Yellowstone Park... looking for info.

[909ag2006]

The place is amazing. You def need to go see the geyser area and the main waterfall (can't remember what it's called). I really regret not going to the Lamar Valley and trying to catch a glimpse of the wolves. Would do that if we go again.

[TX03RUBI]

The Lodge at Flaggstaff Ranch is perfectly in between Yellowstone and the Tetons. About 3 miles from Yellowstone and 4 miles from the Tetons or something silly like that’s we “camped” there for 4 nights last summer. I’d recommend staying there or camping there due to proximity to things, and makes it easy to go to whichever park you’d like each day. Also buy an America The Beautiful Pass. About $85, and gets you into unlimited national parks for an entire year. Considering each day at Yellowstone or Tetons will run you $35 it’ll pay for itself quick.

[Spartan22]

We are going at end of April to Jackson hole Wyoming for 5 days and 2 of those will be spent at Yellowstone. First trip and very excited to go.

[thegrouse]

We are going at end of April to Jackson hole Wyoming for 5 days and 2 of those will be spent at Yellowstone. First trip and very excited to go.

Most of the roads are usually still closed in April. Check their website

[SmTx]

If you do camp, which we did, a lot of the sites are first come first serve. Every morning we hustled to break camp, drive to the side of the park we were going to adventure and get a site then go about our day.

[Drycreek3189]

I’ve been three times but we’re taking our granddaughter this summer. This trip we’ll be entering at the N entrance. Thanks Burnadell !

[Kelmat]

My favorite place. Mostly impossible to see it all in one trip. Pace yourself and plan out "must sees" instead of trying to do it all. Trust me, you'll be back to see more.

[Krivoman]

look at staying in Gardier. It is literally right on the edge. The entrance to yellowstone is in town. Small town and easy in and out of the park.. Loved it.. they have cabin rentals on the Yellowstone river which make it really nice.

[Burnadell]

look at staying in Gardier. It is literally right on the edge. The entrance to yellowstone is in town. Small town and easy in and out of the park.. Loved it.. they have cabin rentals on the Yellowstone river which make it really nice.

Gardiner is a cool little town. When we were there 4-5 years ago, elk were all over downtown, eating grass and lounging on the motel lawns.

[RiverRat1]

Biggest tip is to get up EARLY and I mean early. You want to be in the park at the butt crack of first light. When I was there it got light super early also (like 5am)

This will help you avoid traffic. I'd drive through popular places at daybreak and then move on to hiking further out by 9-10am

[NelsonV]

We stayed in West Yellowstone. Great town, good shopping, everything in town was within walking distance. Food was pricey as with most destination places. It's a gigantic park. Until you drive through it it's hard to comprehend its size. We saw old Faithful, Grand Prismatic Spring( most amazing thing there IMO), Mammoth Hotsprings, lots of elk laying in town all round the Mammoth Hotel. We also saw the FireHole River and the Upper Falls. We did a lot of hiking. We had me, the wife, 16 year old daughter and my 14 year old son. They loved it also. I will absolutely go back except I want it to be a fall/winter vacation.

[HOOKNBULLET2]

Don’t go around the 4th of July.

[RifleBowPistol]

You can fish in Yellow Stone, but only catch and release, in the rivers and only with fly tackle. Not sure about the lake or lakes, not sure how many there are in the park. We saw one very large lake, looked like a good place to fish, I did not ask, if the same rules applied for fishing that lake as the rivers.
If it were me, I would try to be there late summer to see the start of some rut action. We went in early July, still very beautiful. Hopefully the road construction will be done by this summer. When we went up there, there was many miles of torn up road, it took a long time to get out of the park.
I can't suggest much, other than keep your eyes open, you never know what you will see up there. We only went for one day, way too short of a trip to Yellow Stone, but it was planned out by my wife's father, who has been there multiple times and could care less about going back. So he tried to give us the high speed quick tour of the place and get out as fast as possible. I messed his plans up, stopping often and acting like a tourist, beautiful place can't imagine not wanting to stop and see all you can.
We saw lots of buffalo, one huge heard, lots of elk, whitetails, pronghorn, mulies, black bears, lots of geese, a coyote, beaver and a huge whitetail buck, some of the bull elk were very impressive.
The whole geyser deal, old faithful, did not interest me much at all, interesting, but I could have done without those two stops, would have preferred to see more of the terrain and wildlife. There must have been over 1000 people there for old faithful, from all over the world. That's something you will notice fairly quickly at any stop, are people from everywhere.
I wanted to stop and have lunch on the great divide, but our lousy tour guide had plans for us stop at some fishing bridge for lunch, he could not find. We stopped at some very large lake that is very beautiful, it was a nice place to stop.
The towns around Yellow Stone are all tourist traps, the fuel prices are very high, along with everything else. We came into Yellow Stone from the west side, out of Idaho, the gas prices in Idaho were much higher than they were hear, but then the prices went up quite a bit once you got closer to Yellow Stone. Most all lodging anywhere near the park is booked up way in advance. My wife did find a place that was very nice and reasonably priced just outside the park, but her father decided we should stay with them.
Next time we go back, her father is not going to get any notice of us going up there, till we are done with Yellow Stone.
My wife bought a very nice digital camera with some ridiculous magnification to it, before the trip, specifically for that trip. That was a very good decision. I took a lot of very nice pictures, in the short time we were there.
There are areas of the park where almost every tree has been torn up by bull elk. I kept thinking this place has to be amazing to see in October or whenever the rut is going strong up there. I found a couple of trees that a bear had marked. The big bull buffalo are easy to spot on the sides of hills a long ways away. They clear a area bare and lay in it, that bare spot is visible for a long distance. I always thought buffalo were plains animals only, but you will see them up on the sides of mountains and hills all over the park.
I have heard the Montana end of the park is a place to see, but we did not get to go that far up into the park, we did covered a lot of miles, the terrain changes greatly throughout the park. There are multiple water falls and some serious rapids, that you can see from either a road or a road side stop.
I don't remember the names of any of the places we went or drove through, I wish I knew where the map was we got when we were there. I would plan on at least three days in the park. All of the roads we took were paved, but I think I saw some roads that were open to the public that were gravel roads, but not 100% sure of that. I know we drove past a lot of roads, I wanted to take, but none of that was in our tour guide's plan. A vehicle that gets good gas mileage is a good idea, a truck that is a bit higher than your typical car would be nice also, possibly if I am right about the gravel roads, it might be best to take a truck down those, but if they are open to the public, I would doubt those roads get very rough. Looked like a typical east Texas gravel county road to me.

[TX Fireman 911]

Has anyone been up the week after Thanksgiving? We are planning on making a trip around that time

[Acameron52]

You’ll be going back!!