Day trip to Yellowstone N.P.
June 2021
Lower Falls, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, taken from Artist’s Point
It’s a good thing this wasn’t our first trip to Yellowstone, because this big park needs much more time than one day in order to be seen properly. However, all nearby campgrounds in Wyoming were fully booked when we started planning our trip in March. The only reservable spaces left were $90+/night, which is crazy! I was able to book Henrys Lake State Park (close to Yellowstone) for part of the July 4th weekend. We realized the crowds would be really bad at Yellowstone that weekend, so we decided to take a day trip in June instead, while we were staying at a campground in eastern Idaho. This meant that our drive to get to the park would be almost 2 hours, so we had to get on the road early in the morning. Plus we spent an hour sitting in traffic in West Yellowstone waiting to get into the park. Not the best way to see the park! If we ever go back, we’ll go in September or October when it’s less crowded, and plan farther ahead of time so we can find a place to stay closer to the park. However, this amazing park was worth the hassle!
Even though traffic was heavy, we were able to find parking spots without too much trouble at each of the stops we visited. First, we went to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, which is so beautiful. On our last visit several years ago, we walked down to the brink of the falls, which is an amazing view, but we didn’t attempt it this time. In the picture above, you can see people standing just above and to the right of the falls.
After having an early lunch at nearby Canyon Village, we headed up to Mammoth Hot Springs. We hiked on the boardwalk and up lots of stairs in hot weather. Not fun. However, the otherworldly colors and shapes of the terraces are interesting and worth the hike. When we finished the hike, we realized that we could have parked in a parking lot at the top of the hill for that uphill part of the trail, and then parked in a different lot for the lower terraces. Oh, well.
We really wanted to revisit Grand Prismatic Spring. On our first visit, we only walked the boardwalk around it, and couldn’t see much, because it was a dull, chilly day, and there was a lot of steam in the air that obscured our view. This time, with better weather, we wanted to walk the trail above the spring, so we could see the whole thing and all its colors. Gorgeous!
We skipped the crowds at Old Faithful, as we’d seen the geyser before. These 3 major attractions were about all we could fit in one day. We hope someday we can come back.