Cross Country Travels: The Yellowstone Experience

Yellowstone, The Grand Tetons, and the surrounding areas are an experience.  A trip within the trip. While my travels to this area in Montana and Wyoming were centered around visiting the National Parks, the surrounding expanses were as picturesque as I had dreamed.  In the future I hope to return and explore more but for now I’d love to share with you how I spent my time in Yellowstone National Park and the surrounding area on my cross-country trip.

More From This Cross Country Series:

Planning for My 7,000 Mile Cross Country Trip
The Packing Essentials: How I Prepared for My Cross Country Trip
Week One of My Cross Country Trip: Getting From SC to Montana
Cross Country Travels: Glacier National Park and Montana

The Week’s Activities and Adventures:

Here’s a quick look at the schedule for this week:

• Day One: West Side of Yellowstone National Park
• Day Two: Pine Creek Falls, Yellowstone River, and Livingston, MT
• Day Three: Pray, MT and a Leisurely Day Packing
• Day Four: East Side of Yellowstone National Park and Arriving in Jackson, WY
• Day Five: Outer Loop of Grand Teton National Park and Horseback Riding
• Day Six: Inner Loop of Grand Teton National Park and Jackson Town Square
• Day Seven: The Wyoming Drive and Independence State Rock

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Home Base

As I mentioned in my last post, Cross Country Travels: Glacier National Park and Montana, we left the area just outside of Glacier and traveled south.  I took a quick detour past the Chief Joseph Ranch, known as the Dutton Ranch if you’re familiar with the Yellowstone TV series, and then headed east.  This scenic route was wonderful to drive and our destination was Pray, Montana where I set up our home base for the next four days.  It’s just south of Livingston, Montana and the location of the guest house we stayed in was in the most surreal landscape.  I’ve never seen anything like it. 

The property we stayed in was nestled in a community where a simple gravel road was the only access.  It took about 15 minutes to drive maybe a couple of miles because you had to go slow in order not to hit potholes and sling gravel.  Once we arrived, I didn’t want to leave. 

The Guest House

When I began researching for my cross-country trip, there were a few areas that I was willing to splurge in terms of housing. Yellowstone was one of those places. I wanted to experience the beauty of the wide open ranges, wildlife, and enjoy sunsets surrounded by the mountains.

The Guest House of the property I found was the perfect fit for me and Sampson. It’s part of a main house with three tiny houses close by, yet you felt like you were there all alone. While the houses are more modern with their sleek lines and black facade, the feel of the place in the midst of the surroundings was surreal. I can’t really think of another way to put it. One evening when I was FaceTiming my parents they couldn’t believe I was standing outside of the guest house because of what they saw all around me. Like I said, surreal.

Sampson and I walked every morning and evening, taking in the views and I quietly thanked God for creating such a spectacular setting. 

After traveling for the day, stopping to get groceries on the way in, and then getting unpacked and settled in our guest house, it was ready for day one of the Yellowstone experience.

Yellowstone National Park

From the National Park Service:
The World’s First National Park:  On March 1, 1872, Yellowstone became the first national park for all to enjoy the unique hydrothermal and geologic features. Within Yellowstone’s 2.2 million acres, visitors have unparalleled opportunities to observe wildlife in an intact ecosystem, explore geothermal areas that contain about half the world’s active geysers, and view geologic wonders like the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River.

A BIT OF GEOGRAPHY

Before we head into the first day’s activities, I wanted to clear up a common misconception.  Did you know that 96% of the Yellowstone National Park is in Wyoming, and not Montana?  You actually cross over the state lines shortly after you enter the park from the north.  I think many of the TV series and movies depict the park as part of the Montana experience, or maybe that’s just me, but most of it is in Wyoming.  The rest of the park is 3% Montana, and 1% Idaho.  Regardless, it’s all beautiful and unique.

THE BIG THREE

The other piece of advice worth mentioning is this.  If you are planning to visit Yellowstone National Park and have the time, I would also visit Grand Teton National Park which is connected to Yellowstone via U.S. 191 and less than an hour drive.  I didn’t quite realize how close the two were until I drove the route.  And if you have even more time, also try to add Glacier National Park to your trip.  It’s a little longer away, 6.5 hour drive from Columbia Falls, MT to Mammoth, WY, but if you plan your trip like I did, there’s a lot to see in between. 

VISITING YELLOWSTONE WITH YOUR DOG

In order to get the complete Yellowstone experience, I knew I couldn’t have my dog, Sampson, with me the entire time.  Many of the stops within the park required walking and those trails are not dog-friendly like in almost all National Parks.  I found a boarding location just up the road from our guest house so after dropping him off, I headed south towards Gardiner, MT where the North Entrance is located.  It’s a beautiful 50-minute drive and once you enter the park from the North Entrance, it’s a 20-minute drive along a winding road.  At the end of that road, you enter Mammoth, MT where I veered, right, or west, to explore the west side of Yellowstone.

PLANNING YOUR YELLOWSTONE EXPERIENCE

Yellowstone National Park is one of the more typical national parks with four entrances and once inside the park, you can explore at your leisure.  It also is essentially a giant loop with a lot of stops along the way including trails if you like to hike.

During my research I found that there are several ways to approach visiting the park. Some suggest west vs. east and others prefer the upper loop followed by the lower.  I guess it just depends on where you’re starting from and how many days you have to explore.  My original plan was to spend two full days while Sampson was boarded and then a third day with him as we traveled towards the Grand Tetons.  As you’ll soon read, those plans changed and if I had to do it all again, I would have done things a little differently.  Regardless, I think exploring the west side one day followed by the east side another is the best approach. 

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Day One

THE WEST SIDE OF YELLOWSTONE

The west side of the park is what I’ll call thermal springs row.  While there are a few other things to see, the vast majority are hot springs and geysers.  It’s exactly what the pictures look like when you read about Yellowstone.  Since I was coming from the North Entrance, my plan was to drive all the way down to Old Faithful. This is about an hour-long drive if you don’t make any stops along the way.  The goal was to get the longest part of the drive behind me on the front end. I followed this plan but to keep things simple, I’ll list the stops I made traveling north to south.

Mammoth Hot Springs:

Norris Geyser Basin:

Gibbon Falls:

Grand Prismatic Spring

Grand Prismatic Spring Overlook

Upper Geyser Basin

Old Faithful

As much as I hate to admit this, I didn’t love this part of Yellowstone as much as I was expecting.  I know, I know.  Trust me, I feel guilty that I wasn’t mesmerized as much as I anticipated.  If I’m being totally honest, the springs and geysers all started to look the same after a while.  I was traveling alone so perhaps if I had some company, I would have enjoyed it more.  Who knows?  I did get to see some grizzly bears and a couple of bison up close which more than made up for it though.

After making all of the stops on my list, I headed back to the boarding facility to pick up my sweet boy.  Without going into the details, let’s just say I was less than impressed with the facilities. I decided Sampson would not be going back for a second day. This played a part in me changing my plans to return to the east side of Yellowstone the next day. 

Day Two

Since Sampson was not going back to the kennel and because I didn’t want to make the long drive back to Yellowstone to explore the east side, instead I did some quick research on what dog-friendly trails were nearby.  I found the Pine Creek Falls trail which was about a 15–20-minute drive from our guest house.  So, I packed a lunch and off Sampson and I went.

After driving through the gorgeous back roads to the Pine Creek Campground, you’ll find the trail parking lot located in the very back.  There’s no service so make sure you know where you’re going.

The trail is a 2.5-mile roundtrip hike although Sampson and I felt like it was more like 5 miles.  We took our time and at the top were rewarded with the beautiful views of the waterfall. 

After a few pictures, we headed back down the trail and the drove the back roads towards Livingston, MT with one stop along the Yellowstone River.  I mean if you’re in the Yellowstone area, you have to visit the Yellowstone River, right?

We then headed to Livingston, MT to explore the quaint downtown and to admire some of the historic homes before heading back to the guest house for the evening.

Day Three

The third day was a planned rest day for the most part.  I think when you’re traveling for four weeks it’s wise to schedule a few of these along the way.  While we did venture out to take a look at Chico Hot Springs and drove a few more of the back roads around the Pray, MT area, for the most part, we took it easy.  The good thing about where the guest house was located was that we could walk the property and say hello to a nearby horse.  Since we were leaving at 7am the next morning, I went ahead and did laundry and packed so we could hit the road early the next day.

Day Four

THE EAST SIDE OF YELLOWSTONE

The benefit of leaving early and driving towards Yellowstone is that you get to watch the breathtaking sunrise.  And as a bonus I got to watch a herd of elk pass by right in front of me which is still one of my favorite memories from the trip. 

Once we got to the North Entrance and drove to the little town of Mammoth inside the park, this time I went left, or east, on the loop with Lamar Valley as the first stop.  Here are all the stops I made along the east side of the park. This route took about four hours since I couldn’t venture far at stops, with Sampson in the car.

Lamar Valley

Inspiration Point

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone-Artist’s Point

Yellowstone Lake

West Thumb Geyser Basin

Near the General Store at Yellowstone Lake, I took Sampson for a long walk before heading towards Jackson, WY.  And I’m so glad I did. 

While it seemed like short drive on the map, the stretch from Yellowstone to the Grand Tetons was longer than expected. There’s also nowhere to stop along the way.

The West Thumb Geyser Basin was our last stop at Yellowstone. From there it took us 45 minutes to get to the South Entrance gate.  After several pictures at the iconic Yellowstone National Park sign, we drove to the northern most part of the Grand Tetons which took about which took about 35 minutes. 

From there we drove the outer loop past the Grand Tetons and through Jackson Square. We went straight to our stay for the next few nights. It took about an hour-and-a-half with no stops since it was getting late and I needed to get checked in.

In my next post I’ll share the second half of my Wyoming adventures. We explored the Grand Teton National Park and I took a horseback riding tour. And the best part might have been our drive across Wyoming as we headed towards Colorado. Check back soon because I can’t wait to share the next leg of this trip with you.