When I tell people I am trying to go to all 59 national parks this is one of the first parks they ask me if I’ve been to! Somehow I went to three in Alaska before hitting this – but it was well worth the wait! The wildlife sightings were pretty excellent. I saw elk, wolves, bear, bison, lots of birds and a ton of hot springs. This first one was one who would NOT get out of the road when I came through the entrance. She was definitely giving me some side eye here.
I saw a mom and baby over on the side of the river, and then looked up and saw the bull on the hillside. I got some great pictures of him running down the hill and then across the water. He was pretty suspicious of me watching him.
This crazy animal was running around and chasing all the female elk…and a few daring park visitors! The sounds these animals make cracks me up. You can hear them for miles! I can’t imagine how loud it is when there are a lot of them grouped together.
First stop of the day was Mammoth Hot Springs. I pretty much walked the entire thing, and got some pretty cool views of my very first hot springs!
Here are a few pictures I got of some birds in the area. I’ll wait for my favorite bird enthusiast to read this and then I’ll be able to add in the bird names I bet 🙂
I will admit I hiked down a fairly steep slope to get some pictures of the falls, only to find a pull out from the other side later on that had more unobstructed views! But its alright the climb down was an adventure.
This reminded me of the Grand Canyon of the Gunnison too! Water makes some beautiful canyons.
Next up was all the hot springs, vents, mud pots, steam vents and more. I didn’t spend enough time in the visitor centers to learn all the differences, but I did get some great pictures. The color was pretty phenomenal. The smell was abysmal.
This next one was Steamboat Geyser, which apparently erupted for real later the day I was there! Here is it just spitting a little.
I zoomed in on one and took some pictures while it was erupting. I like the way you can see the steam and the water so clearly! Definitely do not want to put my hands anywhere near this water.
This bull and a few females caused some major traffic jams on the west side! They had about a million rangers set up to prevent people from getting too close. Which was hilarious since there were a ton of other places in the park where the elk were right on the road, but perhaps this one got more publicity because they were all so photogenic by the river!
Here was the first baby bison I saw! Very adorable.
Next up are some pictures of Old Faithful goings off just as the sun was rising on my second day. It was about 25 degrees outside, so the crowd was small, but the views did not disappoint.
I hiked up the Fairy Falls trail to go see the overview of the Grand Prismatic, but it was too cold and the steam sort of obscured the view. You can still see some color at the very edges of the pool.
This next Geyser basin was the last I hit before the end of my two day trip. It was cool to see the springs right on the edge of the big lake. One of the tour guides from another group mentioned that when kayaking you have to stay about 50 meters from the shoreline in this area because of the spring water and geysers.
I spent two FULL days in Yellowstone. Looking back, I probably would condense to one, but that is only because I sort of got tired of touring hot springs…they stink. Which probably makes me lame but I have no shame! So if you are planning on going, 1.5 days is probably sufficient! I stayed in the Canyon City area and it was great because of how central it was to the entire park. This park is MASSIVE though, so anything less than a day you would miss a lot.
Kelsey's Climb to 59 (+4) 