Yellowstone National Park, est 1872

This is our 2nd time to Yellowstone. We first visited here in 2017 with Dunovan and Brodey. Since we were traveling through this area again, we thought we would explore a bit more of what this park has to offer.

Check out our hikes and all the animals we got to see along the way....right up to before we left the park!!

Day One

We arrived around 12:00 PM to the West Yellowstone KOA for our three night stay. This gave us a great launching point into the park. We took Bucky with us for a ride into the park and headed to the Mammoth Hot Springs area with some stops along the way. Without stops, the North Entrance is about 1.5 hrs from our campground.

Note: we didn't do any hiking this day because dogs are not allowed on any trails within the park. They are restricted to pullouts, parking lots and campgrounds.

Bucky got out to check out the river.

Yellowstone makes it easy to see wildlife with lots of pullouts and parking lots in
the places the wildlife frequents the most.

Lots of Babies!

Gibbon Falls

Mammoth Hot Springs

Dogs are not permitted on the boardwalks so we drove through this area and mainly took pictures from the car.

Mammoth Village

In different areas of the park are Villages that have lodges, campgrounds, shopping, dining, and a visitor center. Outside of the Mammoth Visitor Center there were some owls in the trees.

Roosevelt Arch

The north entrance to the park is host to Roosevelt Arch. Theodore Roosevelt laid the corner stone for the arch on April 23, 1903, while visiting the park.

Storm rolling in.

Please be a bear, please be a bear, please be a bear...

I had a couple bucket list animals on my list, of course bison and the other was a bear. On our way back to the campground we came upon a bunch of cars pulled over and people with their cameras out. I got excited and was hoping it was a bear. I wasn't disappointed. This is a female black bear (black bears can be brown). Others that were stopped said there were two babies but we didn't see them. These photos were taken with my telephoto lens. She was actually pretty far away from everyone, was foraging for food, and then made her way back into the woods.

Day Two

We left the campground at 7:20 AM for the 1 hr drive to the Old Faithful area of the park. This turned out to be a 2.5 hour drive due to a bison traffic jam, a common occurrence in the park. Unfortunately, we were so far back in line we didn't get to see the culprits while we moved 3-4 mph. Yellowstone gets about 6 million visitors a year, the majority in the 3-4 month summer. Patience is a must when visiting this park.

Old Faithful

Old Faithful earns its name by going off every 90 min. It is located next to the Old Faithful Inn and the National Park Visitor Center. It is absolutely worth waiting for!

10:05 AM

Total time of eruption was approximately 4 min.

Lone Star Trail (Old Faithful area)

A short 4 min drive from Old Faithful is the Lone Star Trail Head. It took us about 1.5 hrs to hike this easy 5 mile round trip trek to the Lone Star Geyser. Sadly, we missed the eruption by about 50 min. The log says it goes off about every 2-4 hrs, not as precise as Old Faithful. It was a very pretty out and back trip.

Kepler Falls

Next to the parking area for the Lone Star Trail is a pull out for Kepler Falls. This is a 3 cascade falls.

Old Faith Inn

After our morning hike, we drove back to the Old Faithful Inn for lunch.

The Inn was built between June 1903 and June 1904, in the geyser basin right next to Old Faithful. The Inn was built of logs and stones and is the largest log-style structure in the world!

Note: Pass on having lunch here. Overpriced and same food as any of the other food service places in the park.

Grand Prismatic Overlook Trail

In 2017, we walked the boardwalk for an up close lookup of Grand Prismatic Spring, the largest hot spring in the park. This trip we got a much better look at from the Grand Prismatic Overlook Trail. By the time we got here the winds had picked up to about 30 mph. Going was easy as we were being pushed by the winds, coming back we were being sandblasted by the trail gravel.

Hot Springs along the trail

Tiny little hot spring

Grand Prismatic Spring

This ended our day of touring, by this point we were ready to head back to our home-on-wheels for the evening. I told you that we were having extremely strong wind all day. Here is Bucky to prove it!

Day Three

We tried to avoid another traffic jam, so we got up early and left the camper at 6:00 AM. It was 32 degrees Fahrenheit when we left the campground. This made the hot springs even more amazing!

Today's drive was supposed to be about 1 hr 10 min to the North Rim Trail. No such luck but today's traffic jam was worth every minute!!

Mr. Knaresborough, I may need someone to cover my 1st period class.
My commute is horrendous this morning.

The babies are so fuzzy

North Rim Trail

This trail is very popular but we didn't hike it on our last visit. I wanted to get closer to the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River. We started the hike at Inspiration Point at 7:30 AM and finished at 12:00 PM. The trail and falls did not disappoint.

You can drive this part of the park by starting at the Upper Falls and following North Rim Drive, stopping at each overlook, and ending at Inspiration Point. We chose to hike the North Rim Trail instead. About 7.5 miles round trip.

7:30 AM - Inspiration Point

Stick to the trail and watch your step. It's a long way down.

Grand View

Lookout Point- Lower Falls

Headed down to the bottom of the falls. This is a switch back trail along with 118 steps!

See those trees on the top of the rocks? That is the overlook we just came from.
It was a long way down.

Brink of the Lower Falls

This was a 600 foot descent to the brink of the lower falls. We were feeling the burn on the way back up!

From the Brink of the Falls we got our first view of the Upper Falls.

Crystal Falls

We continued our journey along the North Rim Trail between the Lower Falls and the Upper Falls. On this stretch is a smaller falls called Crystal Falls, fed by a fast flowing stream.

Crystal Falls

Brink of the Upper Falls

10:15 AM

Inspiration Point -12:00 PM

We made it back! 4.5 hrs. Not bad considering how much we stopped to take pictures along the way.

More Wild Life

On our way back from the North Rim Trail we met two more friends. We watched a coyote from way out in a meadow come closer and closer to us. It ended up crossing the road right in front of our truck. Amazing!