5 Things I Learned on My Last Trip to Yellowstone
Several bison joined us for one of Old Faithful’s eruptions.
If you haven’t visited Yellowstone National Park yet, make sure to add it to your bucket list! All the U.S. national parks are full of natural wonders, but as the first and one of the largest national parks, Yellowstone is really something special. After two trips to Yellowstone, I’m far from an expert, but there’s a few things I’ve picked up that will guide my next trip:
1. Spend as much time there as you can
If you can, spend more than a day in Yellowstone! The park is almost 3500 square miles, so it’s safe to say that there is a lot to see. While a day trip is better than nothing – certainly enough time to see some of the big sites like Old Faithful and Grand Prismatic, along with plenty of bison and elk – it still will just barely scratch the surface of all that Yellowstone has to offer.
If you’re able to spend a few days, it’s totally worth it. My first trip was 4 days and my second was 5 days, but I still feel like I have so much more to see!
And if you really want to do as much as you can, skip the camping. Don’t get me wrong – camping is great. But it’s hard to get a good night’s sleep in a tent and there is so much to do in Yellowstone so you want to be as well rested as possible. I will say though – it’s pretty cool to hear the elk bugling in the late summer from your tent.
2. Skip the summer
My first trip to Yellowstone was over Labor Day weekend, while the second one was in mid-May. It was 90+ degrees during our first trip but only in the 70s during the second.
There’s a few benefits to visiting Yellowstone when it’s cooler. The wildlife is much more active in the cooler weather. You’ll always see bison and elk when you go to Yellowstone, but on our last trip, we also saw several wolves and their pups, numerous Grizzlies and black bears, and pronghorn sheep, among plenty of other animals.
The thermal features are also, as the name suggests, HOT. During my first trip, we couldn’t even finish the walk around Upper Geyser Basin because being surrounded by hydrothermal pools and springs when it was already 90 degrees was unpleasant to say the least. It was so much more comfortable to view these amazing thermal features in the spring weather!
3. Get up early
Not just early – super early. The most exciting animals are especially active at dawn and dusk. One of the days we left early, we saw a wolf pass right next to our car – totally worth our 3:30AM wake up!
There will also be so much less traffic. If you haven’t ever visited Yellowstone, prepare for a lot of people and a lot of traffic jams – affectionately known as bear jams, since the possibility of seeing bears in the wild always causes the most traffic! The early morning traffic jams are much smaller and a lot more manageable.
I also think there’s a special camaraderie among the early risers. People are generally pretty nice at Yellowstone, and others are happy to share their scopes or point out the wildlife they’ve already spotted. Most people want others to have the awe-inspiring experience of seeing animals in the wild and those who get up early to wildlife watch seem to be more serious about seeing the wildlife, as well as very kind and willing to help us newbies.
4. Plan ahead and break it up
There is so much more to Yellowstone than any one person can ever see. There’s also a lot of different sights and reasons to go to Yellowstone. Your trip will be most successful if you think about your priorities and the priorities of others in your group before you visit. Are you a wildlife watcher? An admirer of thermal features? A hiker?
Or maybe you’re like me, and enjoy a little bit of everything. I get restless, so I prefer to break it up and not focus on seeing just one thing. While I love wildlife, I also need to get out and move my body, so I like to break up the wildlife watching with thermal features and hiking. Wildlife watching can also be frustrating and there is no guarantee of success. Breaking up the driving with walks around the thermals or hiking to beautiful vistas is a great way to keep your spirits high!
5. Don’t bring the dog
Yellowstone National Park is not dog friendly – and with good reason! Those thermal features are incredibly dangerous and would be lethal to a dog that fell in. Not only that, but dogs are prey to plenty of wildlife. It’s definitely safer to not bring them.
We had our dogs on our first trip and they did great, but having a friend watch them during our second trip was so much easier. When we had them with us, we couldn’t do much except for wildlife watch because we had to monitor the car temperature. The freedom of not bringing them was well worth it; there are some trips where having the dogs doesn’t significantly affect the ease of the trip but Yellowstone is not one of them.
If you do choose to bring your dog, I have a few recommendations. If I brought my dogs again, I would rent a pet friendly AirBnb where I could safely leave them during the day without worrying about them overheating. I would definitely stay outside the park and take at least one day or several half days to explore outside the park with the dogs. It’s just as beautiful, but the dogs can legally hike outside the national park! (I would still be careful about the trails I picked and hiking with bear safety in mind to ensure we didn’t attract any unwanted predators).
If you bring your dog, please be sure to follow all the park’s rules regarding dogs. National parks are protected for a reason. I don’t support overgeneralized leash laws, but the national park rules around dogs are not overgeneralized. These rules exist to preserve the natural landscape and wildlife as well as keep you and your dog safe.
For Yellowstone, pets must be supervised and remain in developed areas no further than 100 feet from roads, parking areas, and campgrounds. They must be under physical control at all times – in a car, crate, or on a leash no longer than 6 feet. They are not permitted on boardwalks, hiking trails, in the backcountry, or in thermal areas. You can’t get around these restrictions by carrying your pets – they still are not permitted! Leashed service animals are permitted throughout the park, but this does not include therapy dogs or Emotional Support Animals; while those animals perform valuable services, they are not service dogs trained to assist someone with a disability and are not entitled to public access rights that service animals are. Don’t blow off the Yellowstone pet rules – they keep you and your pet safe from bears, wolves, and dangerous thermal features!
