Yellowstone National Park: A Family Adventure with Once in a Lifetime Moments (Itinerary Included)

All mothers of boys know that talk and play involving explosions, predators, and things that stink are just commonplace. In my home, I have to times all that chaos by four! (Enrique is always considered one of the “boys”) So when it was time to decide where we should take our next family adventure, there wasn’t any debate: Yellowstone National Park.

After visiting during a family road trip while I was younger, I knew Yellowstone would satisfactorily cover explosions (geysers galore), predators (BEARS, need I say more), and all things stinky (can’t decide if boy farts in cramped quarters or sulfuric mud pots are worse!)

We started our trip off like any other: leaving in the evening immediately following some event. That day it was basketball. We left about 5 pm, hoping to make the 22 hour journey in one day! It ended up taking us about 28 hours to get to camp after some stops. Oh, and driving through torrential downpours from Kansas City to Topeka at 25 mph on the interstate really can slow you down. But we got to see an amazing light show!!

When planning your visit to Yellowstone, probably one of the biggest hurtles you will have to face is deciding where to stay. You need to decide early on where you plan to spend most of your time in the park. Being that the park is so big, you could easily find yourself camping/staying on the wrong end and having to drive hours (yes, HOURS) to your point of interests daily if you don’t plan right. We knew that we wanted to be close to the major geysers and springs in the park, so we planned on staying near the West Entrance.

Sidenote:  In order to get to Yellowstone, we actually had to drive through a portion of the Grand Tetons National Park.  I wasn’t expecting the beauty that the Tetons have to offer!  They are worthy of so much more than a “Sidenote.”  Plans will be made to make a return visit and explore this park more thoroughly.

Grand Tetons National Park

Grand Tetons National Park

So that brings me to sleeping accommodations. There are cabins and an Inn at Old Faithful that one can stay. There are also numerous campsites throughout the park if you are a camper like us. But those that can be reserved are typically booked YEARS in advance. There are first come, first serve camping accommodations as well. Good luck should you choose to go that route. Since we never can plan that far in advance, I booked through Hipcamp again. We ended up camping at the Diamond P Ranch just outside of West Yellowstone, about 15 minutes from the entrance to the park.

Diamond P is a horse ranch that offers rides into the mountains surrounding the property. We stayed in an open field at the base of said mountains. There is the noise of the car traffic not far from the campsite, but that didn’t bother us any. It was an affordable alternative to staying in the park. Our last evening we arrived back at camp to a herd of elk in the field right behind our campsite!!

After setting up camp, it was time for some real food!  We made our way back into West Yellowstone and enjoyed some great pizza from Wild West Pizzeria & Saloon.  We ordered the Diablo Wings (mild) and two pizzas:  Sitting Bull and Sacajawea.  Sitting Bull was topped with Pepperoni, Italian Sausage, Canadian Bacon, and Genoa Salami.  I was particularly fond of the Sacajawea, topped with fresh spinach, feta cheese, kalamata olives, and artichoke hearts.

We had 3 days planned in the park with the goal being to see as much as we could see (which hopefully included wildlife) and do some hiking.

Before I give you the itinerary we completed, here’s a little background. We are a party of 6, my husband and I, my mother, and our three boys, ages 14, 11, and 3 (who “hiked” in a backpack carried by my husband). So we feel these activities would be appropriate for anybody. Even those with active children.

Here is a list of sights we made a point to stop and side roads we took with a brief review.

DAY 1

Starting from the West Entrance, we took the primary highway south at Madison Junction:

• Firehole Canyon Drive – This is a short loop drive off the primary road.  You will be greeted with amazing river and canyon views along with a great look at Firehole Falls.  Definitely worth the detour!
  

  
• Fountain Flat Drive – This short, spur road dead ends at a biking trail.  Honestly there isn’t too much interesting here.  You can see some small hot springs smoking along the road and a lake (with a swan on it at the time).  There is a lot of signs of buffalo in this area.  Oakley was quick to point out the buffalo poop!
• Next one will enter the Lower Geyser Basin area of the park.  Our first stop were the Fountain Paint Pots.  The Fountain Paint Pots were our first experience with an up close look at they special geysers and springs that Yellowstone has to offer.  The Fountain Paint Pots trail is a 0.5 mile boardwalk trail that takes you along sites like: Celestine Pool, the Bacteria Mat, Fountain Paint Pots (duh), Spasm Geyser, and Clepsydra Geyser.  This is a definite must stop.  There is a lot of action in this section of the park and is a great teaser for what else is to come.
  

  

  
• Firehole Lake Drive – Part of the Lower Geyser Basin, this drive around a short loop will take you by Firehole Spring, the Great Fountain Geyser, and White Dome Geyser.  The Great Fountain Geyser is the only geyser in the Lower Geyser Basin that the park makes eruption predictions for, which occurs every 9-15 hours!  So good luck should you be in the vicinity when this geyser erupts around 75 feet.  One would have a better chance of seeing the White Dome Geyser erupt in this area of the park.  White Dome Geyser is the first “cone” geyser that we saw in the park.  Erupting every 8 minutes to 3 hours.  The end of this loop takes you by Black Warrior Lake.  Imagine an entire lake that is hot from volcanic activity.  It reminded me of the scene in the movie Dante’s Peak, when they were trying to escape the lava and the lake was eating away their metal boat.  Walking around the lake on the boardwalk one could easily lose sight of their party in the thick steam.
  

  

  

  Yellowstone Family Vacation
• At this point we skipped the Midway Geyser Basin (don’t worry, we will come back to it) and headed towards the Upper Geyser Basin and Biscuit Basin.  Named for the biscuit-like stones blown out of Sapphire Geyser during an eruption, Biscuit Basin is a 3/4 mile boardwalk trail that takes you along many more hydrothermal hotspots besides Sapphire Geyser such as Shell Geyser, Avoca Geyser, Jewel Geyser, and Mustard Spring.  This was one of the more “colorful” areas we’d been thus far in the park and is definitely worth the stop.
  

  

  

  

  
• Mystic Falls Trail – This trailhead can be accessed from several different trails.  The shortest route is to catch the trailhead found at the backside of the Biscuit Basin boardwalk.  At the time that we were doing the boardwalk, we had no idea that we could catch the Mystic Falls trail there.  Seeing that it was just going to be a little over a mile, we decided to go ahead and do the trail.  Many people coming out said it was a great hike.  Being that it was so short, I broke our number 1 rule…”being prepared.”  With no backpacks (including Oakley’s), no water, no trekking poles, we took off down the trail.  A short distance from the boardwalk you will come to a fork in the trail.  You can either go to the lower falls (0.6 miles), or the other direction to the Observation Point (0.6 miles) and upper falls (1.6 miles).  This is a loop trail, so we planned on just making the complete loop.  However, we were not expecting the steep incline and the multitude of switchbacks just to the observation point.  We were greeted with gorgeous views on our way up the trail, but it was tiring….at least for me!  Oakley just trucked right on up the mountain, with Enrique having a death grip on his hand.  The view from the observation point is breathtaking!!
  

  

  However, it was at this point, we made a big error.  Tired, thirsty, and unsure of the trail due to lack of research (oops), we decided to just go back down the mountain from hence we came instead of hiking on to the upper falls.  The trek back down the mountain wasn’t bad at all, but watch your footing because there are several places that the gravel is pretty loose and can cause you to slip.  Once we got back down to the intersection, we decided to go ahead and walk the 0.6 mile to the lower falls.  On the way to the lower falls, we started meeting people we recognized who made the full loop.  That’s when we knew we really messed up and should have just continued on at the observation point.  I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get to see the falls from above, but once we got to the lower falls, we came face to face with Mystic Falls.  Like everything else in Yellowstone, it was gorgeous and definitely worth the extra walk.  If you like to hike, I would definitely add this one to your list.

  
• Old Faithful – A trip to Yellowstone National Park would not be complete without seeing the parks most iconic geyser, Old Faithful.  The reason this geyser is called Old Faithful is because it faithfully erupts every 45-125 minutes.  We were lucky that we arrived when we did because we only had to wait about 30 minutes for it to erupt.  We also lucked out on seating.  We found a place on the front side of the boardwalk, on the front row!  That’s a big deal because the crowds at Old Faithful are very large and getting a good viewpoint can get pretty intense.  At one point there was a little man that was literally trying to push his way through us to take our spot on the front row.  Good think we’ve had all that practice at concerts like Metallica!!  There was no way he was getting in!  I even told Mom that he had no idea who he was messing with, with out crowd experience.  LOL.  Two minutes before it’s scheduled time, Old Faithful erupted full force!  You should expect the geyser to start off with smaller eruptions and quickly build up to a large eruption.  (It erupted long enough that Enrique and I were even able to get a picture of us in our St. Louis Blues shirts.  Shout out to all the faithful Blues fans who finally got to celebrate a Stanley Cup this year!!)  After the geyser erupted we took some time to do a little shopping and speak to the park rangers about some questions I had.  The village around Old Faithful is a very busy place.  Just be patient and don’t let that deter you from seeing this magnificent wonder.  Sidenote:  There is also a trail that leads up to an observation point above Old Faithful.  Upon research, it says that one has time to view the geyser from the base and then hike up to the observation point before the next eruption.  I would have liked to have done that but we were still feeling the effects of the Mystic Falls trail so we opted not to since we got such a good view to begin with.
  

  
• Kepler Cascades – As we continued our drive around what he dubbed the “southern loop” we started stopping at just about all points of interest.  The Kepler Cascades were probably one of our biggest surprises.  You can’t tell from the parking lot, but just a very short walk out onto a boardwalk reveals a gorgeous cascade amid a very high, steep dropoff!  It was beautiful.  Seriously take a few minutes to stop and check it out.
  

  

  

• Mud Volcano – As we continued our circle, we drove along Yellowstone Lake towards the Mud Volcano area.  Mud Volcano would prove to be THE STINKIEST, and Enrique’s favorite, point of interest.  However, August couldn’t get wait to get away from the area.  These “volcanoes” are truly different than all the other geysers we’d visited thus far that day.  Other than the smell, I felt like I was in some fancy spa and just wanted to dive in and have a mud bath!  However, that would prove to be very deadly.  The 2/3 mile boardwalk trail is easier if you take it clockwise up and around the many mud pots.  It’s hard to make pictures of bubbling mud pretty but believe me, this place is worth seeing….and smelling…

  

  

  

• To end our day, we finished out our loop by taking a drive through Hayden Valley.  When I asked the park ranger where were the best places to see wildlife, he said Lamar Valley and Hayden Valley as the two best options.  We were not disappointed.  We saw several buffalo (which you will see everywhere in the park), elk, and the biggest surprise of the evening, A GRIZZLY BEAR!  At one of the pullouts, a woman told us that a grizzly was along the river just a few miles up the road.  So we took it off.  As like everything else in Yellowstone, it wasn’t hard to figure out where the bear was by the line of parked cars blocking the road.  By the time we got there, the grizzly had been startled and was running along the river and eventually crossed the road and ran up in the woods.  It all happened so fast we didn’t have time to capture a picture, but I will forever remember that moment.  First grizzly we’d ever seen and we saw him on our first day in the park!

• Dinner that evening was at the Slippery Otter Pub in West Yellowstone.  Featuring buffalo and elk burgers and hand cut french fries, we scarfed down our burgers quickly and headed to camp to get ready for another busy day.

DAY 2

For Day 2, we had every intention of backtracking back to the Middle Geyser Basin and then exploring what we called the “Northern Loop.”  (From the West Yellowstone entrance, make a left at the Madison Junction and proceed.)

Before getting into the sites we explored this day, we witnessed one of the most amazing and memorable moments of our trip.  One that even tops seeing the grizzly bear!  Coming towards Madison Junction, we noticed cars starting to pull over on the road in front of us, once again alerting us there was probably some kind of wildlife ahead.  As we were trying to see what others were seeing, I noticed a flash of something light colored appearing to jump over a log.  That same moment, Tanner yells “mountain lion!”  I whipped our vehicle off the road, jammed it in park, and went running towards the river running alongside the highway.  To my surprise, what I saw was not a mountain lion, but a wolf!  And not just one wolf, but a pack of wolves (4 that we saw), chasing a baby elk, and the mother elk trying to protect it!!

Upon further research, we learned that there were wolfpacks in the park, those found most often in Lamar Valley and then the rarely seen “Madison Pack.”  We just witnessed that Madison pack in the most amazing wildlife scenes I’ve ever personally seen!  Of course we were cheering for the baby elk.  I’m not sure how I would have reacted had I seen those wolves get a hold of that baby.  When we left, the momma elk had appeared to successfully run the wolves off and she and her baby were headed in one direction and the wolves in another.  Here’s a video of the scene that Enrique got.  Watch the entire thing, it just gets better and better!

• Midway Geyser Basin – As I mentioned, we skipped this portion of the park the day before.  Some of the most magnificent springs and pools are found along the 1/2 mile boardwalk trail.  The gorgeous Excelsior Spring, which pumps around 4,000 gallons of boiling water into the Firehole River per minute is one of the first attractions along this trail.  Be sure to tighten your hats, several were found having blown off people’s heads surrounding this spring!  Other beautiful attractions on this trail include the Opal and Turqoise Pools.
  

  

  

  However, the most stunning sight along this trail is the Grand Prismatic Spring…

• Grand Prismatic Spring – Found in the Middle Geyser Basin, the Grand Prismatic Spring was the attraction I was most looking forward to seeing.  This spring is the largest hot spring in the United States and the third largest in the world!  Its brilliant colors are created by the heat-loving bacteria and thermophiles (algae) that live in the spring (like the other geysers throughout the park).  Words or pictures cannot describe how beautiful this spring is.  Even the steam rising over the spring contains the same bluish color as the spring.  The spring is deeper than a 10 story building and as big as a football field.  Looking at it from the boardwalk is impressive enough, but for an even better birds eye view, one must hike a short distance along the Fairy Falls trail to the Grand Prismatic overlook.  I would highly recommend doing both.  This was my favorite site of our trip!
  

  

  
• Fairy Falls Trail – As I already mentioned, to reach the Grand Prismatic Overlook, you need to locate the Fairy Falls trailhead.  This can be a little confusing to people wanting to see the gorgeous geyser from above, which is why we waited for the second day because I wanted to talk to a Park Ranger about how to get to the overlook.  The Fairy Falls Trailhead is about a mile pass the Midway Geyser Basin entrance.  It has its own parking lot, which was pretty crowded.  You know you’re on the right trail, because you will cross a steel bridge to cross the river to get on the trail.  Tanner decided to take on carrying Oakley for this portion of the trail.The Grand Prismatic Overlook is only about a half mile down the path.  You will come to a spur trail to the left that you will take up to the overlook.  Take it, you won’t regret it!
  

  

  At this point, we decided that we wanted to get back on the Fairy Falls trail and hike it to the falls.  The hike would be a little over 5 miles to the falls and back.  I will be honest, I had a few reservations about doing the trail because the bear spray I had bought, I LEFT AT HOME!  We decided that since there seemed to be a good number of people carrying on to the falls, many with bear spray, we would go ahead and hike it.  That’s one of the main things we like to do.  (Shame on us I know)  However, it worked out.  After hiking a couple miles down a very easy path, we came upon Fairy Falls.  It was more spectacular than I had expected!  With water falling from 200 feet, it was the site of one of the most beautiful falls I’ve ever hiked to. The boys had a great time climbing on the rocks and fallen trees around the base of the waterfall.  We hung around, played with some chipmunks, then headed back.  If you want to see another geyser, one can hike another half mile pass the falls.  We opted not to because we other items on our to-do list for the day.  This is a great hike for anybody who wants to hike a moderate distance but not be in the “backcountry.”

  

  

  

It is highly recommended that you carry bear spray with you in the park if you plan on doing any trails other than boardwalks.

• Norris Geyser Basin – The Norris Geyser Basin is said to be the hottest and most dynamic of all the geysers in the park.  It’s featured geyser is the Steamboat Geyser, a geyser that when it erupts can explode water as high as 300 feet in the air!  Unfortunately, this is one of the most unpredictable geysers in the park and eruptions can be days apart.  It’s a short circle drive and worth the trip in the event one should be so lucky as to see the explosion.  We aren’t that lucky….
• Mammoth Hot Springs –  Our final destination in the park was Mammoth Hot Springs.  It was a pretty good drive and we didn’t make too many more spots.  Mammoth Hot Springs is special because it is a series of about 50 hot springs  stacked on a hill.  The way the hot springs sit on “terraces” make it extremely unique.  The Park Ranger suggested we go see this phenomenon if time allows.  I just figured we would see another “pool.”  In no way was I prepared for the uniqueness and beauty of this park attraction.  We drove the circle drive on the topside of the geysers and then took the road down to the “spring mountain” base.  Even though this park feature is out of the way from the more popular features of the park, this is an absolute must see.  This was my second favorite area of Yellowstone!
  

  

  

On the way back to West Yellowstone, we saw our first black bear eating along the roadway!!  At this point we were 2 for 2 for bear spotting!  We also witnessed a brand new baby buffalo walking on the road with it’s Momma!!

• The best dinner we had in West Yellowstone was from Tequeria Malverde Mexican Food!  Probably one of the most unique food trucks I’ve ever seen and some of the best Mexican food I’ve ever tasted.  I ordered a chille rellano and a torta.  The boys and Mom ordered various tacos and chimis.  The only confirmation I needed that this was real good, Mexican food was that Enrique was walking around making us SMELL the TORTILLAS!  He was right, you could tell they were homemade and fresh just from the smell.  I highly recommend this stop if you’re in town!
  

  

  

  

DAY 3

So I know I told you that I would describe our 3 day itinerary, but we made a change of plans.  On Day 3, we had every intention of going to Lamar Valley to see wildlife and Yellowstone Canyon to hike.  However, the park ranger told us the best time to see wildlife in Lamar Valley was at dawn.  So that meant we would need to arrive in Lamar around 5:40 a.m., which meant leaving our camp at West Yellowstone about 3:45 IN THE MORNING!  We were prepared to do that prior on Day 1, but after witnessing the wolves, the grizzlies, the black bear, and more buffalo and elk than we could count, we decided to skip Lamar Valley.  So that left Yellowstone Canyon.  The only hike I was interested in doing was Tom’s Trail on the South Rim of the canyon/falls.  However, the Park Ranger informed me that Tom’s Trail was still closed due to the possibility of ice on the steps.  So after much discussion with my crew, we decided to that we’d pretty much conquered Yellowstone and decided to cut our time in Yellowstone a day short in order to take another route home and visit some other National Parks throughout South Dakota (which I will post about later).

Had we not had the experiences we had with the wildlife and had the trail not been closed we would totally have stayed for a third day.  So my recommendation, should you stay a third day, would be to visit Lamar Valley and hike Tom’s Trail of the South Rim on Yellowstone Canyon/Falls.

So there you have it!  Our time in Yellowstone was most memorable and I look forward to visiting another time!!  Just one more picture which exemplifies our time in Yellowstone National Park.

What is your favorite “attraction” at Yellowstone National Park?