Tips for Traveling to Yellowstone

flowers in front of the Tetons

I wanted to do one final post about our vacation to Yellowstone: some tips I would give to anyone who is planning a trip out there.

Know ahead of time what you definitely want to see while you're there. There are SO many geysers, hot springs, trails, and waterfalls in Yellowstone.  It can be very overwhelming if you just arrive and then try to decide how to spend your time. Do some research, buy some maps or books, and pick your "must see" list.  (Some of ours were Old Faithful, the Canyon of Yellowstone, Tower Falls, Morning Glory.)

Be flexible with your plans once you are there.  While we did have a rough idea of the hikes we wanted to go on and what we wanted to see, we didn't stick to a strict schedule for each day.  We made sure we hit one or two of the main things we wanted to see each day, but then we left room for whatever we saw along the way.  There are always animals to stop and watch or a random little turnoff or trail that you decide you want to go down.  I think that's what makes Yellowstone so great:  you could never run out of things to see and do!

Pack a lunch.  Because we never quite knew where we would be during our days, we found that having lunch in our car and/or day pack was most helpful. The restaurants in Yellowstone are all around the major areas of the park.  But if you're driving around or decide to do an extra hike somewhere along the way, it's hard to know if you'll be around a restaurant when you get hungry.  We also found that we were hungry a lot, so it was good that we had so many snacks with us.

Bring bug spray.  I read that there are over 40 varieties of mosquitoes in Yellowstone, and I believe it!  The bugs were literally swarming around us at times.  I did notice a huge difference once we put the bug spray on, though.

Set aside time to drive down to the Tetons.  If you aren't planning to spend any time in the Tetons, reconsider!  They are breathtakingly gorgeous and totally worth the 1-2 hour drive down, depending on where you are in Yellowstone. Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone basically back right up to each other, so it's not that much out of your way.  You won't be sorry you saw them!

Pack a variety of clothes.  We were told that it can get pretty chilly in the evenings in Yellowstone, even in July.  It never got as cold as we expected it to, but we were glad that we brought jackets, long-sleeved shirts, and sweatshirts to wear when we needed them.  We also made sure we had good rain jackets.  We brought hiking clothes for both hot and cool weather, but ended up needing only shorts because of how warm it was.  It helped me to know that we were prepared for any kind of weather.

I think that pretty much sums up what we learned from our trip.  We loved our vacation and would definitely recommend it to anyone who is thinking about going!  If you want any recommendations or further tips, please feel free to contact me!

Vacation Recap: Days 4 & 5

Friday morning we decided to take a tour of the Old Faithful Inn.  I love learning the details and the history of places, so Caleb was gracious enough to agree to take the tour.  We thought the tour was really interesting, and if you have the time during a visit at Yellowstone, I would suggest you take it!  At the very least spend some time walking around the Inn - it is a national historic landmark and is quite fascinating.

the fireplace is made of 500 tons of rhyolite!

love all of the lodgepole pine beams everywhere

this was our view of the lobby from the bench we sat on in the evenings

from the porch of the Inn you can watch Old Faithful 

one of the original rooms of the Inn (built in 1904). you can stay in it for
$96 a night, but you have to use a public toilet and shower down the hall!

After our tour, we headed out to do the last few things we wanted to do before leaving Yellowstone.

this is taken from the parking lot of Old Faithful Inn.
Everywhere you look in Yellowstone is beautiful!

On our way towards the trail to Mystic Falls, we walked by a ton of geysers and hot springs.  This one is Sapphire Hole.  Possibly the most gorgeous one in Yellowstone!

beautiful.

at Mystic Falls

After Mystic Falls we went to see Fountain Paint Pots, another geothermal hot spot (haha get it) in Yellowstone.

Fountain Paint Pot

In the area around Fountain Paint Pot there were geysers as well.  This one I think was called Spasm Geyser, and it just kept shooting water!  It must have gone on for at least 10 minutes.

in front of Spasm Geyser 

Next we drove down Firehole Canyon Drive.  We stopped at the cascades because we just have this thing for watching water. 

Firehole Cascades

loving every minute together

Friday afternoon when we got back to the Old Faithful area, a storm was moving in.  We watched Old Faithful go off (for the 7th and 8th times of our trip!) and then it started pouring and hailing!  We spent the rest of the evening chilling out in the Old Faithful Inn lobby.  I made a list of random things to look for in the lobby (someone laying down, a set of twins, a bottle of wine, etc.) so we people-watched and checked things off the list.  It was nice to just relax.  

Saturday morning we left to drive back to Salt Lake City.  We stopped in the Tetons to look upon their beauty once more.  It was such a long trip back to SLC.  Somehow we ended up on the scenic byway (why do we always do that?!) and I felt like I was never going to get out of Idaho.  Once we made it back to the city, we shopped and ate at The Gateway for the evening.  We took a red-eye and finally got home at 2 pm on Sunday.  It was such a wonderful trip!

goodbye Yellowstone!

goodbye Tetons!

Vacation Recap: Day 3

On Thursday we spent most of our day around Yellowstone's Canyon.  There are two waterfalls in the Canyon:  Lower Falls and Upper Falls.  The Canyon follows Yellowstone River and is 20 miles long, 1000 feet deep, and 2500 feet wide. There are a lot of trails that take you close to the top of the falls, or you can take different trails to give you more of an overlook view.  We did a lot of them, but here are just a few of the views we had of the waterfalls and canyon.

standing right next to the top of Lower Falls

view of the canyon from Lower Falls

overlook of Lower Falls

ok in this next picture I've put arrows pointing to this diagonal line (maybe click on the picture to make it larger) that is a very steep set of stairs.  This trail and all of these steps is known as Uncle Tom's Trail.  It takes you 3/4 of the way down into the canyon to give you an awesome view of Lower Falls.

the steps of Uncle Tom's Trail from across the Canyon

Later in the day we went to the other side of the canyon and hiked down Uncle Tom's Trail.  The steps were SO steep and basically hanging over nothing! Which was really scary!  Going down I just looked at my feet so I didn't freak myself out. It was totally worth it once we got to the bottom, though!  Going back up was a different story: it was so steep and there were so many stairs, and climbing hundreds of stairs at 8,000 feet of elevation was a bit much for me.  I was literally gasping for air and my legs were still burning like two days later.  But it was fun, and we would definitely recommend it to anyone who goes to Yellowstone!

view of Lower Falls from Uncle Tom's Trail

we were so close to the falls!

After Uncle Tom's Trail we went to Artist's Point, which we heard was the best view of the canyon.  We would have to agree!

view from Artist's Point

After we left the Canyon area we went to Tower Falls.  We were disappointed that the trail to the bottom of the falls was closed, due to water and the trail being washed out.

Tower Falls

my first time seeing elk!

On our way back to the inn at the end of the day, we drove by Yellowstone Lake to get a view of something different.  It was very pretty, but basically your typical lake.  We decided we didn't want to spend any time there because we've been to other lakes.  We did stop at this mud volcano though - so weird!

mud volcano

We hadn't originally planned to spend so much time at the Canyon, but once we were there we decided we wanted to keep going down different trails!  There are beautiful views everywhere we looked!

(see part 1 of our trip here and part 2 here!)

Vacation Recap: Day 2

Wednesday morning we woke up and drove to the top of Signal Mountain to see the Tetons from up there.  We were so excited about the view!

the Tetons from the top of Signal Mountain

these yellow flowers are everywhere out there

Before we left Grand Teton National Park to head to Yellowstone, I wanted to go back to a turnout we had passed the day before to get some pictures.

this is one of our favorite pictures of us from the trip

After a few pictures we started the drive north to Yellowstone.  Along the way we stopped several times around the lake to take more pictures of the Tetons.  They're just so pretty we couldn't help it!

this is the picture I had been waiting for!  Love the reflection!

I think it took us about two hours to get to Old Faithful from where we were in the Tetons.  We also stopped several times once we got into Yellowstone - at an overlook of a river and then we also hiked to a waterfall.  There are so many places to stop and get out and look around that you could spend your entire day doing just that!  Once we got to the Old Faithful area, we spent some time walking around looking at all the different geysers and hot springs.  There are so many of them!  Everywhere you look there is steam coming out of the ground - it's crazy!

my favorites were the ones that were this beautiful blue.
the bluer the hot springs are, the hotter they are.

After we walked around looking at a bunch of the hot springs and geysers around Old Faithful, it was finally time to watch Old Faithful go off!

just getting started

it goes up so high!

Afterwards, we walked a couple of miles in the opposite direction of Old Faithful to look at more hot springs and geysers.  I have SO many pictures of all the different ones but this one is one of my favorites!

this is Morning Glory.  I prefer to call it Rainbow Hole.

We walked probably four or five miles in the general Old Faithful area looking at all of the hot springs and geysers.  And let me tell you: they smell SO bad!  Old Faithful didn't really smell, but as you're walking on the sidewalks/boardwalks by all of the littler ones, the hot steam hits you in the face and about knocks you over with the sulfur smell.  On our way back to the inn to get ready to eat dinner, we came across this guy!

our first view of bison!

Seeing all of the hot springs and geysers was pretty incredible.  Yellowstone has the largest concentration of them in the world, and it really is fascinating to see steam coming out of the ground, or to watch these huge puddle-like things gurgling and bubbling with hot water!  We stayed at the Old Faithful Inn the entire time we were in Yellowstone, and it was fun to watch Old Faithful go off several times a day and watch the other geysers going off around us.  In the evenings we always spent time in the Old Faithful Inn lobby, watching people, eating ice cream, and listening to this cute little old man playing the grand piano!

Vacation Recap: Day 1

Our trip had a bit of rough start with both of our flights out west being delayed, so we didn't get to Salt Lake City until 2:30 AM.  We slept in our hotel for a few hours and then left to drive to the Grand Tetons Tuesday morning.  We really enjoyed the drive because we were able to see so many pretty views of the mountains we were driving through.

an overlook we stopped at in Wyoming

We stopped in Jackson Hole for lunch and some groceries and then made our way into Grand Teton National Park.  We couldn't get over how beautiful the Tetons are!  You can see the mountains pretty much the whole time you're driving through the park on highway 89 (the main road that goes through the park).

the view of the Tetons from the car

We stopped at Jenny Lake and paid for a boat to take us across the lake.  From there we hiked to Inspiration Point, which looks over Jenny Lake.

the view of Jenny Lake from Inspiration Point

The hike followed this river/stream that was super high because of either rain or melting snow?  Not really sure which.  Most of the bridges were closed because the water was so high.  Because the bridges were out, we got turned around and ended up doing this part of the hike twice in order to get to the next trail we wanted.  Whoops.

the rushing water was so powerful and loud!

Once we hiked to Inspiration Point, then back to the boat dock, and then back up again, we finally made it to Hidden Falls.  We both really love waterfalls, so we loved seeing this one!

Hidden Falls

After Hidden Falls, we hiked back around the lake instead of taking the boat back.  It was pretty to be right next to the lake hiking, except for where the lake had washed the trail out and we had to climb over rocks and fallen trees.

hiking along Jenny Lake

We thought total we were going to hike about 2.5 miles, which was great because it was our first day, we had started in the late afternoon, and Caleb wanted it to be an easier day for me to start off with.  By the time we got back to the trail head, we saw that because of the bridges being out and having to go a different way (plus doing the first hike x2) we ended up doing 4.5 miles.  It was longer than I had anticipated, and my feet were throbbing because I hadn't broken in my new hiking shoes enough, but we thought it was such a fun hike!  We're really glad we did it and would recommend it.

the awesome view of the lake when we got back to the first side!

We got in the car and started heading to the Signal Mountain Lodge area.  On the way we saw a ton of cars stopped along the road, so we pulled over and saw this bear at the edge of the woods!

That black blob is the bear.  It never really moved.

We finished our drive to Signal Mountain Lodge, which is on the south part of Jackson Lake.  We had dinner at one of the restaurants there with this beautiful view.

can't get over how beautiful the mountains are!

we loved having such a gorgeous view during dinner 

Caleb tried a bison burger for dinner.  He liked it. 

We were pretty tired from flying through the night, not getting much sleep, and from hiking, so we went to bed pretty early.  We stayed at the Signal Mountain Lodge and were really pleased with our room.

the sun beginning to set

We loved our first day and thought it started off our trip really well.  If you ever go to Yellowstone, definitely take the time to drive through the Tetons - they are so beautiful!!

Vacation Time!

Today we're leaving for our vacation!  We're flying out west to spend some time in the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone.  We are SO excited!  I'll be taking a break from blogging for the week so we can just enjoy being together.  We'll of course be doing a lot of hiking and being outside and I want to soak up every minute of it!  I hope we have everything we need because we're heading to the airport in just a little bit.

lists!

hiking shoes

bear bell

lots of maps.

day pack

I hope everyone has a great week!  I'll be back in touch next week and will catch up on all of your blogs then!