert Reamer, complete with a terrific store and visitor center. Up the hill from town is the Yellowstone Association Institute’s new Overlook Field Campus, featuring cabins with superlative views and open to participants in seminars and tours.

Getting Outside

Gardiner is the spot to go for white-water rafting on the Yellowstone River. Several outfitters take guests on half- and full-day trips on routes skirting the park’s northern boundary; the best of the bunch is the Yellowstone Raft Company, U.S. Hwy. 89 (www.yellowstoneraft.com; 800/858-7781 or 406/848-7777), with half-day trips for $37 and full days for $80; children get on the boat for $27 half-day or $60 full day. While this is not a snowmobiling hub on the magnitude of West Yellowstone, a few motels here rent snow machines or offer snowcoach tours. And hiking and fishing opportunities are bountiful in every direction from town.

Where to Stay

Dinky, personable, and a bit eccentric, Gardiner has long had ultra-friendly lodging—thin-walled motels where, if you show up late, they’ve gone to bed and left a key in the door. These days it also has some newer, chain-affiliated properties, built to accommodate the ever-increasing traffic to the park. As with all the gateway towns, make your reservations early if you’re coming during the peak season. The steep off-season decline in traffic results in discounts that can be considerably less expensive than the high-season rates quoted below, so be sure to ask.

Inexpensive chains motels fill up during the summer months: the Yellowstone Park Travelodge, 109 Hellroaring Rd. ( 406/848-7520), and Super 8, 702 U.S. Hwy. 89 (www.super8.com; 800/800-8000 or 406/848-7401), are open year-round with rates during the summer high season between $120 and $160 for a double. The Best Western by Mammoth Hot Springs, on U.S. Hwy. 89 (www.bestwestern.com; 800/828-9080 or 406/848-7311), is another option, with doubles for $149 to $189 in summer.

Of the independents, I like Yellowstone River Motel, 14 E. Park St. (www.yellowstonerivermotel.com; 406/848-7303) with doubles for $80 to $110 in peak season. Fans of vintage roadside motels and their indelible neon signage might also take a look at the bare-bones cabins at Jim Bridger Motor Court, 901 Scott St. ( 406/848-7371), built in the 1930s around a shady green courtyard. Cabins come with one or two queen beds and range from $50 to $199 nightly.

Where to Eat

An indication that Gardiner has kept in touch with its mining-town roots is the relative dearth of fancy restaurants—you’ll find mostly steakhouse fare, hearty breakfasts, and travelers’ food. A few upscale eateries have come and gone in recent years, but the dish-clattering local color of the park-side coffee shops is hard to beat.

The Corral Drive-In AMERICAN Since 1960, this place’s reputation has rested on burgers that are nothing short of colossal. With a half-pound of meat (beef, elk, or buffalo), several slices of American cheese, bacon, and all the usual veggies, these burgers have been known to measure a full 7 inches from bun to bun. The monstrous things garnered the nickname “Helen’s Hateful Hamburgers” after a dissatisfied customer wrote a letter to the local paper dubbing them just that. Corral founder Helen Gould ran with it, using the intended insult as a sarcastic slogan in promotions and on T-shirts. Ice cream, chicken and fish sandwiches, and an assortment of fried goods round out the menu.

U.S. Hwy. 89 at Yellowstone St. 406/848-7627. Reservations not accepted. Menu items $4–$16. MC, V. May–Sept daily 11am–11pm. Closed mid-Oct to Apr.

Sawtooth Deli ★ DELI/AMERICAN This stalwart eatery on Park Street is a reliable spot for hearty American breakfasts and plump subs. I like the breakfast burritos in the morning (especially before a big hike) and the Philly cheese steaks and veggie subs for lunch (especially after a big hike). With a basic main room and a breezy patio, there is both wait service and a to-go counter. Dinner features the lunch menu plus nightly specials like pasta and ribs. Beer and wine are served, but not liquor.

222 W. Park St. 406/848-7600. Main courses $5–$8 breakfast and lunch; $5–$16 dinner. MC, V. Summer Tues–Sat 8am–4pm and 5–9pm; shorter hours rest of year.

Cooke City

If little ol’ Gardiner seems just a little too connected to the civilized world, you ought to spend a winter in tiny Cooke City or even tinier Silver Gate, just outside Yellowstone National Park’s northeast entrance. In the winter, when the cloud-scraping Beartooth Pass closes to the north, supplies for these towns have to come through the park. Better to visit in the summer and take the breathtaking drive north over the pass (U.S. 212 toward Red Lodge) or south along the scenic Chief Joseph Highway (Wyo. 296). For 100 years, the lifeblood of this town was mining gold, platinum, and other precious metals, but now there is only park tourism, which seems a little anemic by comparison. Fewer than 100 residents live year-round in the town today, and Silver Gate, right next to the park entrance, has perhaps a dozen hardy year-round residents. Contact the Colter Pass/Cooke City/Silver Gate Chamber of Commerce at P.O. Box 1071, Cooke City, MT 59020 (www.cookecitychamber.org; 406/838-2495), for information. The chamber operates a visitor center at 206 W. Main St. that is open daily in summer.

Getting There From Billings, Montana, drive west on I-90 to Laurel, then south on U.S. 212 to Red Lodge, a total distance of 60 miles; then continue another 67 miles south over spectacular Beartooth Pass, dipping into Wyoming and back up into Montana at Cooke City.

Where to Stay & Eat A room for the night will be less expensive than in other gateway towns, typically from $60 to $120 a night. The Soda Butte Lodge, 209 Main St. (www.cookecity.com; 406/838-2251), is the biggest motel in Cooke City, with doubles for $80 to $90 and suites for $120, and it includes the Prospector Restaurant and a small casino; or you can go to the Alpine Motel, 105 Main St. (www.cookecityalpine.com; 888/838-1190 for reservations, or 406/838-2262), with doubles for $78 to $85 and suites for $120. The newest property is a woodsy Super 8, 303 Main St. (www.cookecitysuper8.com; 877/338-2070 or 406/838-2070), with doubles for about $100. For a bite to eat and a great selection of beers, try the funky Beartooth Cafe ( 406/838-2475), also on Main Street. I also like the sandwiches and barbecue plates at Buns ’N’ Beds, 201 Main St. ( 406/838-2030). In Silver Gate, the Log Cabin Café and B&B ( 406/838-2367) is a rustic-meets-refined eatery specializing in trout dinners.

Just the Facts

Before You Go

To obtain maps and information about the park prior to arrival, contact Yellowstone National Park, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190 (www.nps.gov/yell; 307/344-7381). Information regarding lodging, some campgrounds, tours, boating, and horseback riding in Yellowstone is available from Yellowstone National Park Lodges, operated by Xanterra Parks & Resorts, P.O. Box 165, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190 (www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com; 866/439-7375 or 307/344-7311). For information regarding educational programs at the Yellowstone Association Institute, contact Yellowstone Association, P.O. Box 117, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190 (www.yellowstoneassociation.org; 406/848-2400). The association operates bookstores in park visitor centers, museums, and information stations, and the old Lamar Buffalo Ranch in the park’s northeast corner is the Institute’s primary campus. They also have a catalog of publications you can download from the website or order by mail.

Getting There

If interstate highways and international airports are the measure of accessibility, then Yellowstone is as remote as Alaska’s Denali National Park or the Serengeti Plains of Africa. But three million people make it here every year, on tour buses, in family vans, on bicycles, and astride snowmobiles, even from the other side of the world.

The closest airport to Yellowstone is in West Yellowstone, Montana, which sits just outside the park’s west entrance. For information on flying into West Yellowstone, see “West Yellowstone.”

Visitors can reach the park from the south by flying into Jackson, Wyoming (only 14 miles from the southern entrance to Grand Teton), then driving 56 miles through Grand Teton to the southern entrance of Yellowstone. American Airlines, Delta/SkyWest, Frontier, and United all have flights to and from Jackson Hole Airport (www.jacksonholeairport.com; 307/733-7682).

To the north, Bozeman, Montana, is 87 miles from the West Yellowstone entrance on U.S. Hwy. 191. Or you can drive east from Bozeman to Livingston, a 20-mile journey on I-90, and then south 53 miles on U.S. Hwy. 89 to the northern entrance at Gardiner. Bozeman’s airport, Gallatin Field (www.gallatinfield.com; 406/388-8321), provides daily service via Alaska, Allegiant, Delta, US Airways, and United, as well as Horizon and Frontier.

Also to the north, Billings, Montana, is 129 miles from the Cooke City entrance. Billings is home to Montana’s busiest airport, Logan International (www.flybillings.com; 406/247-8609), which is 2 miles north of downtown. Daily service is provided by Allegiant, Delta, Frontier, Horizon, and United. From Billings, it’s a 65-mile drive south on U.S. Hwy. 212 to Red Lodge and then 30 miles on the Beartooth Highway to the northeast entrance to the park.

From Cody, Wyoming, it’s a gorgeous 53-mile drive west along U.S. Hwy. 14/16/20 to the east entrance of the park. Cody’s Yellowstone Regional Airport (www.flyyra.com; 307/587-5096) serves the Bighorn Basin, as well as the east and northeast entrances of Yellowstone National Park, with year-round commercial flights via Delta/SkyWest and United.

Airfares to the small airports surrounding the parks can be pricey, so if you like to drive, consider flying in to Salt Lake City, Utah, and driving about 300 miles to Grand Teton National Park, a drive that has some nice scenic stretches. Even Denver, a drive of roughly 500 miles, is an alternative, although the route is not nearly as scenic. Most of the major auto-rental agencies have operations in the gateway cities.

Access/Entry Points

Yellowstone has five entrances. The north entrance, near Mammoth Hot Springs, is located just south of Gardiner, Montana, and U.S. 89. In the winter, this is the only access to Yellowstone by car.

The west entrance, just outside the town of West Yellowstone on U.S. 20, is the closest entry to Old Faithful. Inside the park, turn south to see Old Faithful or north to the Norris Geyser Basin. This entrance is open to wheeled vehicles April through November, and during the winter to snowmobiles and snowcoaches.

The south entrance, on U.S. 89/191/287, brings visitors into the park from neighboring Grand Teton National Park and the Jackson area. As you drive north from Jackson, you’ll get a panoramic view of the Grand Tetons. Once in the park, the road winds along the Lewis River to the south end of Yellowstone Lake, at West Thumb and Grant Village. It is open to cars May through November and to snowmobiles and snowcoaches December through March.

The east entrance, on U.S. 14/16/20, is 52 miles west of Cody, Wyoming, and is open to cars May through September and to snowmobiles and snowcoaches December through March. The drive up the Wapiti Valley and over Sylvan Pass is especially beautiful.

The northeast entrance, at Cooke City, Montana, is closest to the Tower-Roosevelt area, 29 miles to the west. This entrance is open to cars year-round, but beginning on October 15, when the Beartooth Highway closes, until around Memorial Day, the only route to Cooke City is from Gardiner through Mammoth Hot Springs. When it’s open, the drive from Red Lodge to Cooke City is a grand climb into the clouds.

Regardless of which entrance you choose, when you enter the park, you’ll be given a good map and up-to-date information on facilities, services, programs, fishing, camping, and more.

Note: Check road conditions before entering the park by calling for a road report ( 307/344-7381). There always seems to be major road construction in one part of the park or another, so be forewarned.

Visitor Centers & Information

There are five major visitor and information centers in the park, and each has something different to offer. Unless otherwise indicated, summer hours are daily from 8am to 7pm.

The Albright Visitor Center ( 307/344-2263), at Mammoth Hot Springs, is the largest and is open daily, year-round. It provides visitor information and publications about the park, has exhibits depicting park history from prehistory through the creation of the National Park Service, and also houses displays on wildlife.

The Canyon Visitor Education Center ( 307/344-2550), in Canyon Village, completed in 2007, is the place to go for books and an informative display about the park’s geology, with a focus on the underlying volcanism. It’s staffed with friendly rangers used to dealing with crowds and open 8am to 8pm daily in summer.

The state-of-the-art Old Faithful Visitor Education Center ( 307/344-2751) opened in 2010, showing a film on Yellowstone’s thermal features throughout the day and featuring exhibits focusing on the park’s geysers and other thermal features. You’ll also find projected geyser-eruption times here, making it a good first stop for those looking to see Old Faithful do its thing. It’s open in summer 8am to 8pm.

The Fishing Bridge Visitor Center ( 307/344-2450), near Fishing Bridge on the north shore of Yellowstone Lake, has an excellent display that focuses on the park’s bird life. You can get information and publications here as well.

The Grant Visitor Center ( 307/344-2650) has information, publications, a video program, and a fascinating exhibit that examines the role of fire in Yellowstone.

Park literature and helpful staff are also found at several small information stations: the Madison Information Station ( 307/344-2876; summer daily 9am–6pm), home of the Junior Ranger Station; the Museum of the National Park Ranger (no phone; summer daily 9am–5pm) and the Norris Geyser Basin Museum and Information Station ( 307/344-2812; summer daily 9am–6pm), both at Norris; the West Thumb Information Station ( 307/344-2650; summer daily 9am–5pm); and the West Yellowstone Visitor Information Center, 100 Yellowstone Ave. ( 307/344-2876; summer daily 8am–8pm, limited hours the rest of the year). In Gardiner (but also within Yellowstone boundaries) is the Yellowstone Heritage and Research Center ( 307/344-2664), housing a library, archives, and other resources available to the public. It is open 9am to 4pm year-round but is not equipped to handle standard visitor inquiries.

Fees & Permits

Entrance for up to 7 days costs $25 per vehicle and covers both Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. A snowmobile or motorcycle pays $20 for 7 days, and visitors on bicycles, on skis, or on foot pay $12. You can buy an annual permit for $40, but the various national park passes are the best deal.

Backcountry Permits Backcountry permits are free, but you have to have one for any overnight trip, on foot, on horseback, or by boat. Camping is allowed only in designated campsites, many of which are equipped with food-storage poles to keep wildlife away. These sites are primitive and well situated, and you won’t feel at all like you’re in a campground. If designated campsites in a particular area have already been reserved, you’re out of luck. So while you can make a reservation as few as 48 hours before beginning a trip, you would be wise during peak season to make a reservation well in advance (you can contact the park for reservations for the upcoming year beginning Apr 1), although it costs $20. The Yellowstone Backcountry Office (P.O. Box 168, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190) will send you the useful “Backcountry Trip Planner” brochure with a detailed map showing where the campsites are; it is also available online as a PDF (see www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/backcountrytripplanner.htm). Call the office for more information at 307/344-2160.

Pick up your permit in the park within 48 hours of your departure, at one of the following visitor ranger stations any day of the week during the summer: Bechler, Canyon, Mammoth, Old Faithful, Tower, West Entrance, Grant Village, Lake, South Entrance, and Bridge Bay. Boating permits for motorized craft can be obtained at only the last four ranger stations.

Boating Permits Any vessels used on park waters must have a permit. For motorized craft, the cost is $20 for annual permits and $10 for a 7-day pass. Fees for nonmotorized boats are $10 for annual permits and $5 for 7-day permits. Rivers and streams are closed to boats of any kind, except for the stretch of the Lewis River between Lewis and Shoshone lakes, which is restricted to hand-propelled craft. Coast Guard–approved personal flotation devices are required for each person boating.

Fishing Permits Permits are required for anglers 16 and over; the permit costs $15 for 3 days, $20 for 7 days, and $35 for the season. Youths 12 to 15 years of age also must have a permit, but it’s free. Children 11 and under may fish without a permit. Permits are available at any ranger station, visitor center, and Yellowstone General Store, along with most fishing shops in the gateways. The season usually begins on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend and continues through the first Sunday in November. Exceptions to this rule are Yellowstone Lake, its tributaries, and sections of the Yellowstone River. In the search for ecological equilibrium, the regulations have two key wrinkles: Any nonnative lake trout caught within the park must not be released alive, and cutthroat trout are catch-and-release only.

Regulations

You can get more detailed information about these rules from a park ranger, at a park visitor center, or at the park’s website (www.nps.gov/yell).

Bicycles Bicycles are not allowed on the vast majority of the park’s trails or any of the boardwalks, but the park is a popular destination for pavement cyclists. Because of the narrowness of park roads and the presence of large recreational vehicles with poor visibility, it’s recommended that you wear helmets and bright clothing. There are some designated off-pavement bicycling areas; contact the park for more information.

Camping In any given year, a person may camp for no more than 30 days in the park, and only 14 days during the summer season. Food, garbage, and utensils must be stored in a vehicle or container made of solid material and suspended at least 10 feet above the ground when not in use.

Climbing Because of the loose, crumbly rock in Yellowstone, climbing is discouraged throughout the park and prohibited in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

Defacing Park Features It’s illegal to pick wildflowers or collect natural or archaeological objects. Only dead-and-down wood can be collected for backcountry campfires.

Firearms Firearms are allowed in Yellowstone National Park. Those in possession of a firearm must have a legal license, and they are prohibited in marked facilities.

Littering Littering in the national parks is strictly prohibited—remember, if you pack it in, you have to pack it out. Throwing coins or other objects into thermal features is illegal.

Motorcycles Motorcycles, motor scooters, and motorbikes are allowed only on park roads. No off-road or trail riding is allowed. Operator licenses and license plates are required.

Pets Pets must be leashed and are prohibited in the backcountry, on trails, on boardwalks, and in thermal areas. If you tie up a pet and leave it, you’re breaking the law.

Smoking There is no smoking in thermal areas, visitor centers, ranger stations, or any other posted public areas.

Snowmobiling Yellowstone’s latest winter use plan limits snowmobiles entering the park to 318 a day and requires a licensed guide for all trips. Snowmobilers must have a valid driver’s license, stay on the designated unplowed roadways, and obey posted speed limits.

Swimming Swimming or wading is prohibited in thermal features or in streams whose waters flow from thermal features in Yellowstone. (Two exceptions: Boiling River near Mammoth, where visitors can take a warm soak between daybreak and dusk except during spring runoff, and the swimming hole in Firehole Canyon.) Swimming in Yellowstone Lake is discouraged because of the low water temperature and unpredictable weather. Bathing suits are required.

Wildlife It is unlawful to approach within 300 feet of a bear or within 75 feet of other wildlife. Feeding any wildlife is illegal. Wildlife calls such as elk bugles or other artificial attractants are forbidden.

Impressions

[W]e beheld one of the grandest displays of the kind we had ever beheld—a perfect geyser—an immediate volume of clear, hot water projected into the air one-hundred and fifty vertical feet, attended with dense volumes of steam rising upward for many hundred feet, and floating away in clouds . . .

–Edwin Stanley, from Rambles in Wonderland, 1878

When to Go

During the quiet “shoulder” seasons of spring and fall, there are more bison and elk around than autos and RVs. Before the second week in June, you’ll be rewarded by the explosion of wildflowers as they begin to bloom, filling the meadows and hillsides with vast arrays of colors and shapes. After that, roads become progressively busier. Traveling before peak season has economic advantages as well, since rates at gateway-city motels are lower, as are the costs of meals. After Labor Day weekend, crowds begin to thin again and the roads become less traveled. In addition to improved wildlife and fishing conditions in some areas, the fall foliage transforms the area to a calendar-quality image.

In the winter, Yellowstone has a storybook beauty, as snow and ice soften the edges of the landscape and shroud the lumbering bison. Geyser basins appear even more dramatic, the frigid air temperature in stark contrast to the steaming, gurgling waters. Nearby trees are transformed into eerie “snow ghosts” by frozen thermal vapors. Wildlife clusters at the thermal areas to take advantage of the softer ground and more accessible vegetation. Lake Yellowstone’s surface freezes to an average thickness of 3 feet, creating a vast ice sheet that sings and moans as the huge plates of ice shift.

The other winter sound is made by the herds of snowmobiles that roam the roads and are at the center of a contentious issue of late. (For more information on the snowmobile issue, see the box “Snowmobiling: To Ban or Not to Ban,” and the section “Snowmobiling,” above.)

You can also enter the park in snowcoaches, the tracked vehicles that deliver visitors to the beautifully rebuilt Old Faithful Snow Lodge and tour the park. From the lodge or Mammoth—which also stays open to cars during the winter—you can ski, snowmobile (assuming regulations still permit it), or visit the thermal areas. The only road within the park open for automobile traffic is the road between Mammoth Hot Springs and Cooke City through the Lamar Valley.

Seasons

Natives of the region describe weather in the Yellowstone ecosystem as predictably unpredictable. Because of the region’s high elevations and changing weather systems, the park is characterized by long, cold winters and short, though usually warm, summers.

The first sticking snows typically fall by November 1, and cold and snow may linger into April and May (and even June), though temperatures generally warm up by then. The average daytime readings during spring are 40°F to 50°F (4°C–10°C), gradually increasing to 60°F to 70°F (16°C–21°C) by early June. Yellowstone is never balmy, but temperatures during the middle of the summer are typically 75°F to 85°F (24°C–30°C) in the lower elevations, and are especially comfortable because of the lack of humidity. Even during the summer months, nights will be cool, with temperatures dropping into the low 40s (4°C–7°C). No matter how warm you expect it to be, it’s a good idea to bring a warm jacket, rain gear, and water-resistant walking shoes. And because this is high altitude, bring plenty of sunscreen and a wide-brimmed hat to protect yourself in the thin atmosphere. As summer thunderstorms are common, a tarp and an umbrella are also recommended.

During winter months, temperatures hover in the single digits, and subzero overnight temperatures are common. You should bring long underwear, heavy shirts (fast-drying synthetic fabrics, not cotton), vests and coats, warm gloves and hats, and warm, wicking socks. The lowest temperature recorded at Yellowstone was a dangerously chilly –66°F (–54°C) in 1933.

Avoiding the Crowds

One of the things you’ll discover when you venture down a trail is that the majority of Yellowstone’s three million annual visitors aren’t going to follow you. (Only about 10% of visitors wander beyond the trail heads.) Some are afraid of grizzly bears, some are in a hurry, and others just don’t want the exercise. Regardless, Yellowstone rewards those who expend a bit of shoe leather: A mere half-mile from the traffic jams, you’ll find few people and much better opportunities to smell the wildflowers.

If you really want a Yellowstone experience that’s all your own, head for the backcountry. This is some of the deepest, most exquisite wilderness in the country, and you definitely won’t be fighting a mob. While visitation at Yellowstone increases yearly, backcountry permits do not—they’ve actually declined a bit in the last 30 years. My favorite areas are the Thorofare region, in the park’s southeast corner at the headwaters of the Yellowstone River, and the shores of Shoshone Lake, the largest backcountry body of water in the Lower 48, but there’s so much wilderness here that it’s hard not to find views of your own.

Educational Programs

Yellowstone offers free ranger-led educational programs ★★ that will significantly enhance a visitor’s understanding of the area’s history, geology, and wildlife. Most programs run from early June through late September. Detailed information on location and times is listed in the park newsletter, which is distributed at the entrance gates. On a more informal basis, you’ll run into ranger-naturalists roaming the geyser basins and along the rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and in areas where wildlife gather in both parks, leading informative walks and answering the questions of inquisitive visitors.

Evening campfire programs are presented nightly in the summer at Mammoth, Norris, Madison, Bridge Bay, Grant, and Canyon. Many of these activities are accessible to those with disabilities. It’s a good idea to bring a flashlight, warm clothing, and rain gear. Rangers also conduct walking, talking, and hiking programs throughout the park, including half-day “Adventure Hikes” that are free but require reservations that can be made at each visitor center.

As one would expect, there are quite a few programs in the Old Faithful area. The topics of the guided walks, which can run as long as 1 1/2 hours, usually focus on the geysers, their fragile plumbing, and their role in the Yellowstone ecosystem. There is an outdoor talk in the visitor center’s amphitheater in the evening.

Beginning in June, daily hikes in the Canyon area skirt along the rim of the Grand Canyon; a ranger talk on the art inspired by the falls is held several times a day at the lower platform of Artist Point. An explanation of the origins of the hot pools and mud pots is conducted twice daily beginning in June as part of a walk of the Lakeshore area of the West Thumb Geyser Basin. The Lake Village/Fishing Bridge agenda includes walking tours of the Mud Volcano area and the shores of Yellowstone Lake. There is an afternoon “Featured Creature” talk at the Fishing Bridge Visitor Center about such wildlife as grizzlies and wolves, and a discussion concerning the native cutthroat is held on the west end of the Fishing Bridge.

Mammoth Hot Springs is host to several interesting ranger-led programs, including talks on the park’s natural and cultural wonders and a historical tour of the original site of Fort Yellowstone, established more than 100 years ago. There is also a guided tour of the hot springs terraces. The hottest, most dynamic, and oldest geyser basin in the park is at Norris, where a popular 1 1/2-hour tour begins at the Norris museum on a daily basis, in season.

Many changes are made annually in these presentations; consult the park newsletter that is distributed at the entrance gates for the current calendar.

Astronomers from the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana, often bring their telescopes and stories to a series of stargazing sessions throughout the park—contact the museum at 406/994-3466 for a schedule.

The Yellowstone Association Institute ★★★ (www.yellowstoneassociation.org/institute; 406/848-2400) offers a slew of guided classes, from daylong hikes to multiday backcountry adventures, often with a historical or scientific bent. Participants can bunk in cabins at the historic buffalo ranch in Lamar Valley or above Gardiner at the new Overlook Field Campus, featuring cabins with shared kitchens and a commanding view. The Institute has teamed with Yellowstone National Park Lodges to offer visitors days spent exploring trails with guides and nights at the comfortable lodgings throughout the park. These Lodging & Learning packages are excellent options for those who want to delve into the park without too much of the traditional “roughing it.” Rates are about $250 per person per day and include box lunches, breakfast, and in-park transportation. Contact Xanterra Parks & Resorts (www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com; 866/439-7375).

In September, the Institute takes over Roosevelt Lodge with the Roosevelt Rendezvous, a series of 4-day educational experiences with a daily menu of different field trips led by park experts. There are also evening programs. Rates start at $729 per person, which includes tuition, a cabin, and three meals a day.

Services & Supplies

Independent of Xanterra, Yellowstone General Stores is the concessionaire behind the bulk of the park’s retail operations. The company operates stores throughout the park, including Old Faithful, Mammoth Hot Springs, Lake, Fishing Bridge, and Grant Village, which feature gift shops, grocery supplies, and soda fountains. Depending upon the location, you may find a limited supply of fresh veggies and canned goods (as at the Canyon store), plus fishing supplies, souvenirs, and, of course, ice cream. Service stations are located at major visitor areas: Old Faithful, Canyon, Mammoth Hot Springs, and Grant Village. Exact locations of all services and stores are listed in the park newspaper you receive at the entrance gates.

If you have medical problems while visiting the park, Yellowstone Park Medical Services provides help at the Lake Hospital ( 307/242-7241), an acute-care facility; the Old Faithful Clinic ( 307/344-7325); and the Mammoth Clinic ( 307/344-7965), the only year-round facility of the three.

Organized Tours & Activities

A number of tour companies offer bus and van tours of the park originating in gateway communities: Yellowstone Alpen Guides (www.yellowstoneguides.com; 800/858-3502) takes travelers around the park from West Yellowstone; rates run about $50 per person for a 4-hour tour. Salt Lake City–based AdventureBus (www.adventurebus.com; 888/737-5263) takes groups to Yellowstone and Grand Teton between June and August; weeklong tours run about $1,000 per person. I highly recommend Escape Adventures (www.escapeadventures.com; 800/596-2953), which offers supported 6-day road-biking tours of Yellowstone and Grand Teton for about $1,500 if you camp or $2,300 if you stay in the park’s accommodations. If you are looking for specialized guided trips—such as photo safaris—contact the chambers of commerce in the gateway community where you want to begin.

Within the park, the hotel concessionaire, Yellowstone National Park Lodges (www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com; 866/439-7375), has a variety of general and specialized tours. Five different motorcoach tours are available from all of Yellowstone’s villages. For $66 adult ($33 kids 3–11), you can explore the Circle of Fire (Old Faithful, Yellowstone Lake, the Hayden Valley), or you can do the Yellowstone in a Day tour. These are full-day tours, with stops at all the sights and informative talks by the guides. Eight restored Old Yellow Buses that roamed the Yellowstone roads here in the first half of the 20th century are today back in service for Xanterra. Tours in the buses range from 1 to 5 hours ($26–$85). Other specialty trips include custom van tours, photo safaris, wildlife trips up the Lamar Valley, and Yellowstone Lake sunset tours.

At Bridge Bay Marina, 1-hour “Scenicruises” ( 877/439-7375) depart throughout the day from June to the end of September for a trip around the northern end of giant Yellowstone Lake. You view the Lake Yellowstone Hotel from the water and visit Stevenson Island while a guide fills you in on the history, geology, and biology. Fares are $15 for adults and $9 for children ages 2 to 11. Guided fishing trips on 22-foot and 34-foot cabin cruisers are also available at Bridge Bay ($160 and $200 for 2 hr., respectively), and you can rent smaller outboards and rowboats.

Buses are replaced in the winter by snowcoach tours. These are closer in size to a van than a bus, mounted on tank treads with skis in front for steering. The snowcoach can pick you up at the south or west entrances, or at Mammoth, and take you all over the park. You can spend a night at Old Faithful and then snowcoach up to Mammoth the next night, or do round-trip tours from the gates or wherever you’re staying in the park. One-way and wildlife-watching trips are $57 to $70 for adults and $29 to $35 for kids 3 to 11. Yellowstone Alpen Guides (www.yellowstoneguides.com; 800/858-3502) offers snowcoach trips and tours from West Yellowstone for $115 per person and up.

Guided horseback trail rides lasting from 1 to 2 hours are available at Roosevelt Lodge and Canyon Village. Children must be at least 8 years old and 48 inches tall; adults cannot exceed 240 pounds. Tour prices are $38 for a 1-hour ride and $58 for a 2-hour ride (no discount for children). Check any activity desk for times and dates. Reservations are recommended and can be made at Xanterra Parks & Resorts activity centers in the hotels, although not before you leave home.

For Travelers with Disabilities

In recent years, both parks have become increasingly user-friendly for travelers with disabilities. People who are blind or who have permanent disabilities can obtain an Interagency Access Pass, which costs nothing and allows lifetime access to all national parks and other federal fee areas. All passes are available at any entrance point to Yellowstone or Grand Teton. The Interagency Access passes must be obtained in person.

Wheelchair-accessible accommodations are located in the Dunraven and Cascade lodges and Western cabins at Canyon Village; in Grant Village; in the Old Faithful Inn and Snow Lodge and Cabins; and in the Lake Yellowstone Hotel. For a free Visitors Guide to Accessible Features in Yellowstone National Park, write to the Park Accessibility Coordinator (www.nps.gov/yell; 307/344-2314), P.O. Box 168, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190, or pick up the guide at the gates or visitor centers. There are wheelchair-accessible campsites at Fishing Bridge, Bridge Bay, Madison, Canyon, and Grant campgrounds, which you can reserve by calling 307/344-7311.

Wheelchair-accessible restrooms with sinks and flush toilets are located at all developed areas except West Thumb and Norris. Wheelchair-accessible vault toilets are found at West Thumb and Norris, as well as in most scenic areas and picnic areas.

Many of Yellowstone’s roadside attractions, including the south rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, West Thumb Geyser Basin, much of the Norris and Upper Geyser basins, and parts of the Mud Volcano and Fountain Paint Pot areas, are negotiable by wheelchair.

Visitor centers at Old Faithful, Grant Village, and Canyon are wheelchair-accessible, as are the Norris Museum and the Fishing Bridge Visitor Center. The Albright Visitor Center at Mammoth is also accessible via a rear entrance.

Wheelchair-accessible parking is available at Old Faithful, Fishing Bridge, Canyon, Norris, and Grant Village, although you’ll have to look for it; at some locations, it is near a Yellowstone General Store.

A Park Primer

A Brief History

A trip to Yellowstone has changed considerably since the days of George Cowan: When he visited the park in 1877, he set a new standard for “roughing it.” Cowan was kidnapped from his horse-packing camp and shot by the Nez Perce Indians, then subsisted on roots and coffee grounds as he dragged his paralyzed body for days through the wilderness.

Let’s just say the United States government had a bit to learn about how to run the world’s first national park. It still does, but it’s getting better all the time. For more than 125 years, the National Park Service has been directing traffic at this complex intersection of wilderness and tourism, juggling the protection of powerful natural wonders while allowing for civilized comforts. And if anyone complains that the roads are potholed or the coffee is cold . . . well, George Cowan would not be sympathetic.

Yellowstone was never known as a hospitable place. Nomadic Indian bands crossed the plateau but never settled there, except for a small group of Shoshone known as “Sheep Eaters.” The first white explorer to lay eyes on Yellowstone’s geothermal wonders was probably John Colter, an explorer who broke away from the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1806 and soon found himself wandering through a surreal landscape of mud pots and geysers. When he described his discovery on his return to St. Louis, no one believed him, and he settled down to life as a farmer. Later, miners and fur trappers followed in his footsteps, occasionally making curious reports of a sulfurous world still sometimes called “Colter’s Hell.”

The first significant exploration of what would become the park took place in 1869, when a band of Montanans led by David Folsom completed a 36-day expedition. Folsom and his group traveled up the Missouri River, then into the heart of the park, where they laid eyes on the falls of the Yellowstone, mud pots, Yellowstone Lake, and the Fountain Geyser. But it was an 1871 expedition led by U.S. Geological Survey Director Ferdinand Hayden that brought back astonishing photographs of Yellowstone’s wonders by William Henry Jackson.

Crude health spas and thin-walled “hotels” went up near the hot springs. A debate soon followed over the potential for commercial development and exploitation of the region. Many people take credit for the idea of creating the national park—members of the Folsom party later told a story about thinking it up around a campfire in the Upper Geyser Basin. In any case, the idea caught on as Yellowstone explorers hit the lecture circuit back East. In March 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed legislation declaring Yellowstone a national park.

No one had any experience in managing a wilderness park, and many mistakes were made: Superintendents granted favorable leases to friends with commercial interests in the tourism industry; poachers ran amok, decimating the wildlife population; a laundry business near Mammoth cleaned linens in the hot pool.

By 1886, things were so bad that the army took control of the park; its firm-fisted management practices resulted in new order and protected the park from those intent upon exploiting it, although the military participated in the eradication of the plateau’s wolf population. By 1916, efforts to make the park more visitor-friendly began to bear fruit: Construction of the first roads had been completed and guest housing was available in the area. Stewardship of the park was then transferred to the newly created National Park Service.

wildlife & Where to Spot It

Biologists consider Yellowstone one of the most important wildlife habitats in the world. You’ll find all sorts of creatures here, from the dramatic bald eagle to the less-publicized reptiles of the thermal areas. What particularly distinguishes this collection of wildlife is that the elk, bison, and all their brethren are free-roaming.

Bison (buffalo) are right at home here, wandering along the main thoroughfares without much regard for their human spectators. They are easy to view in the summer months, often seen munching grass, wallowing in dust pits, and even wrestling sumo-style for mates in the Lamar, Hayden, and Pelican valleys; the Bechler River area; and in the geyser areas near the Firehole River. Caution: They have poor eyesight and cranky dispositions, and, like moose, they can move with sudden speed (up to 35 mph) to batter anyone who invades their personal space.

Biologists have trouble agreeing on how many bears there are in Yellowstone, but most will acknowledge that their numbers are on the rise. (However, car–bear accidents are on the rise as well.) Their food supplies seem to have stabilized a bit with the wolf reintroduction (more carcasses) and pro-cutthroat fishing regulations. In the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, there are probably about 1,000 black bears and 600 grizzlies, but estimates vary. Grizzlies were delisted as an endangered species in 2007, but conservationists argued the move was premature, and they were relisted in 2010.

Decades ago, bears foraged in open-pit garbage dumps near the lodges, or tourists hand-fed bears who begged along the park roads. When the dumps were closed in the 1970s and bear feeding was prohibited, the population of bears plummeted. Diminishing habitat around the park also had an impact. However, bears are creative omnivores; they tend to gravitate toward elk and bison (either the very young or the very old) and wolf kills, but their diet has been assessed as being about three-quarters vegetarian.

Black bears are most commonly sighted in the spring, sometimes with cubs, in the Canyon, Tower, Madison, and Old Faithful areas, where they feed on green grass and herbs, berries, ants, and carrion. The more aggressive grizzly’s unpredictable behavior makes them the likely suspect in the rare instances of bear attacks on humans, but blacks have demonstrated that they also are capable in this regard.

Odds of seeing a grizzly are best during May and June, in the Lamar and Hayden valleys, before they retreat into the backwoods for the summer. Backcountry travelers often see bears in the remote Thorofare Country on the park’s southeast border, where bears (and avid anglers) journey to the Yellowstone River headwaters for the spawning cutthroat trout in the spring.

It is estimated that over 30,000 elk (wapiti) populate the entire ecosystem, although numbers have been on the decline in park boundaries in recent years, in large part because of predation by wolves. You should have no problem telling elk from deer or antelope by their size (typically 900 lb.); the males have large antler racks, chestnut-brown heads and necks, and a distinctive tan patch on their rumps. One herd can usually be located around Mammoth Hot Springs; others are often seen in the meadows between Old Faithful and Madison Junction.

During winter months, the northern Yellowstone herd heads to a winter grazing area near Gardiner as the southern herd descends to the National Elk Refuge near Jackson. Listen in the fall for the distinctive bugling of the males, a throaty gargle that slips into a piercing, high whistle.

Moose are grumpy loners and not very patient with the tourists. They usually appear in alder thickets and marshes around streams, particularly around Canyon and near Shoshone Lake in the backcountry. They are recognizable by their dark coats, massive antlers, and the fleshy dewlap that hangs beneath their necks like a bell. A moose is capable of traveling at 30 mph; cows will charge any perceived threat to a calf, and bulls become particularly ornery in the fall. Give them a wide berth.

The pronghorn, usually labeled antelope (though unrelated to the true African antelope), is often sighted grazing near the northern entrance to Yellowstone. These fleet and flighty animals have excellent vision, and they’ll take off at 45 mph when photographers try to get near. However, the park’s population of pronghorn has plummeted in recent years. The pronghorn is identified by its short black horns, tan-and-white body, and black accent stripes.

For a long time, the coyote has been the predator most often spotted by park visitors, but the arrival of wolves has taken its toll on the smaller canine. Coyotes may be seen alone or in small packs—they’re particularly visible in winter—with brown to gray coats that grow silvery after the snow falls. They prey on small animals like squirrels and rabbits, or larger ungulates like elk and deer that have grown old or ill. They’ll also scavenge the leftovers of other predators. Biologists estimate there are around 500 coyotes in the park. You’ll see them out in the open meadows of the Hayden Valley, and you might get lucky and see the interaction between wolves and coyotes in places like Slough Creek.

Gray wolves from Canada were reintroduced to the park in 1995. There are more than 1,500 wolves in the Northern Rockies today, but the number in the park dropped from about 175 to under 100 in 2011 due to a bout with distemper. The Lamar Valley is where they were first released, and patient observers at dawn and dusk can sometimes see them in the Lamar Valley. Look for park wolf guru Rick McIntyre—he’s there most of the summer—or one of the many dedicated wolf trackers on hand in springtime, and ask for advice, or check at the northeast gate or Mammoth Visitor Center for the best sighting opportunities.

The Park Today

It has long been difficult for park managers to both provide the public with a good vacation and protect the natural wonders of the parks. One challenge is to make the parks accessible to three million annual visitors, many with different, even contradictory, expectations of a wilderness excursion. This brings about the construction of new facilities and ongoing road maintenance and repair. At the same time, the parks are wild preserves, and the National Park Service must cope with the impact of six million feet on the forests, meadows, and thermal areas, as well as on the day-to-day lives of the millions of animals that inhabit the area.

It’s a tough balancing act. Some of the pivotal issues in the parks today include the impact of snowmobiles; the reintroduced wolves and the resulting livestock losses of ranchers in and around the parks; the inadequacy of the park’s infrastructure to cope with three million annual human visitors; invasive nonnative species, such as lake trout and zebra mussels; and the reduction of habitat surrounding the parks, coupled with a growing population of elk and bison seeking forage beyond park boundaries and possibly infecting domestic animals with a disease called brucellosis. And that’s the short list.

Possible solutions are often “too little, too late,” layering complex management strategies on an ecosystem that might do better if it were simply allowed to work things out naturally. The problem is, Grand Teton and Yellowstone have already been altered significantly by humans, so “natural” becomes a relative concept.

A good example is the reintroduction of a natural predator of the overpopulated elk: gray wolves, which were eliminated in the 1920s. These days, ranchland surrounds the parks, so the Defenders of Wildlife set up a trust to pay anyone who loses a calf to a wolf—and ranchers do because wolves haven’t read the management plan. And wolves from Yellowstone have migrated south into Grand Teton and beyond; besides the packs that den in and around the Gros Ventre area, a lone wolf was spotted at the Wyoming–Colorado border, and two others turned up dead in Colorado in 2004 and 2009.

Yellowstone’s artificial boundaries also cause problems for bison. The state of Montana now allows hunters to shoot bison when they stray outside the park. Ranchers fear bison because of brucellosis, a disease that, when transmitted to cattle, causes cows to abort fetuses. A full 1,400 animals were killed when they left the park for low country in Montana in 2008 (and several hundred animals in subsequent years), although so far there are almost no documented cases of bison infecting livestock.

As the park attracts more visitors (2010 and 2011 were record-setting years), there are more opportunities for human–animal interactions. 2011 proved to be a bad year, with two fatal grizzly attacks, the first such incidents in a quarter-century. And grizzlies are killed on a near-annual basis in car accidents, and park officials have euthanized numerous problem animals as well.

As for the proliferation of snowmobiles and cars, most agree that there must be changes as visitation continues to grow. Currently, snowmobilers flock to the park as soon as the snow starts falling and remain until late February. While the popularity of the sport has had a positive effect on the tourism industry in the gateways of West Yellowstone, Jackson, and Gardiner, park officials are studying the long-term environmental impact of the machines. In their opinion, the snowmobiles create their own types of problems. The machines are noisy, and engine emissions create air pollution, which some say presents a health hazard. While better technology has reined in the noise and smog to a large degree, the snowmobiles still share narrow trails with wildlife during months when the animals’ energy levels are depleted by bad weather and a lack of food. As a consequence, a 3-year phase-out of snowmobiles was agreed upon in 2000, but it was overturned before park policy could be changed. The compromise resulted in a quota system that limits the number of snowmobiles in the park to 318 per day and requires guides and best-available technology.

Then there’s the traffic issue. Park roads are narrow and twisty, so the intrusion of 30-foot-long motor homes and pickup trucks towing trailers creates congestion, especially during the peak summer months. There have been studies of transportation alternatives to unclog park roadways, even a costly monorail that would wind through Yellowstone, but no decisive action has been taken.

Recently, park scientists have battled to protect the native cutthroat trout in Yellowstone Lake from the impact of lake trout introduced by man. They have also recognized the enormous value of the microbes evolving in Yellowstone’s super-hot thermal areas, and scientists are using them in new technologies ranging from nano-circuitry to industrial bleaching products. As the world awakens to the accelerating loss of vital species in shrinking wild habitat, it becomes ever more imperative to find ways in which to preserve the relatively unspoiled ecosystems, like that of Greater Yellowstone.

Plant Life of the Park

The large mammals may be the stars of Yellowstone National Park, but flower lovers will find plenty to enjoy here among the park’s 1,200 native plants. Flowers and shrubs broadcast bright shades of blues, purples, yellows, and oranges throughout the park, providing a colorful accent to the forests and meadows.

The plateau’s volcanoes, fires, and glaciers have created a series of tumultuous changes that have had an enormous impact on plant life. At one site in the Lamar Valley, the inspection of petrified tree stumps exhumed by erosion resulted in the identification of 27 distinct layers of forests, one atop the other.

The plants have evolved with the ever-changing Yellowstone environment. Forests once populated with hardwoods, such as maple, magnolia, and sycamore, are now filled with conifers, the most common of which are pine, spruce, and fir. A smattering of cottonwood and aspen thrive in the cool park temperatures.

Vegetation zones tend to reflect altitude: Lower-elevation valleys tend to be dry and grassy, with sagebrush and few trees; forests of fir dominate between about 6,000 and 7,500 feet, followed by lodgepole pine stands and then spruce and more fir up to the timberline, with open meadows where wildflowers explode in the spring. At high elevations, shrubs and carpetlike vegetation take over, and you have to lean over to examine the tiny blossoms.

Attempts by park officials to manage the ecosystem have had an impact, too. Climax forests—a plant succession leading to conifers that create a shady canopy and block the growth of seedlings—had a prolonged reign in Yellowstone because of fire suppression, which contributed to the ferocity of fires in the dry summer of 1988. However, once the fires were allowed to burn, it became clear that fire was crucial in the life cycle of lodgepole pine. Since its cones release seeds only after a burn, many of the areas that were “ravaged” in 1988 are now carpeted by dense juvenile forests.

Seeing the Highlights

This is a wonderland you can return to again and again, sampling a different pleasure each time. All the sites mentioned here are easily accessible along the loop tours detailed in “Driving the Park.” The farther you get from the pavement, and the farther from July and August you schedule your visit, the more private your experience will be.

I’ve organized this list geographically, following the roadways that form a figure eight at the heart of the park. We’ll begin in the north, then move south, first along the east side, then the west. Get out the oversize map you receive at the gate or by mail, and follow along.

Mammoth Hot Springs

At the park’s north entrance, 5 miles south of Gardiner, Mammoth Hot Springs is home to spectacular limestone terraces, historic park buildings, and the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel. It’s one of the older park settlements, with stone buildings dating from the late 19th century, when the army was stationed here at Fort Yellowstone.

There are no geysers at Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces ★★, but this cascading staircase of hillside hot pools, among the oldest in the park, offers a boardwalk tour of gorgeous pastels in shades of white, yellow, orange, and green, the unintentionally artistic work of microscopic bacteria in the sediments. The mineral-rich springs constantly bubble to the surface, depositing travertine as the water cools in contact with the air. It’s a vivid illustration of the park’s unusual geological situation: a rare geologic hot spot of seismic activity in the middle of the continent, where molten rock nearly makes it to the earth’s surface.

Hot Springs hot spot

Once upon a time, travelers in Yellowstone bathed, cooked, and laundered their clothes in the hot springs, but such activities are illegal nowadays. There is one spot on the east side of the road to the north entrance, however, where the public is allowed to take a dip. Called Boiling River ★★, the hot springs here run into the Gardner River and create a series of temperature-graded (around 100°F/38°C) pools. This was once a late-night skinny-dipping secret, but you can’t do that anymore: There’s a parking lot, gate, and posted hours (daybreak to dusk, closed during times of high runoff). Regardless, this is just about the best possible way to cap off a day of touring and hiking: sitting in Mother Nature’s hot tub, surrounded by beautiful scenery.

Whether or not you spend the night at the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel—not the most distinguished lodging in the park, but it has historic character—you should drop by the Albright Visitor Center. This building once housed Fort Yellowstone’s bachelor officers, but you won’t find a pool table here today; rather, you’ll find displays on park history, wildlife and photography exhibits, helpful rangers dispensing advice, and numerous park publications and maps. For more information, call 307/344-2263.

Tower-Roosevelt Area

East of Mammoth Hot Springs, you enter a delicious mix of high plains, deep forest, and twisting rivers. Toward the northeast corner lies one of the most beautifully serene valleys in the Rockies, the Lamar Valley ★★★. This glacier-carved swath of grassy bottom and forested flanks sits apart from the vehicular chaos at the center of the park—a good thing, because the traffic here is not automobiles, but the bison, bears, wolves, and elk whose presence has earned the valley the nickname “The Serengeti of the United States.” If you continue east and leave Yellowstone via the park’s northeast entrance, you’ll be heading up to the spectacular views of the Beartooth Highway.

The area around the Tower-Roosevelt Junction was once a favorite spot of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. At Roosevelt Lodge, visitors can enjoy the kind of simple accommodations that fit the tastes of the Bull Moose himself: those with the rustic flavor of the Old West. This is the most relaxed of the park’s villages and a great place to take a break from the more crowded attractions. Get into the cowboy spirit by taking a guided trail ride, a stagecoach ride, or a wagon ride. You can skip the dining room and ride out for an Old West cookout, served from a chuckwagon to patrons who arrive by either horseback or wagon. The nearby 132-foot Tower Falls ★ is named for the looming volcanic pinnacles at its brink and provides an excellent photo opportunity. While in the area, take time to view the petrified forests on Specimen Ridge, where a wide variety of fossilized plants and trees date back millions of years. All things considered, Roosevelt is a great place to escape the hordes.

Farther south, Pelican and Hayden valleys are the two most prominent remnants of large, ancient lakebeds in the park. They are now vast, subalpine meadows, thriving with plant life that provides feed for sizable bison and elk populations. You might see a bear here, too.

petrified Wood

With so many hot pots, mountain peaks, geysers, and bison to gawk at, it’s not surprising that many visitors to Yellowstone miss some of the finest examples of petrified forest found anywhere. The trees were preserved, scientists believe, when their organic matter was replaced by volcanic material during one of the many eruptions on the plateau. Some of the tree trunks still stand, particularly in the Specimen Ridge area in the northeast area of the park, and they are a monument to the region’s warmer, swampier past: Sycamore, magnolias, and dogwoods are all preserved in stone. Check at the Tower Ranger Station for maps showing you where to find petrified wood. This is not a renewable resource: Don’t touch or take.

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River

Hayden Valley flanks the featured attraction of the park’s center: the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River ★★★, a colorful, 1,000-foot-deep, 24-mile-long gorge that some can’t resist comparing to its larger counterpart in Arizona. Okay, then: This canyon is greener, the water clearer, the air cooler, and it has two dramatic waterfalls, the big one taller than Niagara. As it drops through this gorge, the Yellowstone River in some places moves at 64,000 cubic feet of water per second.

Volcanic explosions and glaciers surging and receding shaped the canyon. The geological story is told in the canyon itself, where hard lava flows formed the lip of the falls next to softer quartz-rich rock that gave way, allowing the river to cut deeply through the layers of red, orange, tan, and brown hue. Plumes of steam pinpoint vents along the canyon’s rock spires, where viewing opportunities are extensive and varied. There are many hikes along and down into the canyon, which is 24 miles long and up to 1,200 feet deep, and you’ll be surprised at how few people you encounter away from the parking areas. Many do trek down to a view of the Lower Falls on Uncle Tom’s Trail ★★ (which is actually a 328-step staircase bolted to the canyon wall) from the South Rim, and a short path from a parking area for Upper Falls View also offers breathtaking views. Two other favorite trails are Inspiration Point and Artist Point; both are wheelchair accessible.

Canyon Village has a sprawling 1950s look, which puts off some visitors, but the architecture is starting to come back in vogue. It’s usually crowded, but you can find many useful services there, and some of the newer lodging is an improvement.

Norris Geyser Basin

If you travel south from Mammoth on the west side of the park, you pass some interesting rock formations, Obsidian Cliff and Roaring Mountain, before coming to Norris Geyser Basin ★★. Norris is not nearly as famous as the Mammoth terraces or the crowd of geysers around Old Faithful, but there’s a lot going on here, from the steaming pools of the Porcelain Basin to the eruptions of Echinus Geyser. If you’re the patient type, you can sit by the blowhole of Steamboat Geyser and hope that this, the largest of park geysers with a maximum height of 400 feet, will erupt. But be prepared to wait: It erupted eight times between 2000 and late 2009, but blew its top only twice during the preceding 12 years and not at all between 1911 and 1961. This is one of the hottest, most active thermal areas on the plateau, at the intersection of three faults in the earth’s crust; when they shift, new geysers pop up and old ones disappear. The Norris Geyser Basin Museum explains geothermal features, and the nearby Museum of the National Park Ranger tracks the history of the park’s stewards.

Old Faithful

About a quarter of the world’s geysers are crowded into hills, valleys, and riverbanks around Old Faithful ★★, where the hot pools and spouts are divided into three areas: the Lower, Midway, and Upper geyser basins. Here you’ll find burbling mud pots, radiant pools like Chromatic Spring, and geysers with a variety of tricks, from the angled shots of Daisy Geyser to the witches’ cauldron of Crested Pool.

But the grand old dame of geysers, the star of the show, is Old Faithful. Over the past 100 years, its eruptions have been remarkably consistent, blowing 15 to 23 times daily, with a column averaging about 134 feet and a duration of about 40 seconds. Recent seismic activity has elongated the intervals (to about 92 min.) between eruptions a tad, but it’s still the most predictable geyser in the world. Estimates posted at the visitor centers are give-or-take 10 minutes; if the last eruption was a long one, you might have to wait 2 hours for the next burst. (No big deal—there’s plenty else to see here.)

The new state-of-the-art Old Faithful Visitor Education Center ( 307/344-2751) opened in 2010, showing a film on Yellowstone’s thermal features throughout the day and featuring exhibits focusing on the park’s geysers and other thermal features. You’ll also find projected geyser-eruption times here, making it a good first stop for those looking to see Old Faithful do its thing. It’s open in summer 8am to 8pm.

A National Historic Landmark, the shingled, steep-roofed Old Faithful Inn was built of local stone and hand-hewn timber, including a pair of interior balconies above the lobby floor.

Yellowstone Lake

West of Old Faithful, over Craig Pass, or south of Canyon, through the wildlife-rich Hayden Valley, is gigantic Yellowstone Lake ★★, another natural wonder unique to Yellowstone. At 20 miles long, 14 miles wide, and more than 300 feet deep in places, it’s the largest lake on the continent above 7,000 feet in elevation. If you took a dip in the frigid water (not recommended), you could hardly guess that the caldera underneath the lake is filling with hot liquid magma, actually tilting the lake northward at a measurable pace. The caldera is the sunken remainder of a huge volcanic blast 600,000 years ago, and another about 700,000 years before that. Experts believe it’s due to blow again some time in the next 100,000 years—any day now, at least in geologic time. Volcanic underpinnings aside, grizzlies work the tributary streams in the spring when fish spawn (some campgrounds are closed), and lots of other wildlife congregate here, including moose and osprey.

The lake has long been a favorite fishing spot, but recent regulations have made cutthroat trout a catch-and-release species park-wide. This is part of a desperate attempt by park biologists to help the cutthroat come back against the planted Mackinaw or lake trout, which dine on small cutthroat and therefore are not to be released alive. You’ll see some big sailboats braving the quirky winds of the lake, and experienced paddlers may want to kayak or canoe into the south and southeast arms of the lake, which are closed to motorboats. These deep bays are true wilderness and great areas to fish and view wildlife. When you pick up a boating permit, you’ll also get a stern warning from rangers to watch out for the changeable weather if you get out on the lake’s open water. They’re right to urge caution; even the best paddlers risk their lives in a sudden afternoon storm.

Lake Village, on the north shore of the lake, offers a large range of amenities, including fine restaurants at either the rustic cabins at Lake Lodge or the Victorian majesty of Lake Yellowstone Hotel. This historic lodging has Greek columns and a spacious solarium overlooking the lake, the best place for a cocktail or a romantic dinner within park boundaries. It’s very different from the Old Faithful Inn, but a rival for its beauty and history. Just south of Lake Village is Bridge Bay Marina, the park’s water-activity center. Here you can obtain guided fishing trips, small-boat rentals, and dock rentals; there’s also a store and tackle shop.

West Thumb & Grant Village

On the south end of the lake, at West Thumb, the boiling thermal features extend out into the lake. You can see steaming cones and churning water created by the action of the underwater hot springs. Fishing Cone is rumored to be the place where fishermen once used the “hook and cook” method, immediately tossing their catch into a hot pot for instant meal preparation. Don’t try it—it’s illegal to drop anything into a thermal feature, and the geyser water has traces of mercury and arsenic. You can walk among the lakeshore pools at the Central Basin and look at the colorful, thick fudge of the Thumb Paint Pots.

Grant Village, named for President Ulysses S. Grant, was completed in 1984 and is the newest of Yellowstone’s villages. It has some of the most modern facilities in the park, but it’s also the least inspired. On the plus side, this area is a great vantage point for watching sunrises and afternoon squalls move across the lake, and you may see river otters and cutthroat trout in the old marina’s waters. (Come wintertime, the otters like to use holes melted by the underwater thermal features as base camps for ice-fishing escapades.) The Grant Visitor Center plays a video that explores the role of fire in the Yellowstone ecosystem.

Driving the Park

Yellowstone has approximately 370 miles of paved roads, and they are in a perpetual state of maintenance during the summer, with crews filling potholes, widening shoulders, and redoing some roads completely. The wear and tear of heavy RVs and trailers undoes the work as quickly as it’s done, and since road construction is limited to the warm months of summer, drivers often encounter delays along the park’s roads. If you travel in July or August, you’ll share these frustrations with a lot of other drivers. But you can see a surprising number of interesting sights along the figure-eight roadways at the heart of the park. You can take in both north and south loops—together known as the Grand Loop—in 1 day if a quick blink at each stop is enough for you. Better, though, to take your time, or explore different areas on different trips.

Winter road conditions

Be cautious if you’re planning a winter road trip to Yellowstone. Icy roads and blinding snowstorms take their toll every year. The park itself is largely closed to automobiles in the winter—only the northern entrance is open to wheeled vehicles. The road through Lamar Valley to the northeast gate is kept open to get essential supplies to Cooke City, but from there you can go no farther north into Montana because the Beartooth Highway is closed in winter. The rest of the park’s primary roads are open during the snowy months to snowcoaches and snowmobiles, along with bison, which find the packed roads convenient and think nothing of lolling along with a line of frustrated snowmobilers waiting for a chance to pass. For up-to-the-minute information on weather and road conditions, call 307/344-7381.

The Upper Loop

At 70 miles, the Upper Loop, which begins at the north entrance, is the shorter of the two loop drives. If you start by going east from Mammoth Hot Springs and the park headquarters, orient yourself at the Albright Visitor Center, then take in the Blacktail Plateau or rustic Roosevelt Lodge (a good place for lunch). If you’d prefer, take a side trip up the pretty Lamar Valley ★★★ for wildlife viewing at least as far as Slough Creek—checking out the views of Tower Falls and Mount Washburn (the highest point in the park)—and up Dunraven Pass to look out over the Mirror Plateau. Then head west from Canyon Junction to Norris Junction and north to the Norris Geyser Basin ★★, with pastel pools and a few burbles and spouts, and its fine museum. You’ll continue north past Roaring Mountain (a travertine cascade by the road; get out only if you have some extra time) and Obsidian Cliff (same advice), and then have dinner in the dining room at the historic Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel or the Park Street Grill in Gardiner, 5 miles north.

If you’re doing only the Upper Loop on this trip, you should include the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone ★★★ on your tour—it’s a short way south of Canyon Village, where the loop runs west to Norris.

The Lower Loop

The longer Lower Loop covers some of the more famous park landmarks in its 96-mile circuit. Beginning at the south entrance, you would join the loop at the West Thumb of Yellowstone Lake, an otherworldly shoreline of hot springs and mud pots. If you go east, the loop skirts the west shore of Yellowstone Lake to the handsome Lake Hotel at the north end, where the Yellowstone River outlet is spanned by Fishing Bridge. The route then encompasses the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Madison Junction, the Firehole Canyon Drive, the Lower Geyser Basin and the Fountain Paintpots, the Midway Geyser Basin, and the Upper Geyser Basin and stalwart Old Faithful, where you can top off the day with a meal at historic Old Faithful Inn or the relatively new Old Faithful Snow Lodge. Then head east over Craig Pass to the lake again.

Put the two loops together, and you’ve done the Grand Loop of approximately 166 miles. At its conclusion, you will have seen most of the major attractions in the park.

Out of the Loops: Entrances & Other Detours

Rapturous descriptions of the Lamar Valley ★★★ elsewhere in this guide should encourage you to take a run out of the park’s northeast entrance. The valley is wide and beautiful and alive, with elk and bison grazing by the river, and coyotes, wolves, and grizzly bears making guest appearances. Beyond the park gate, you’ll find Cooke City, a friendly little town, and then a switchback climb north on the Beartooth Highway, with its spectacular views.

Roads to the other entrances also have allure. If you head east along the north shore of Yellowstone Lake, you’ll begin climbing into Sylvan Pass, the 8,530-foot exit route that will take you through the east gate into the beautiful Wapiti Valley and eventually to the town of Cody (see chapter 13, “Cody & North-Central Wyoming”). The north and east shores of the lake have beaches where you can sun, swim, or begin a paddling journey to the remote southern corners of the lake. The south entrance road skirts Lewis Lake and follows Lewis River, where you’ll often see the graceful parabolas of fly-fishing lines at work. You’ll also see some of the stark handiwork of the 1988 fires. Similarly, areas along the west entrance road are still marked by the burned husks of trees; there are also peaceful views of the Madison River along this road.

There are also some trips off the main roads that are worth taking. Try the short Firehole Canyon Drive (just south of Madison Junction, head west on the one-way loop) for a look at Firehole Falls and a dip in the idyllic spring-warmed swimming hole a bit farther down the road. For a chance at sighting wolves, drive into Slough Creek in the Lamar Valley in the early morning or late afternoon. Drive across the Yellowstone River just south of Canyon Village and hike from majestic overlook to majestic overlook along the South Rim. Drive to the Mount Washburn picnic area off Dunraven Pass (elev. 8,859 ft.), and if you want to see a panorama of the entire caldera, hike 3 miles to the top of the 10,243-foot peak.

Summer Sports & Activities

Bicycling

Considering the vast expanse of real estate the park covers, the challenging terrain, and the miles of paved roads and trails, a cyclist could conclude that the park is a prime area for biking, on or off the roads.

It looks good on paper, but the reality borders on harrowing. The narrow and twisty roads have no bike lanes, so bikers continually fight for elbowroom with wide-bodied RVs and trailers. Off-road opportunities are limited because bikes are allowed on only a small number of trails.

Nevertheless, plenty of bicyclists take the challenge. The following trails are available to bikers, but know that you will share the roads with hikers. The Mount Washburn Trail, leaving from the Old Chittenden Road, is a strenuous trail that climbs 1,400 feet. The Lonestar Geyser Trail, accessed at Kepler Cascade near Old Faithful, is an easy 1-hour ride on a user-friendly road. Near Mammoth Hot Springs, Bunsen Peak Road and Osprey Falls Trails present a combination ride/hike: The first 6 miles travel around Bunsen Peak; getting to the top requires a fairly short (but fairly steep) hike. A round-trip hike down to Osprey Falls adds another 3 miles—and a steep climb back up—to the journey.

Bike rentals are available in West Yellowstone at FreeHeel and Wheel ( 406/646-7744), and in Jackson at Hoback Sports ( 307/733-5335).

Boating

The best place to enjoy boating in Yellowstone is on Yellowstone Lake, which has easy access and panoramic views. The lake is one of the few areas where powerboats are allowed; you can rent rowboats and outboard motorboats at Bridge Bay Marina ( 866/439-7375). Motorboats, canoes, and kayaks can be used on Lewis Lake (about 15 miles north of the south entrance).

Fishing

There are two primary types of anglers in Yellowstone. First are the fly casters, purists more interested in the artistry and seduction of fly-fishing than in keeping what they catch. There are stretches of the Yellowstone and Madison rivers where the anglers are packed tippet to tippet and the trout must be punch drunk from catch-and-release.

Then there are the powerboat fishermen who troll the deep waters of Yellowstone Lake. Seven varieties of game fish live in the parks: five trout species (cutthroat, rainbow, brown, brook, and lake), grayling, and mountain whitefish. Of the trout, only the cutthroat are native, and they are being pressured in the big lake by the larger lake trout. As a result, you can’t keep any pink-meat cutthroat caught in Yellowstone Lake, and you must keep any lake trout. These policies have diminished the number of fishing boats on Yellowstone Lake in recent years, but they’re necessary.

The Yellowstone fishing season typically opens on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend and ends on the first Sunday in November, except for Yellowstone Lake, which has a slightly shorter season, and the lake’s tributaries, which are closed until July 15 to avoid conflicts between humans and grizzly bears, both of which are attracted to spawning trout.

The required Yellowstone fishing permit is available at any ranger station, visitor center, or Yellowstone General Store in the park. Anyone 16 and older needs a fishing permit, which costs $15 for 3 days, $20 for 7 days, and $35 for the season. Fishers ages 12 to 15 also need a permit, but it’s free. Casters under 12 can fish without a permit when supervised by an adult.

In June, one of the best fishing spots is on the Yellowstone River downstream from Yellowstone Lake, where the cutthroat trout spawn; anglers head to Madison River near the west entrance in July and then again in late fall for rainbow and some brown trout; in late summer, the Lamar River and Soda Butte Creek in the park’s beautiful northeast corner are popular spots to hook cutthroats in September. You’ll find more isolation at Trout Lake, a small backcountry lake about 10 miles west of the northeast entrance.

You can fish the Yellowstone River below the Grand Canyon by hiking down into Seven Mile Hole, a great place to cast (thanks to the dearth of vegetation to snag on) for cutthroat trout from July to September, with the best luck around Sulphur Creek.

Other good fishing stretches include the Gibbon and Firehole rivers, which merge from the Madison River on the park’s west side, and the 3-mile Lewis River Channel between the Shoshone and Lewis lakes during the fall spawning run of brown trout.

There is an access for anglers with disabilities at the Madison River, 3 1/2 miles west of Madison Junction at the Haynes Overlook. Here you’ll find a fishing platform overhanging the river’s edge for 70 feet.

Horseback Riding

People who want to pack their gear on a horse, llama, or mule must either get permits to enter the Yellowstone backcountry or hire an outfitter with a permit (see below). Other visitors who want to get in the saddle but not disappear in the wilderness can put themselves in the hands of the concessionaire, Yellowstone National Park Lodges (www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com; 866/439-7375). Stables are located at Canyon Village and Roosevelt Lodge. Choices are 1- and 2-hour guided trail rides (the prices are $38 and $58, respectively) aboard well-broken, tame animals. Wranglers refer to these as “nose-and-tail” tours, and an experienced rider is likely to find them awfully tame.

If you’re looking for a longer, overnight horse-packing experience, contact the park and request a list of approved concessionaires who lead backcountry expeditions. Most offer customized, guided trips, with meals, horses, and camping and riding gear provided. Costs run from $250 to $500 per day, per person, depending on the length of the trip and number of people. One good outfitter is Rockin’ HK Outfitters (www.rockinhk.com; 307/333-4505), offering 3- to 10-day trips for about $450 per person, per day. Out of Bozeman, Greater Yellowstone Flyfishers (www.gyflyfishers.com; 406/585-5321) offers custom 3-day/2-night fly-fishing pack trips in the park.

Winter Sports & Activities

Yellowstone’s average snowfall of more than 10 feet every year—and 30 feet of the white stuff at higher elevations—provides the perfect backdrop for a multitude of winter activities. The north entrance remains open, so you can drive in from Gardiner for a day and drive back out. You can travel throughout the park by snowmobile or snowcoach and spend the night either at Mammoth or at the handsomely rebuilt Old Faithful Snow Lodge. For additional information on all of the following winter activities and accommodations, as well as snowcoach transportation and equipment rentals, contact Yellowstone National Park Lodges (www.gyflyfishers.com; 866/439-7375). There are also many activities, outfitters, and rental shops in the park’s gateway towns.

Cross-Country Skiing

The best cross-country trails in Yellowstone are the Howard Eaton Trail to Lonestar Geyser, a fairly level 8-mile round-trip through a remote setting, starting at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge, and the Fern Cascades Trail, which begins in the Old Faithful housing area on the south side of the road and winds for 3 miles through a rolling wooded landscape. Energetic skiers can tackle the 12-mile Mallard Lake Trail, though it may take them all day—it departs north of the Old Faithful Lodge area along the north side of the Upper Geyser Basin, then loops north and east to Mallard Lake and back to Old Faithful.

Equipment rentals (about $20 per day), ski instruction, ski shuttles to various locations, and guided ski tours are all available at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge and the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, the park’s two winter lodging options. Discounts are available for multiday rentals of skis or snowshoes. Ski instruction costs around $30 per person for a 1-hour private lesson; a full-day guided excursion costs $140 per person (lunch may or may not be included). Guided snowshoe trips are also available.

The Yellowstone Association Institute ★★★ ( 406/848-2400) offers winter courses throughout the park. Past offerings have included 3-day classes devoted to wintertime photography, cross-country skiing, and the ecology of wolf reintroduction. The institute’s faculty and staff are a knowledgeable and friendly bunch, and a class is one of the best ways to acquaint yourself with the park in any season.

Ice-Skating

The Mammoth Hot Springs ice rink is located behind the Mammoth Hot Springs Recreation Center. On a crisp winter’s night, you can rent a pair of skates (free) and glide across the ice while seasonal melodies are broadcast over the PA system. It’s cold out there, but there’s a warming fire at the rink’s edge. There is also an Old Faithful rink; rentals are likewise free. Call 866/439-7375 for more information.

snowmobiling: To Ban or Not to Ban?

During his final days in office, President Bill Clinton approved a ban on snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. In December 2003, a judge ruled that the ban would become effective in December 2004. It was a win for environmentalists, who argued that snowmobilers brought pollution, noise, and the destruction of natural habitat to the national parks. But hold on: In February 2004, that ban was overturned and another study commissioned, leaving the fate of snowmobiling in Yellowstone up in the air until the National Park Service announced a final winter use plan. New regulations have reduced the snowmobile quota from 720 per day to 318 per day. Additionally, over-snow travel on the Continental Divide Snowmobile Trail has been discontinued in Grand Teton National Park and the John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Memorial Parkway.

Snowmobilers have been allowed access to only certain roads, must be accompanied by a licensed guide, and must have a valid driver’s license. In addition, snowmobilers must travel in groups of 11 or fewer, including the licensed guide. There are also BAT (best available technology) requirements for most snowmobiles. Snowmobiles and cars are prohibited from 9pm to 7am. Road closings begin on March 7 and typically continue into April, when the winter season officially comes to an end.

Snowcoach Tours

It is possible to enjoy the sights and sounds of Yellowstone without raising a finger—except to write a check or sign a credit card voucher—by taking one of the scenic snowcoach tours that originate at the south and west entrances, as well as at Mammoth and Old Faithful. One-way and wildlife-watching trips range from about $30 to $70, while round-trips cost $120 to $140.

If you’ve never seen a snowcoach, you’re in for a treat. Don’t be fooled into thinking that this distinctively Yellowstone mode of transportation is merely a fancy name for a bus that provides tours during winter. Imagine instead an Econoline van with tank treads for tires and water skis extending from its front, and you won’t be surprised when you see this unusual-looking vehicle. The interiors are toasty warm, with seating for a large group, and they usually allow each passenger two bags. They aren’t the fastest, smoothest, or most comfortable form of transportation, but they do allow large groups to travel together, and they’re cheaper and warmer than snowmobiles. They’re also available for hire by groups at many snowmobile locations. Guides provide interesting and entertaining facts and stories of the areas as you cruise the park trails, and they give you opportunities to photograph scenery and wildlife.

For snowcoach information, contact Yellowstone National Park Lodges (www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com; 866/439-7375 or 307/344-7311). Out of West Yellowstone, Yellowstone Vacations (www.snowcoachyellowstone.com; 800/426-7669 or 406/646-9564) and Yellowstone Alpen Guides (www.yellowstoneguides.com; 800/858-3502 or 406/646-9591) provide service as well.

Snowmobiling

Roads that are jammed with cars during the summer fill up with snowmobiles and bison during the winter. In deference to the shaggier road warriors, moderate speed limits are strictly enforced, but this is still an excellent way to sightsee at your own pace. A driver’s license and guide are required for rental at Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel or Old Faithful Snow Lodge. Day tours from Xanterra ( 866/439-7375) cost about $275 for a single rider or $300 double; custom tours are also available but considerably more costly. A helmet is included with the snowmobile, and you can rent a clothing package for protection against the bitter cold. Warming huts are located at Mammoth, Indian Creek, Canyon, Madison, West Thumb, and Fishing Bridge. They offer snacks, a hot cup of coffee or chocolate, and an excellent opportunity to recover from a chill.

Snowmobile rentals are also available in the gateway communities of Gardiner and West Yellowstone, Montana, and south of Grand Teton in Jackson, Wyoming. Most rental shops accept reservations weeks in advance, so reserving at least 2 weeks ahead of time is a good idea. Plan on making reservations for the week between Christmas and New Year’s at least 6 months in advance.

Hiking

Getting your car snarled in one “wildlife jam” after another in pursuit of a glimpse of one of the park’s four-legged denizens is one way to enjoy the outdoors. Another is taking a hike, even a short one, because you’ll see a whole new side of the park. There are gentle hikes where you never lose sight of the road, moderate hikes where you might spend an afternoon penetrating the forest to visit a spot of secluded beauty, and overnight trips where you can hike and camp for days without seeing anyone but the people who embarked on the journey with you.

Part of the reason so few people hike and camp in the Yellowstone wilderness is fear of bears. Bear attacks are extremely rare and usually involve a sow protecting her cubs, but you should carry pepper spray, just in case; when you camp, secure your food and cooking gear in a tree well away from tents. Park rangers can advise you on current bear activity and safe practices. This is true wilderness, but if you equip yourself properly and learn proper techniques, you’ll be safer than you are on a city street. If you go into the backcountry, you need a permit (see “Where to Go & How to Reserve a Spot,” later), which also ensures that someone knows where you are.

For those who would rather sleep in a bed, there are still excellent day hikes that allow you to escape the crowd and view wildlife in its own habitat, take in the scenery, or climb a peak. Rangers at visitor centers can advise you on a hike to match your interests and abilities, and provide maps of the extensive trail system in the park. Besides a good map, always bring a good supply of water (and, if you can, a purifier or iodine pills) and rain gear.

Here is a small selection of good hikes, long and short. In addition to these individual hikes, the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) ★★★ links many of them together as part of a continuous trail from Mexico to Canada, roughly following the spine of the continent. The Yellowstone Backcountry Office maintains a guide to CDT trails. The Howard Eaton Trail system once went all through the park but was supplanted by the Grand Loop Road. Sections of the old trail are still maintained and will be found in trail guides, though some of them closely parallel park roads. For a more extensive list of trails and details than what follows here, pick up longtime ranger Mark C. Marschall’s excellent Yellowstone Trails (Yellowstone Association, $9.95) or the maps provided by the park.

Hikes Around Mammoth

The Beaver Ponds Loop Trail starts in Mammoth at Clematis Gulch (btw. Liberty Cap and an old stone Park Service residence) and makes a 5-mile loop to a series of beaver ponds, where your best chances of seeing the big-tailed beasts are early morning or afternoon. There are some good views coming and going, including Mount Everts. More ambitious hikers can link up with the Sepulcher Mountain Trail, which features hot springs, gardens of oddly shaped limestone boulders, and scenic views from the ridges of the Mammoth area. Be in shape for this one and bring a good map of the crisscrossing trail system, because you’ll cover at least 6 miles, depending on your route.

Nearby is the Bunsen Peak Trail ★★, a short but steep trip to the summit of this volcanic remnant, with a 1,300-foot gain in elevation. Make the hike early, and you can watch the morning sun strike Electric Peak, which glows with a golden hue. The 2.1-mile trail passes through mosaic burns from the 1988 fires, and when you get to the top, you’ll have a view from 3,000 feet above the Yellowstone Valley. After topping the peak, you can take an alternative route down Bunsen’s east side and come back along the Old Bunsen Peak Road Trail for a 6-mile round-trip. If you’re looking for more, hike the Osprey Falls Trail ★ and add 3 miles down a series of switchbacks for a great view of a 150-foot waterfall to the trek.

Hikes in the Tower-Canyon Area

The Tower Falls overlook is easy to get to; it’s only 300 feet from the Tower Falls parking area. Walk .5 mile more along some steep switchbacks, and you’ll be at the less crowded base of the falls for a stunning view. You can also hike 3.5 miles to the falls from Roosevelt Lodge, a good car-free choice if you happen to be staying there. Begin on the Lost Lake Trail and take a left when the trail forks .5 mile from the lodge.

Just south of Canyon Village, the Chittenden Bridge crosses from the Loop Road to the South Rim Road near the top of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. You can park and hike either the South Rim or North Rim trail, with spurs that drop steeply (but briefly) down to viewing platforms at the Upper and Lower falls. If you want a more complete and less crowded view of this deep gorge, take the 7-Mile Hole Trail (which is actually 5.5 miles long) along the north canyon rim. You’ll see the Silver Cord Cascade from the rim and then drop down to the river after a couple of miles in an area where the canyon widens enough for trees. There are some active hot springs along this hike. This is quite a drop (1,400 ft.), and hikers should be prepared for a fairly demanding climb out.

Across the road from Uncle Tom’s Trail parking area (the first parking area to the left after crossing the bridge to the South Rim) is the trail head for the Clear Lake/Ribbon Lake Loop Trail ★. The hike to Clear Lake is 1.5 miles, a gradual climb across a high plateau, and Ribbon Lake lies less than 2 miles beyond it. Bears are often active in this area early in the year, so check with rangers for current conditions before heading out. Views of the plateau improve with each footstep, until you find yourself surrounded by a panoramic view of the mountains surrounding the canyon area. During early and late spring, it’s a bit more difficult because snow runoff and rain can make trails wet and muddy, but that shouldn’t be an impediment to anyone interested in the spectacular views. Clear Lake itself is intimately small and gives you the opportunity to see subsurface activity of the thermal areas below the lake. On a circumnavigation of the lake along a trail, you will see and smell venting activity making its way to the surface; in some spots, the lake looks like a boiling pot. This trail also connects to the Howard Eaton Trail, an arduous 14-mile trail to Fishing Bridge and Yellowstone Lake.

The Mount Washburn Trail ★★★ falls into the “if you can only do one hike, do this one” category. It’s a short hike to panoramic views, with wildflowers decorating the way and nonchalant bighorn sheep often browsing nearby. Trail heads are located at the summit at Dunraven Pass (elev. 8,859 ft.) and on Old Chittenden Road, where there’s more parking available. Either hike is 6 miles round-trip, with an increase in elevation of 1,400 feet; however, the climbs are fairly gradual and interspersed with long, level stretches. From the summit, the park will lie before you like a map on a table: You’ll see the Absaroka Mountains to the east, Yellowstone Lake to the south, and the Gallatin Mountains to the west and north. In addition to sheep, you may see marmots and red fox; bears have also made use of the area in recent years. You’ll be climbing a summit that’s 10,243 feet, so pace yourself, and bring warm clothing to fend off the storms that often buffet the top. The hike to the summit is an easy 90-minute walk at a steady pace, which can stretch to 2 hours if you take time for breaks. There’s a day-use shelter in the base of the ranger lookout, with viewing telescopes and restrooms.

An Old Faithful secret

For a spectacular view of Old Faithful from above, take the Observation Point Trail ★, a 2-mile jaunt (beginning at the Old Faithful Visitor Center) that will take you by numerous thermal features on the other side of the Firehole River. Follow the Geyser Hill Trail across the river and then climb the switchbacks to the observation point to watch Old Faithful burst in relative solitude.

Hikes near Old Faithful

The popular trail to Lonestar Geyser covers a little more than 2 miles of mostly level terrain to the geyser, which rewards visitors with eruptions up to 50 feet tall every 3 hours. The trail follows the Firehole River from the Kepler Cascades parking area, with a forest canopy to keep it cool in the summer, widening now and then into broad riverbank meadows. The geyser erupts from a brown cone about 12 feet high and is surrounded by a meadow pocked by steam vents and thermal features. The path begins from a parking lot on the Old Faithful–West Thumb road just south of the Kepler Cascades. It’s partially paved to the geyser and open to bicyclists. If you want to try a less busy (and less scenic) route, take the Howard Eaton Trail just east of the Old Faithful overpass, 3 miles to the geyser. From the geyser, you can continue on—bicycles can’t—over Grants Pass to join the Bechler River Trail to Shoshone Lake.

From the Biscuit Basin parking lot, you can take a fine 3-mile round-trip hike to Mystic Falls, which fall 100 feet to the Firehole River. Continue up switchbacks to the top of the falls and beyond, and you’ll link up with the Little Firehole Meadows Trail to return to Biscuit Basin, with more views on the way. You can make this trip in less than 2 hours, with only a 460-foot elevation gain.

Fairy Falls plummets a more impressive 200 feet and can be reached by hiking 2.5 miles on the Fairy Falls Trail, which begins from the Old Faithful–Madison road just south of the Midway Geyser Basin parking area. Hikers who don’t mind a slightly longer haul (about 8 miles round-trip) will be rewarded with better wildlife-viewing opportunities by starting from the Imperial Meadows trail head a mile south of the Firehole River bridge on Fountain Flat Drive. The hike winds through an area populated by elk along Fairy Creek, then past the Imperial Geyser, where it joins the Fairy Creek Trail and travels east to the base of the falls. The total gain in elevation is only 100 feet. If you turn west instead, you’ll find an unmarked trail north to the Imperial Geyser.

Hikes near Yellowstone Lake

At the north end of the lake, the Pelican Valley Trail takes a loop north of the lake around an area loaded with elk, bison, sandhill cranes, trout, eagles, grizzlies, and the new kids on the block, wolves. You can take hikes of different lengths, up to a 16-mile loop, but a lot of folks, having had their fill of wildflowers and beasts, go no farther than Pelican Creek Bridge, a 7-mile round-trip. If you continue on, you’ll pass through forest and “bear meadows.” This is a daytime-only hiking area (9am–7pm), and it’s closed in the early summer until July 4 because of bear activity.

The Elephant Back Loop Trail ★ is an opportunity to get a bird’s-eye view of the island-dotted expanse of Yellowstone Lake, the Absaroka Mountains, and the Pelican Valley—and maybe a moose. It’s a great photo opportunity and a fairly easy 3.6-mile loop, beginning a mile south of Fishing Bridge Junction off the road to Lake Village.

You can walk along the north shore of Yellowstone Lake on the Storm Point Trail ★, but be aware that it’s occasionally closed due to grizzly bear activity. This easy, level 2-miler terminates at a point jutting into the lake where you’ll find lovely panoramic views. It begins in the Indian Pond area, 3 1/2 miles east of Fishing Bridge directly across from the Pelican Valley trail head.

Hikes to Remote Areas & Overnight Backcountry Trips

The Bechler Meadows Trail enters the southwest corner of the park, an area rich in waterfalls, cascades, and thermal features rarely seen by human eyes. The access is by Idaho 47 from Ashton, Idaho, which will take you to the Bechler Ranger Station in the southwest corner of the park. About 5 miles into the hike, the trail makes several fords of the river as it enters Bechler Canyon, passing Collonade Falls and Iris Falls. There are places on this trail where you can view the Grand Tetons in the distance, and some thermal features bubble and churn on the Bechler River’s banks. This is a camping trip—you can cover nearly 30 miles if you hike all the way into the Old Faithful area—best made late in the summer to avoid high water during creek crossings. You’ll need a backcountry permit for overnight stays (see “Camping,” below).

The Slough Creek Trail, which begins in the Lamar Valley of the park’s northeast corner, takes hikers through some of the best wildlife habitat in the park. You can see elk, bison, trumpeter swans, the occasional grizzly bear, and the wolves that have quite happily taken up residence among abundant prey. The presence of wolves has made this area more popular, and the trail is also used by horse-packers. The trail starts from the road to Slough Creek campground, following the creek’s valley north, then crossing a ridge to a second valley. You can hike a few miles, or take your camping gear and head for the park boundary, 11 miles to the north.

The Thorofare Trail follows the eastern shore of Yellowstone Lake and then skirts the Yellowstone River up into some of the most remote and beautiful backcountry in the Rockies. It’s a long, steep trail, but you’ll be rewarded with views of the Upper Yellowstone Valley, Two Oceans Plateau, and abundant wildlife. Eventually you’ll reach a gorgeous alpine valley just outside the park’s boundary, with a ranger station known as Hawk’s Rest. Fishermen love this area, as do grizzly bears, especially during the cutthroat trout spawning season. This is the most remote roadless area in the Lower 48, a good 30 miles from the trail head at the lake, and even the most capable hikers should consider riding with an outfitter. You can cut 9 miles off the trip by getting a boat shuttle (about $300 round-trip, with a maximum capacity of six people) to the mouth of the lake’s southeast arm (call the backcountry shuttle office at 307/242-3893), or you can come in through the Bridger-Teton National Forest to the south (check with the forest’s Blackrock Ranger Station in Moran, Wyoming; 307/543-2386).

Wilderness U.: guided backpacking with the Yellowstone Association Institute

The Yellowstone Association Institute (YAI) uses the park’s backcountry as a 2.2-million-acre classroom for many of its 400 annual classes. In fact, a number of courses are guided backpacking trips into the Yellowstone wilderness.

I went on a YAI expedition with about 10 other customers in August 2004, following the same route the Nez Perce Indians took through Yellowstone in summer 1877 while evading the U.S. Army. Our 4-day adventure—which was preceded by a day in an indoor classroom in Gardiner—traversed 40 miles under the leadership of experienced backcountry guide and park historian Lee Whittlesey, whose wry humor nicely complemented his historical insight.

We learned about the obstacles the Nez Perce faced en route to their ultimate surrender in Montana. Led by Chief Joseph, 600 to 800 people, including a good number of children and seniors, evaded capture from June into October, cutting through a slice of the fledgling national park known as Yellowstone. We also learned about the rugged terrain the Nez Perce crossed and about differing accounts of their exact path through the park. We learned about wolf tracks, as well as about the “Leave No Trace” etiquette upheld by backcountry enthusiasts. Most important, we learned that the flight of the Nez Perce has been the key event in the tribe’s history since 1877. The 5-month ordeal haunts many of its members to this day. The contemporary Nez Perce are a nostalgic tribe, still focused on the events of summer 1877, and thus—for better or for worse—they are quite different from the typically modern people of the United States.

The “Flight of the Nez Perce” backcountry course has become a staple in the YAI catalog, along with guided backpacking classes about wolves, grizzly bears, waterfalls, photography, and the microbes that inhabit the park’s thermal features. Taking a course is a great way to educate yourself and to learn the ins and outs of backpacking—plus, you meet a bunch of like-minded Yellowstone lovers in the process. Trips typically last 3 days to a week and cost $700 to $1,000 per person. You need to bring food and most of your own gear. Call 406/848-2400 or visit www.yellowstoneassociation.org/institute for a course catalog and other information.

Camping

Black Bear or grizzly?

Because a black bear can be black, brown, or cinnamon, here are some identifiers. The grizzly is the larger of the two, typically 3 1/2 feet at the shoulder, with a dish-face profile and a pronounced hump between the shoulders. The black’s ears are rounder, just like those you see on stuffed animals. The grizzly’s color is typically more yellowish-brown, but the coat is sometimes recognized by its cinnamon color, often highlighted by silver tips. In terms of tracks, the black bear’s toes follow an arc around the footpad, while the grizzly’s toes are arranged in a nearly straight line. The grizzly’s claws are also considerably longer.

Caution: Park rangers attempt to keep track of grizzlies to avoid human/bear incidents. However, it is best to assume that they are always around; make noise when traveling in isolated spots.

Where to Go & How to Reserve a Spot

The National Park Service has shifted management of five major campgrounds to Yellowstone National Park Lodges, the park concessionaire, which means, predictably, higher fees, but also allows you to make reservations ahead of arrival. The other seven campgrounds still managed by the park are available only on a first-come, first-served basis. These lower-cost campgrounds ($12–$14 per night) are located at Indian Creek, Lewis Lake, Mammoth, Norris, Pebble Creek, Slough Creek, and Tower Fall. We like Lewis Lake and Indian Creek, which tend to be available when others are full. Check with rangers about campsite availability when you enter the park; some campgrounds fill up as early as 8am.

Yellowstone National Park Lodges operates the large campgrounds at Bridge Bay, Canyon, Grant Village, Madison, and Fishing Bridge, where the fees are $20 per night. The Fishing Bridge RV Park is the only campground equipped with water, sewer, and electrical hookups for RVs and trailers, though it accepts hard-sided vehicles only (no tents or tent trailers), and the fees are $35 per night. The Madison campground is the first to open in early May, while Grant Village is closed until mid-June to avoid bear conflicts during trout-spawning season. These campgrounds are usually busier, and some, like Bridge Bay, are rather barren of trees unless you get a site on the fringes. Most campgrounds close in September, but Madison is open until mid-October, and Mammoth is open year-round. If you plan to travel in July or August, make your reservations 6 months ahead of time by calling 866/439-7375 or 307/344-7311, or by writing Yellowstone National Park Lodges, P.O. Box 165, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190.

Camping is allowed only in designated areas, and visitors are limited to 14 days between June 15 and Labor Day, and to 30 days the rest of the year, except at Fishing Bridge, where there is no limit. Checkout time for all campgrounds is 10am. Quiet hours are strictly enforced between 8pm and 8am.

There are plenty of opportunities for backcountry camping as well. Some areas in the Yellowstone backcountry include delicate habitat—the southeast arm of Yellowstone Lake is an example—and visitors must camp in designated areas for a limited time only. Check with the Yellowstone Backcountry office (www.nps.gov/yell; 307/344-2160) for rules, reservations, and advice.

What to Expect

Remember, these are campgrounds, not motels, so the amenities are spare. But some have showers and bathrooms and potable water. Check the chart below to determine the level of comfort at each campground. Showers and laundry facilities are available at Canyon, Fishing Bridge, and Grant Village campgrounds. In addition, campers may use the shower and laundry facilities at Lake Lodge and Old Faithful Lodge.

In the northeast area of the park, the Tower Fall campground is near a convenience store, restaurant, and gas station at Tower Lodge, 19 miles north of Canyon Village and 18 miles east of Mammoth. Mammoth campground is just below the hot springs and the hotel at Mammoth Hot Springs, and the only year-round campground in the park. Slough Creek campground ★ is located in a remote section of the Lamar Valley near the northeast entrance. The good news is there are fewer people, good fishing, and the possibility of wolf sightings; the bad news is that restroom facilities are pit toilets. Canyon campground is the busiest in the park. Sites are in a heavily wooded area; the store, restaurants, visitor center, and laundry at Canyon Center are nearby. Because it’s in an area of spring bear activity, attempts have been made over the years to close the RV park at Fishing Bridge. It’s still open, but only hard-sided camping vehicles are allowed here. Bridge Bay is located near the shores of Yellowstone Lake, so you get tremendous views, especially at sunrise and sunset. Unfortunately, though surrounded by the forest, much of the area has been clear-cut, so there’s not a whole lot of privacy. It’s close to boat-launching facilities and the boat-rental operation. Madison ★ and Norris campgrounds are attractive, wooded locations in the heart of the park, close to wildlife activity, hiking trails, and rivers. These camp areas seem less like outdoor motels than the big campgrounds on the park’s east side.

Where to Stay in the Park

For listings of accommodations just outside the park, see “The Gateway Towns: West Yellowstone, Gardiner & Cooke City,” at the beginning of this chapter.

The first thing you should know: no televisions. Private bathrooms have arrived and phones are in place, but televisions are in only two rooms in the entire park (the suites at Mammoth).

Railroad companies built most of the park’s hotels and lodges around the start of the 20th century, and they would offer their primped Victorian guests a package tour that delivered them by train and stagecoach to luxurious resorts with rocking chairs on the verandas and gourmet food. A good deal of that old-style ambience has been thankfully retained at Yellowstone. Many of the newer facilities erected by the park concessionaire (in particular, the Old Faithful Snow Lodge and the new lodges at Canyon) are suitably matched to older buildings, at least on the exterior. However, the push for more features may come in the near future, and during recent upgrades at the Lake Hotel, the wiring was installed for televisions—just in case. Many of the hotels provide beautiful examples of architecture and craftsmanship, but they’re not perfect: The plaster walls transmit some sound and the bathrooms tend to be smallish. However, even the most budget-conscious traveler will find a room in the park that fits the pocketbook. Look over the descriptions below carefully, though, because some of the cheaper lodgings are primitive indeed.

Canyon Lodge and Cabins This complex is one of the newer facilities in the park (both Cascade and Dunraven lodges were completed here in the 1990s), but it can’t escape the bustle of Canyon Village. However, the lodges are located a mere half-mile from the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and Inspiration Point, one of the most photographed spots in the park. Cascade Lodge offers simple rooms appointed with tasteful log furnishings in the three-story building; the newer Dunraven is similar, although it is more modern (with an elevator); both are located adjacent to a woodland setting. The cabins are single-story duplex and fourplex structures with private bathrooms that are among the largest in the park. They’re a bit weathered but generally acceptable, but given the sheer number of units involved (over 600), this isn’t the place to “get away from it all.”

In Canyon Village, P.O. Box 165, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190. www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com. 866/439-7375 or 307/344-7311. Fax 307/344-7456. 605 units. $170 double; $96–$179 cabin. AE, DISC, MC, V. Closed late Sept to early June. Amenities: Restaurant; lounge. In room: No phone.

Making Reservations

Yellowstone accommodations are normally open from May to mid-October. Rooms are typically fully booked during the peak season in July and August, so reservations should be made up to a few months in advance. For information or reservations at any of the locations within the park, contact Yellowstone National Park Lodges at P.O. Box 165, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190 (www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com; 866/439-7375 or 307/344-7311).

Grant Village The southernmost of the major overnight accommodations in the park, Grant Village was completed in 1984 and is one of the more contemporary choices in Yellowstone. It’s not as architecturally distinctive as the Old Faithful options, consisting of six condo-style units (with motel-style rooms), but it’s also less touristy and more isolated. Rooms are tastefully furnished, most outfitted with light wood furniture, track lighting, electric heat, and laminate counters. Nicer and more expensive rooms affording lake views have mullioned windows, one queen or one or two double beds, and full bathrooms.

On the West Thumb of Yellowstone Lake, P.O. Box 165, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190. www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com. 866/439-7375 or 307/344-7311. Fax 307/344-7456. 300 units. $152 double. AE, DISC, MC, V. Closed early Oct to late May. Amenities: Restaurant; lounge.

Lake Lodge Cabins ★ These cabins surrounding Lake Lodge stand a little ways from the lake in a relatively quiet, traffic-free area. The old Western lodge’s most attractive feature is a large porch with wicker rockers that invite visitors to sit and gaze out across the waters. The accommodations are in well-preserved, clean, freestanding cabins near a trout stream that threads through a wooded area. (Access is usually restricted when grizzlies emerge from hibernation.) The cabins come in three grades: Motel-style Western cabins provide electric heat, paneled walls, two double beds (and, in some cases, an extra twin), and combination bathrooms, while historic Frontier and Pioneer cabins are smaller and sparsely furnished, with one or two double beds each and small shower-only bathrooms—but the former have been modernized. Because the dining room here is a tad short on atmosphere, you might want to make the short trek to the Lake Yellowstone Hotel for a more sumptuous meal in a more appetizing setting.

On Yellowstone Lake, P.O. Box 165, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190. www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com. 866/439-7375 or 307/344-7311. Fax 307/344-7456. 186 cabins. $69 Pioneer cabin; $106 Frontier cabin; $179 Western cabin. AE, DISC, MC, V. Closed mid-Sept to early June. Amenities: Restaurant; lounge. In room: No phone.

Lake Yellowstone Hotel and Cabins ★★ The Ionic columns, dormer windows, and deep porticos on this classic yellow building faithfully recall the year it was built: 1891. It’s an entirely different world from the rustic Western style of other park lodgings. The facility was restored in the early 1990s, and its better rooms are the most comfortable and roomy in the park, with soul-stirring views of the massive lake. The three- and four-story wings house the hotel rooms, and there’s also a motel-style annex and an assortment of cabins. The upper-end rooms here are especially lavish for Yellowstone, with stenciled walls and traditional spreads on one queen or two double beds. Smaller rooms in the annex are fitted with two double beds and bring to mind a typical motel chain. The freestanding yellow-clad cabins here are passable, decorated with knotty pine paneling and furnished with double beds and a writing table.

On the north side of the lake, P.O. Box 165, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190. www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com. 866/439-7375 or 307/344-7311. Fax 307/344-7456. 300 units, including 1 suite. $149–$223 double; $130 cabin; $549 suite. AE, DISC, MC, V. Closed late Sept to mid-May. Amenities: 2 restaurants; lounge. In room: No phone (cabins).

Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel and Cabins ★ Below the steaming terraces of Mammoth Hot Springs, this is one of two Yellowstone hotels open during both summer and winter seasons. (The other is the Old Faithful Snow Lodge.) Established in 1911, the hotel itself is less distinguished than the Lake Yellowstone Hotel or the Old Faithful Inn, but it manages to blend a wide range of rooms into a satisfying whole. The only truly high-end accommodations are the suites. Standard rooms and cabins offer minimal amenities but make up for it with charm. Some have tubs only, some have showers only, and some share a bathroom down the hall. The cottage-style cabins are clustered in rings adjacent to the hotel and vary in quality, but are generally good picks for families and those who want a little more elbowroom. Make sure you drift into the Map Room (named for the massive inlaid map of the United States on one of the walls), a great place to spend an evening reading or listening to a pianist.

At Mammoth Hot Springs, P.O. Box 165, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190. www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com. 866/439-7375 or 307/344-7311. Fax 307/344-7456. 212 units, including 2 suites. $87–$120 double; $81–$112 cabin; $217 hot tub cabin; $439–$449 suite. AE, DISC, MC, V. Closed Oct to mid-Dec and early Mar to early May. Amenities: 2 restaurants; lounge. In room: No phone (cabins).

Old Faithful Inn ★★★ There are three hotels within viewing distance of the geyser, but this is undoubtedly the crown jewel of Yellowstone’s man-made wonders. Seven stories tall, with dormers peaking from a shingled, steep-sloping roof, it’s an architectural marvel designed by Robert Reamer to blend into the natural environment, first welcoming guests in 1904.

The cavernous, log-laden lobby is striking, with an ambience that is half elegant palace and half rugged wilderness lodge. You can climb the stairs to its internal balconies, but seismic activity eventually closed the crow’s nest, where a chamber orchestra once performed for the well-dressed guests below. Within 40 miles of the west and south entrances, this is the first stop for many visitors, so make reservations well in advance.

Guest rooms are basic, appointed with conservative fabrics and park-theme art, and they don’t all have private bathrooms; the wing rooms offer better facilities and more privacy.

At Old Faithful, P.O. Box 165, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190. www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com. 866/439-7375 or 307/344-7311. Fax 307/344-7456. 327 units, including 6 suites. $126–$236 double with private bathroom; $96–$183 double with shared bathroom; $399–$499 suite. AE, DISC, MC, V. Closed early Oct to early May. Amenities: 2 restaurants; lounge. In room: No phone.

Old Faithful Lodge Cabins These are the leftovers from the days when crude cabins littered the landscape around the world’s most famous geyser. The ones closest to the geyser were hauled away years ago, but you still get a sense of what tourism was like in the park’s early days, especially if you rent one of the budget cabins, which are only slightly less flimsy than tents and have basic beds and sinks, no more. Showers and restrooms are a short walk away. Frontier cabins are the better units, adding a private bathtub to other amenities. If amenities are irrelevant, these rustic, thin-walled cabins are an economical way to put a roof over your head in the park. The lodge itself is perhaps the busiest spot in the geyser area, featuring several snack shops and a huge cafeteria dishing up varied fast-food items.

At Old Faithful, P.O. Box 165, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190. www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com. 866/439-7375 or 307/344-7311. Fax 307/344-7456. 96 cabins, some with shared bathroom. $67–$110 double. AE, DISC, MC, V. Closed late Sept to mid-May. Amenities: 2 restaurants. In room: No phone.

Old Faithful Snow Lodge and Cabins ★★ This is the newest and most modern property in Yellowstone. The dormitory-style lodge was torn down in 1998, replaced the next year by this new, award-winning structure. Its contemporary big-beam construction and high ceiling in the lobby echo the Old Faithful Inn, and a copper-lined balcony curves above the common area, where guests can relax in wicker furniture. Public areas have a contemporary (but appropriate) style, some of the lodge’s wood was recycled from the same mill that provided the lumber for the Old Faithful Inn in 1904, and wrought-iron bears abound on everything from lamps to fireplace grates. The modern rooms are spacious and comfortable, second only to the upper-end accommodations at the Lake Yellowstone Hotel. There’s also a few surrounding cabins with motel-style furnishings, many of which were built after the 1988 fires.

At Old Faithful, P.O. Box 165, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190. www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com. 866/439-7375 or 307/344-7311. Fax 307/344-7456. 134 units. $197–$206 double; $96–$149 cabin. AE, DISC, MC, V. Closed late Oct to mid-Dec and early Mar to late Apr. Amenities: Restaurant; lounge. In room: No phone (cabins).

Roosevelt Lodge Cabins ★ This is considered the park’s family hideaway, a low-key operation with dinky, primitive cabins; stables; and a lodge restaurant that feels like a big ranch house. The bare-bones cabins are called Roughriders, and they’re furnished with two simple beds, clean linens, a writing table, and a wood stove. A step up, the Frontier cabins have their own bathrooms and showers. The lodge is a rugged-but-charming stone edifice; its large, inviting porch is outfitted with rockers so guests can sit back and watch the world go by. Stagecoach rides, horseback trips, and Western trail cookouts give this place a cowboy flavor, and it’s a less hectic scene than the other park villages—and it’s also the one with the best access to the Lamar Valley and its incomparable wildlife.

At Tower Junction, P.O. Box 165, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190. (At junction of Mammoth-Tower Rd. and Tower-Canyon Rd.) www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com. 866/439-7375 or 307/344-7311. Fax 307/344-7456. 80 cabins, 14 with private bathroom. $65–$110 cabin. AE, DISC, MC, V. Closed early Sept to early June. Amenities: Restaurant; lounge. In room: No phone.

Where to Eat in the Park

While they’re not world-class establishments, Yellowstone’s restaurants are well suited to their location and the appetites of their patrons: The portions definitely won’t leave anyone going hungry. Most of the menus include a selection of unadventurous, all-American meat-and-potatoes grub alongside several more creative entrees. Consistency can be a problem because the volume is high and the kitchen staffs are seasonal.

If you’re not up for restaurant dining, but you don’t want to cook over your camp stove the entire time, there is counter-style fast-food service at the Yellowstone General Stores, as well as snack shops and cafeterias at Canyon, Mammoth, Grant Village, Lake Lodge, and Old Faithful. Try the new Geyser Grill at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge, or the old lunch-counter scene at the Fishing Bridge Yellowstone General Store. The Glacier Pit Snack Bar is a nostalgic breakfast counter at the Yellowstone General Store in the Canyon Lodge area, open from mid-May to late September.

Canyon Lodge Dining Room STEAKS/SEAFOOD This is a spacious dining area—a tad sterile, perhaps—and when it fills up, it’s noisy. The salad bar is long and loaded, but otherwise the dinner fare is largely geared toward the carnivore, with a wide selection of steaks alongside some seafood and pasta selections. The breakfast buffet is a good way to start your day, with all the standard American fixings. The crowds can be large at Canyon Village, but there is a relaxed and unhurried feel to this place that you don’t find at some of the park’s other busy points. Families, in particular, might appreciate the ability to take their time with their meals.

At Canyon Lodge. www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com. 307/344-7311. Reservations not accepted. Breakfast $5–$12; lunch $7–$10; dinner $12–$26. AE, DISC, MC, V. Early June to late Sept daily 7–10am, 11:30am–2:30pm, and 5–10pm.

Grant Village Dining Room ★ AMERICAN Breakfast and lunch at the Grant Village restaurant are much like those at the other restaurants in the park, although the chef often surprises diners with interesting dinner items that stray from the norm. Lunch includes pan-fried trout covered with toasted pecans and lemon butter, huge burgers, and Monte Cristo sandwiches. The dinner menu ranges from herb-roasted chicken, to penne with balsamic-roasted veggies, to prime rib, but the specialty is trout, pan-fried with pecans. Quality and ambience here are comparable to those of the better dining rooms at the major park hotels.

At Grant Village. www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com. 866/439-7375. Dinner reservations required. Breakfast $5–$12 lunch $8–$11; dinner $10–$27. AE, DISC, MC, V. June–Sept daily 6:30–10am, 11:30am–2:30pm, and 5:30–10pm.

Lake Yellowstone Hotel Dining Room ★★ CONTINENTAL This represents the finest dining Yellowstone has to offer, with a view of the lake stretching south from a vast dining room that doesn’t feel crowded even when it’s full. One of the best ways to start your day is with a generous breakfast buffet, but the polenta corn cakes with hazelnut-huckleberry butter are also quite good. Lunch entrees are gourmet sandwiches and burgers. The dinner menu is the most adventurous in the park. Appetizers include velvet corn soup and lobster ravioli, while entrees include vegetable paella, bison tenderloin, and blackened salmon.

On the north side of the lake. www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com. 307/344-7311. Dinner reservations recommended. Breakfast $6–$14; lunch $8–$14; dinner $13–$30. AE, DISC, MC, V. Mid-May to early Oct daily 6:30–10am, 11:30am–2:30pm, and 5–10pm.

Mammoth Hotel Dining Room ★ STEAKS/SEAFOOD At Mammoth, there’s a good balance between casual and formal because the dining room is reminiscent of an above-average neighborhood restaurant: comfortable and pleasant, without too much of the hotel’s Victorian past. The view of the Old Fort Yellowstone buildings and surrounding slopes is also quite enjoyable. The breakfast buffet is essentially identical to what you’ll find here at other locations, featuring eggs, French toast, and the like. The lunch menu focuses on an array of sandwiches, including smoked turkey on Parmesan-crusted sourdough, trout tacos, and smoked salmon club. The dinner menu includes bison top sirloin, Idaho trout, and tasty pork chops, and the vegetarian entrees are creatively inspired and surprisingly good.

At Mammoth Hot Springs. www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com. 307/344-7311. Reservations recommended in winter. Breakfast $4–$12; lunch $8–$16; dinner $11–$25. AE, DISC, MC, V. Closed early Oct to late Dec and early Mar to mid-May. Mid-May–early Oct daily 6:30–10am, 11:30am–2:30pm, and 5–10pm; late Dec–early Mar daily 6:30–10am, 11:30am–2:30pm, and 5:30–8pm.

Obsidian Dining Room ★ STEAKS/SEAFOOD In the snazzy new Snow Lodge, a spacious restaurant provides a comparatively contemporary alternative to the dining room at the Old Faithful Inn. It’s a little quieter, a little less expensive, and a little less formal. It still has some flash on the menu—braised bison short ribs shank and linguine with shrimp or chicken, for instance. For breakfast, try the vegan breakfast burrito.

At the Old Faithful Snow Lodge. www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com. 307/344-7311. Reservations not accepted in summer. Breakfast $5–$12; lunch $7–$20; dinner $10–$30. AE, DISC, MC, V. Early May to mid-Oct daily 6:30–10:30am and 5–10:30pm; mid-Dec to mid-Mar daily 6:30–10am, 11:30am–3pm, and 5–9:30pm.

Old Faithful Inn Dining Room ★ STEAKS/SEAFOOD The food notwithstanding, the true highlight is the gnarled log architecture of this distinguished historic inn. Breakfast is buffet or a la carte, and there’s a lot to choose from. There’s another buffet at lunchtime (headlined by pan-fried trout and barbecue chicken), as well as a generous assortment of salads and sandwiches. Dinnertime brings yet another buffet (prime rib being the headliner), along with menu entrees like steaks, fish, and a vegetarian dish. The fare has gotten more distinguished in recent years, with such creative options as bison ravioli and pan-seared elk medallions making regular appearances on the menu.

At the Old Faithful Inn. www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com. 307/344-7311. Dinner reservations required. Breakfast and lunch $5–$15; dinner $15–$26. AE, DISC, MC, V. Early May to early Oct daily 6:30–10:30am, 11:30am–2:30pm, and 5–10pm. Closed in winter.

Roosevelt Lodge Dining Room STEAKS/SEAFOOD This is supposed to be the cowboy alternative to the fancier cuisine served at the bigger Yellowstone hotels, but the menu is unadventurous. For breakfast, it’s eggs and flapjacks; lunch is burgers and sandwiches. Come suppertime, the menu is dominated by barbecue and steaks. A better idea: Join Roosevelt’s Old West Dinner Cookout, and ride by horse or wagon through the Pleasant Valley to a chuckwagon dinner that includes cornbread, steak, watermelon, those famous beans, and apple crisp. It’s a daily summer event (reservations required) that costs $68 to $84 for an adult, depending on the route of your horseback ride, or $57 if you go by wagon. Children pay about $10 less.

At Tower Junction. www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com. 307/344-7311. Reservations not accepted, except for Old West cookouts. Breakfast $5–$10; lunch $7–$11; dinner $9–$25. AE, DISC, MC, V. Mid-June to early Sept daily 7–10am, 11:30am–3pm, and 4:30–9pm.