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re: Yellowstone experiences
Posted on 9/3/26 at 11:43 am to specchaser
Posted on 9/3/26 at 11:43 am to specchaser
quote:
can you enlighten the board? I'm curious but is there even access to most of the park? seems like mid September is the best time to visit after the crowds but before any freeze or substantial snow.
The park is generally closed with limited access, most access is private tours I believe usually by snow mobile
Posted on 9/3/26 at 2:30 pm to Speckhound
Since it's your first time I would definitely plan on stopping at Old Faithful, but I don't really care to ever see if again.
The Grand Prismatic Spring is super cool. I'll be revisiting it for the 2nd time in a couple of weeks.
Walk down to the brink of lower falls. It's amazing to see up close.
Mammoth Hot Springs is very cool. The Roosevelt Arch isn't too far north from here and worth seeing.
Lamar Valley & Hayden Valley is where you will see the most wildlife (grizzlies, wolves, bison, etc.). Bring some good quality binoculars or a spotting scope.
I would highly recommend visiting Grand Teton if you have time. I'm kind of partial to it over Yellowstone.
The Grand Prismatic Spring is super cool. I'll be revisiting it for the 2nd time in a couple of weeks.
Walk down to the brink of lower falls. It's amazing to see up close.
Mammoth Hot Springs is very cool. The Roosevelt Arch isn't too far north from here and worth seeing.
Lamar Valley & Hayden Valley is where you will see the most wildlife (grizzlies, wolves, bison, etc.). Bring some good quality binoculars or a spotting scope.
I would highly recommend visiting Grand Teton if you have time. I'm kind of partial to it over Yellowstone.
Posted on 9/3/26 at 3:46 pm to specchaser
quote:
can you enlighten the board? I'm curious but is there even access to most of the park? seems like mid September is the best time to visit after the crowds but before any freeze or substantial snow.
There's an entire website dedicated to it, but i'll also give my experience.
Yellowstone in winter
The entire north road and both north entrances are open to public travel. This means you can only access the park from Montana in your personal vehicle.
Mammoth is full service throughout winter including the hotel, restaurant, gas stations, general store, etc. This is a fantastic place to stay as they have hot tub cabins, snow shoe / cross country skiing trails, and snow cat and snowmobile excursions that depart from the parking lot.
Old faithful lodge is also open throughout the winter, but you can't drive there. You have to either a) take a snow cat from mammoth or b) take a snow mobile. Snow mobiling must be through licensed outfitters around the park. There are lots of them, mostly in West Yellowstone and Gardner.
When i went in winter of 2017/2018, I stayed in one of the hot tub cabins and used that as my base camp. We did snow shoeing directly around mammoth a couple days though the area where the elk bed for the winter and saw thousands of elk up close. We drove to lamar valley a couple of times and saw some pretty amazing things that you won't see in the summer. A couple of highlights below;
- Herds of thousands of bison on frozen lakes
- Packs of wolves hunting. Many of them have black coats so they are extremely easy to spot in the winter. We saw them take down a bison in person.
- The winter landscape in Yellowstone is absolutely incredible, especially with all the geothermal features around the park which the wildlife flocks to.
There are some natural hot springs along the Gardner River that you can snow shoe to and soak in the river.
Snowmobiling through firehole canyon remains one of the coolest things I've done in my lifetime.
Yes, it's cold, but it's pretty similar to the weather that you'd experience at a ski resort which people from the south seem to enjoy. In my opinion, the pros of no traffic and an overabundance of wildlife (even more than what you see in the summer) combined with the unique winter activities available to you make it a better experience than sitting in your car dealing with idiot tourists for 12 hours a day. If you're backpacking through Yellowstone in the summer then you have my attention, but 99% of people from Louisiana aren't doing that.
This post was edited on 9/3/26 at 3:48 pm
Posted on 9/4/26 at 5:15 am to Diesel88
I LOVE Yellowstone, Grand Teton and even more so Glacier NP.
The biggest thing I learned in Yellowstone is the roads... It is huge to make the loop around the entire park (the main road basically loops the exterior of the park) will take you an entire day, it's that big of a place.
We hiked to Lonestar Gyser several times, it only erupts every 2-3 hours we have caught it twice it's pretty neat.
Not sure how much snow there is but climbing Bunsen's peak, isn't super physically demanding but a beautiful view. Some of the other peaks if they have no snow are beautiful as well.
Lamar valley is amazing the number of animals you can see from the car or getting out of it and walking a few miles is simply amazing. I would recommend hitting this in the evening and staying until dark one night it's really cool. Not to mention the stars are amazing at night out there and if the northern lights are active at all you can see them from there but timing may be off but I'm no expert on this....
Yellowstone has amazing scenery but the animals and the geology are what make the park IMO. The scenery in Grand Tetons and Glacier are better IMO, that being said if you told me I could never leave yellowstone for the rest of my life I would die happy. It's a real treasure.
The biggest thing I learned in Yellowstone is the roads... It is huge to make the loop around the entire park (the main road basically loops the exterior of the park) will take you an entire day, it's that big of a place.
We hiked to Lonestar Gyser several times, it only erupts every 2-3 hours we have caught it twice it's pretty neat.
Not sure how much snow there is but climbing Bunsen's peak, isn't super physically demanding but a beautiful view. Some of the other peaks if they have no snow are beautiful as well.
Lamar valley is amazing the number of animals you can see from the car or getting out of it and walking a few miles is simply amazing. I would recommend hitting this in the evening and staying until dark one night it's really cool. Not to mention the stars are amazing at night out there and if the northern lights are active at all you can see them from there but timing may be off but I'm no expert on this....
Yellowstone has amazing scenery but the animals and the geology are what make the park IMO. The scenery in Grand Tetons and Glacier are better IMO, that being said if you told me I could never leave yellowstone for the rest of my life I would die happy. It's a real treasure.
Posted on 9/9/26 at 12:16 pm to Speckhound
Went last year at same time. Need at least 3 days in park. Break it up in quadrants and go to diff one every day. Bring some patience traffic backups are frequent and usually Bison related . Get app and see timing of OF to avoid down time. Def hlike to Grand Priz overlook. It’s the ultimate Money Shot . We easily did 3 days in Tetons as well spectacular hiking but near as much wildlife viewing . Have great time it’s truly a marvel.
Posted on 9/9/26 at 2:15 pm to Speckhound
My parents, gf, and I were out there last week. My parents had never been, and I wanted them to see it. They were mind blown. It was an amazing trip. The weather was absolutely fantastic. I probably sweated more exiting the airport and walking to our lyft when we got back to Pensacola than I did the entire time we were out there.
We stayed between Pine Creek, and Pray, close to Livingston, so it was a good bit of driving-we basically did the entire park, but it wasn't too bad, and totally worth it. I personally would rather be driving in a stunning area taking in the scenery and passively looking for wildlife than sitting on the couch in the airbnb.
We hiked the south rim trail of the canyon to Clear Lake, and back to the car. It was a great hike, and not too strenuous. We also hiked a few miles of specimen ridge trail, which was beautiful.
We saw 2 grizzlies on Monday-a female down in a valley where Cub Creek runs through, in the east side of the park, east of Yellowstone Lake, and a male coasting across the plains in Hayden Valley.
We also saw mountain goat, big horned sheep, hundreds of pronghorn, elk, and bison. Bald eagles, red tailed hawks, kestrels, northern harriers, osprey, white pelicans, all kinds of ducks, marmot, and even a coyote eating on a dead bison.
The traffic wasn't really that bad at all. Never had to wait more than a few minutes at the entrance.
Hope y'all are having fun OP!
Some pics from the trip:
We stayed between Pine Creek, and Pray, close to Livingston, so it was a good bit of driving-we basically did the entire park, but it wasn't too bad, and totally worth it. I personally would rather be driving in a stunning area taking in the scenery and passively looking for wildlife than sitting on the couch in the airbnb.
We hiked the south rim trail of the canyon to Clear Lake, and back to the car. It was a great hike, and not too strenuous. We also hiked a few miles of specimen ridge trail, which was beautiful.
We saw 2 grizzlies on Monday-a female down in a valley where Cub Creek runs through, in the east side of the park, east of Yellowstone Lake, and a male coasting across the plains in Hayden Valley.
We also saw mountain goat, big horned sheep, hundreds of pronghorn, elk, and bison. Bald eagles, red tailed hawks, kestrels, northern harriers, osprey, white pelicans, all kinds of ducks, marmot, and even a coyote eating on a dead bison.
The traffic wasn't really that bad at all. Never had to wait more than a few minutes at the entrance.
Hope y'all are having fun OP!
Some pics from the trip:
Posted on 9/22/26 at 3:32 pm to Speckhound
Was there on Sunday.. too many people, and this was from around 11:30 am - 4 PM local time.
11 miles from Old Faithful the traffic was bumper to bumper... we turned around and just parked and saw the Grand Prismatic Spring a bit up the road since that too was too difficult to get into going the way towards Old Faithful.
Awesome park, but if you aren't going to hike or do something outdoors aside from park and see stuff, I'd say not worth it.
11 miles from Old Faithful the traffic was bumper to bumper... we turned around and just parked and saw the Grand Prismatic Spring a bit up the road since that too was too difficult to get into going the way towards Old Faithful.
Awesome park, but if you aren't going to hike or do something outdoors aside from park and see stuff, I'd say not worth it.
Posted on 9/29/26 at 9:21 pm to southpawcock
Did GTNP 3 days and Yellowstone 1 day we went from Thursday after Labor Day to Wednesday stayed in Teton Village. Fri/Sat/Sun we were able to go just about anywhere without and issues but on Monday 9/14 it was very busy. Jenny Lake trails like Inspiration Point were extremely busy compared to Saturday where you could park anywhere. We clearly hit the right time to be there. We fished Snake River and Flatt Creek in Elk Refuge too a couple of different days. We were able see all the tourist stuff and when we go back can focus getting out on more trails weather was perfect. Saw bison elk moose lots of birds from swans, ravens eagles lots of migratory birds moving through too. Love Grand Tetons and though Jackson was a great place to stay for being a first visit.
Posted on 10/5/26 at 12:55 pm to Speckhound
We stayed at the Irma with our 3 little ones back in the 90's. They didn't understand though, it was just an old building turned into a hotel for them. Missed the "shootout" in front by 20 minutes when we drove into town. I don't know if they still do that.
Posted on 10/5/26 at 1:16 pm to southpawcock
quote:
11:30 am - 4 PM local time.
11 miles from Old Faithful the traffic was bumper to bumper.
Weekend in the middle of the day. Im not really shocked by this. Best to hit Old Faithful first thing in the morning if possible.
Posted on 10/5/26 at 1:25 pm to baldona
quote:
Best to hit Old Faithful first thing in the morning if possible.
Yup. We were there in May 2007, stayed in West Yellowstone. Our bodies were still on eastern time so we woke up early, grabbed breakfast and went into the park. Went straight to Old Faithful and were able to park and get good seat location about 20-30 minutes before the eruption.
Posted on 10/5/26 at 10:46 pm to Speckhound
Stay in the Old Faithful Inn
Posted on 10/11/26 at 3:44 pm to Speckhound
Depending on where you are staying, take a trip to Grand Tetons. Yellowstone is beautiful but the grand tetons is some "wow" views.
Not as accessible as Yellowstone but absolutely beautiful
Not as accessible as Yellowstone but absolutely beautiful
Posted on 10/11/26 at 7:25 pm to moock blackjack
quote:
Stay in the Old Faithful Inn
When we went, we spent a couple of nights at Old Faithful Inn and a few nights at Canyon Lodge. I paid a little more to get a room in the wing where you’d have a view of Old Faithful. Worth it to stay in both lodges.
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