There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the Yosemite, the groves of the giant sequoias and redwoods, the Canyon of the Colorado, the Canyon of the Yellowstone, the Three Tetons; and our people should see to it that they are preserved for their children and their children’s children forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred. – Theodore Roosevelt
I shared the first part of our trip to Montana here – chatting about fly fishing on the Madison River, the beautiful town of Ennis and of course the Chuckwagon dinner that was my favorite. The next stop on our framily vacation in Montana was a quick trip to Yellowstone National Park, in Southern Montana and Northwest Wyoming. I’m with Roosevelt – I think it’s imperative that we preserve these stunning national parks for our future generations.
Yellowstone is an iconic American place known worldwide – well known, heavily traveled and popular with tour buses. There were tons of tour groups in Yellowstone the day we visited, which may be irksome to some, but I think it’s a wonderful thing that we’ve got such a lovely, spacious park filled with mystical animals and beautiful vistas – a park that is easily accessible to so many. It is easy to wish that we could keep beautiful things to ourselves, to only grant access to those adventurous few who go through the effort to hike to a beautiful spot. But how selfish it would be not to share such a special place with all who care to see it. I think a bit of suffering through traffic and ill-equipped tourists with hefty cameras and hiking in flip flops is okay if it means that those people will share the beauty and mystique of Yellowstone with their friends and families back home, wherever that may be.
What makes Yellowstone so accessible is that it is a driving national park. It is spread out and roomy, with wide swathes of rolling hills and valleys – perfect for those herds of bison to roam (albeit crossing a road every once in a while). We spent only a day in Yellowstone, so we covered a lot of ground – wanting to visit all of the major spots and see all that we could in one day of exploring.
We took the obligatory Bison selfie – though careful not to get too close, given that these are truly wild animals, and the park has had quite a busy summer of tourist-goring by the Bison.
We also saw the mud pots and of course Old Faithful – one of the highlights of the park. It wasn’t too crowded the day that we were there, thankfully. There is a lovely little hike around Old Faithful that is pretty easy for those who want to get out and explore a bit further, but aren’t up for too many miles or elevation. We didn’t have time to do the hike on this trip, but I’ve done it before on past trips to Yellowstone and would recommend it.
Next we stopped by the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, with gorgeous views of Yellowstone Falls.
Yellowstone has so many amazing animals to see, and if you spend enough time and hit all of their favorite spots, you’re likely to see them all. We saw lots of bison, elk, a grizzly bear, bighorn sheep and deer. Hayden Valley is one of the havens for the animals, and it’s where we saw a grizzly bear rooting around for some berries. He was quite far away from us so we weren’t able to get a great photo, but captured the top of him as he moseyed along the valley. Some of the other people who stopped to see him had a great camera with a wildlife spotting scope – those are amazing! We were able to get way up close and personal looking at the bear through that camera.
And I will never tire of the beautiful views in Yellowstone. Golden hills and blue skies. Next, we headed on to Glacier National Park, in Northwest Montana – I’ll be sharing that trip soon!
BY Jackie
LOCATION Yellowstone National Park, U.S.
