Yellowstone National Park: Pt 1
The venture to Yellowstone National Park was an incredible experience. Wyoming is probably one of the prettiest states I’ve ever driven through. There are so many national forests, mountains, and lakes to see on your way to Yellowstone! During our 9 day road trip, we spent the most time in Yellowstone, so I decided to break this post up into two parts. Let’s get into part one of our adventure in Yellowstone National Park.
We entered Yellowstone & quickly realized we had no cell service in the park at all. Be sure to be prepared with maps downloaded on your phone or pick up a map at the entrance. The break from our phones was super nice but it meant we couldn’t rely on them for directions or looking up things to do in the park. Once we grabbed our map we quickly picked out a few things we wanted to see and made notes next to things that could be interesting if we had time. There were two fires in the park at the time we were there so a few roads were closed off limiting the things we could see while we were there. Based on that we decided to drive through the park from the East Entrance to the Mammoth Hot Springs near the North Entrance. Anytime we saw something interesting along the way we would stop to hop out, take a look, and snap any photos.
Mammoth Hot Springs is right at the top of Yellowstone & is right by the Montana border. This was one of the more popular attractions we stopped to see. There definitely were people walking around on the paths with us, but it wasn’t jam-packed. The paths build through the hot springs allowed you to get up close to the upper and lower portions of the springs. We spent maybe an hour walking the paths and taking photos, then we decided to cook dinner at the picnic tables across from the Mammoth Hot Springs. Yet again, we had no plans for where we were going to sleep that night! So we headed out the North Entrance of the park into Montana to see what was available in the town. Most were booked but we ended up finding an RV park that had cabins you could stay in. We got to take showers, sleep in beds in the cabin, and enjoy some AC for a little bit!
The next morning we got up and headed back into Yellowstone. Our goal of the day was to make it to Fairy Falls, so we decided to stop at anything that caught our interest along the way. It was a little bit cooler this morning but warmed up as the day went on. Driving through we stopped at Roaring Mountain, a random spring on the side of the road, and the Grand Prismatic Spring.
The Grand Prismatic Spring was probably the busiest spot we visited in Yellowstone National Park. We got there before lunchtime and it was only getting busier as we left. We walked the paths all along the Midway Geyser Basin and got to see the springs and geysers up close! Then we headed off to the Upper Geyser Basin where we got these incredible shots of the Grand Prismatic Spring from above. This overlook is a must-see, the Grand Prismatic looks so amazing from above as you can truly see all of the colors of the spring.
I definitely recommend trying to get to the Upper Geyser Basin before lunchtime, it gets busier as the day goes on so to avoid the crowds you’ll want to get there before noon. P.S. My favorite spot in all of Yellowstone is coming up next. I’ll share the rest of our adventure through Yellowstone National Park in part two! Head over here to see the rest of our trip.
