Yellowstone - your thoughts please.

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Good morning. Top of my bucket list is Yellowstone and we are looking at going next June. If you have been in recent times, please share your flight route /carrier, where you stayed and what you found were the best bit. Thanks
 
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I was there June 2023 for a second visit, five years after our first trip - Flew Delta from Edinburgh > Atlanta > Salt Lake City > Bozeman and back from Bozeman > Minneapolis > Amsterdam > Edinburgh - Delays and flight changes were the order of the day from the time we booked it until we were in transit - but we got there and back.

Stayed in Gardiner at the North Entrance for seven nights split between the start and end of our fortnight there and in the middle of our trip we stayed three nights in the park at Canyon village and then three nights in Cooke City at the North East Entrance.

09-06-2023_Yellowstone_1004 by David Young, on Flickr

We were happy to get up early and be out of the door at first light looking for wildlife and we saw bears, moose, elk, wolves, coyotes, pronghorn, owls and loads more before breakfast.

If you're more looking for geysers etc then Grand Prismatic is the most extraordinary thing I've ever seen we walked to the overlook in 2018 and it's spectacular. On our 2023 visit we called in at Norris Geyser basin after being up early to photograph a grizzly family - the World's biggest geyser 'Steamboat' was erupting the day before as we drove past and was still;; going impressively the following day - we wandered up and got rained on by it.

We were there for wildlife viewing and photography - best locations for that in my experience are in the North of the park - Cooke City to Tower Junction through Lamar Valley is wonderful in the early morning and evening - and in the East, Hayden Valley and East of Fishing Bridge going out towards the East entrance- The West side of the park is where most of the geyser activity is and gets very crowded during the day.

Here's a link to some of my pics; https://www.davidyoungphoto.co.uk/gallery/Yellowstone-2023/G00004eImM0DRby4/
 
I've been twice; once in the Autumn and once in deep winter. The logistics of the latter is more complex but it's also magical. But any time makes Britain's labelling of its National Parks all a bit fraudulent.

Avoid the geyers to avoid the worse of the crowds. If you spot wildlife while driving make sure you find a proper parking spot and you have all four wheels over the white lines, Once one person spots something, everyone else joins in and a traffic jam occurs. Then the rangers come out and give fines to people causing issues. Make sure you watch the body language of the bisons; most of the videos of bisons tossing people are idiots with mobile phones but it pays to watch for any hint of a bison being grumpy and to move on. there's plenty more!

The road from West Yellowstone to Madison, and the road from Mammoth Hot Springs to Silver Gate are the best locations for wildlife. Lamar valley has a lot of bison. The autumn trip we stayed in West Yellowstone, the winter trip out of Gardner by necessity (the Gardner to Silver Gate is the only road that stays open in winter, with the rest needs an official snow vehicle). Both should be reasonable bases.

Don't overlook the Titons. A better chance to find some beavers, plus lots of Pronghorns and maybe Moose.
 
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we flew into savannah Georgia and drove up from there, so I don’t think my route is useful lol

We stayed in Cooke city on the eastern side so we could get close to the Lamar valley and slough valley for the wildlife, although we saw bears in other areas.

West Yellowstone is overly busy and is avoid it if you want to get in early
 
The W said:
Make sure you watch the body language of the bisons; most of the videos of bisons tossing people are idiots with mobile phones but it pays to watch for any hint of a bison being grumpy and to move on. there's plenty more!
Click to expand...

Head down and a flicking tail facing directly at you is what we were told to look for.
 
We stayed at a friend's in Jackson Hole so travel was not an issue. What I will say is you need longer than you think in Yellowstone there so much to see.

Do you research too, for example at the old faithful area old faithful is the worst one there .
 
Chipper said:
The worst one there?
Click to expand...
Yes, the tourist coach people tend to go from car park to old faithful then back, but walking a little further gets to several other more photogenic geyers.
 
We went last summer. We were going with American family, so the flights were for that reason.
Heathrow to Washington (with a 3 day stop off in Iceland with IcelandAir which added nothing to the cost)
Day to recover.
Washington to Bozeman (change planes in Denver)

Bozeman gets you about 1.5hrs from the west gate at West Yellowstone.
We actually stayed further south in Idaho (beautiful AirBnB) but a bit far from the park.

Recommendations:
You need to more than a week.
Accommodation in the park books up far in advance, book now.
Accommodation outside the park also books up, but you then have to add travelling time. It takes about 20mins to drive into the park from the West gate. It's a huge park.
Go see the classics, Grand Prismatic Spring, Old Faithful, Yellowstone Falls, Lamar Valley (good for wildlife). All of these can be seen easily by car.
If you are up for a hike, you can spend days hiking to some of the more remote places.
Take a private wildlife safari - this was a gift and rather pricey, but great to have a guide take us in at 5am for sunrise and he spotted wildlife miles away that we wouldn't have seen otherwise. But that said, we still didn't see a bear, in fact didn't see one all week.
On that matter, you can hire bear spray, essential if you are hiking.
Classic tour bus routes - these go from the Old Faithful Inn, we did one at sunset which was pretty good.
Lastly, if you have time, drive down to the Grand Tetons.

IMG_9363a.jpg
Grand Prismatic Spring - quite hard to get an angle to show it at it's best from the ground, but there is a higher view point that is supposed to be better. Use a polariser to cut down reflections and get the colour.

IMG_9288a.jpg
Lower Falls from Artists Viewpoint.

Gear wise, I'd just take a 24-105 and a 100-400 or longer. Even at 400 some of the wildlife was too far away.
Plus either a good pair of binoculars or a spotting scope.
Take very comfortable footwear.

We missed loads of the park, didn't have time to do much hiking even though we were prepared for it. Driving between places in the park takes quite a while, the distances are big, and there's another amazing view just around the corner, so you keep stopping for more shots.

Enjoy the trip.
 
Here's the Grand Prismatic from the over look (which is about half a mile walk from the road down well maintained path) from our visit in 2018 - taken on a sunny day with a Fuji XT2

Grand Prismatic spring, Yellowstone Park by David Young, on Flickr

Some good advice from ABTog above about kit to take. I had a Canon R3 with either a 100-400 with 1.4 convertor or 400 f2.8 with a 2x convertor at my feet all week on our last visit in 2023 when we went from June 7th to 21st. During that trip we saw at least 30 different bears including 13 grizzlies - we saw grizzlies eight days in a row (not always different ones) - The most reliable place to see them is the Mary Bay area at the North End of Lake Yellowstone where at least two adult females hang out - they are known as Raspberry and Snow (mother and daughter) - Snow had a cub this year.

The best place to see black bears is near the road between Mammoth > Roosevelt junction > Tower - we called it the Bearmuda Triangle because every time we thought we were going to have a day without bears we saw at least one in that area.

What I found was a great resource on our last visit was looking at the trip reports from Max Waugh https://www.maxwaugh.com/blog/ who was out there running a wildlife photography tour in the week before we went - his reports gave me a general idea of where to look.

The other advice I heartily agree with is that you can't spend enough time there - We intend going back when my missus retires and hopefully we'll stay out there for a month - both times we've been two weeks have flown past.
 
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ABTog said:
We went last summer. We were going with American family, so the flights were for that reason.
Heathrow to Washington (with a 3 day stop off in Iceland with IcelandAir which added nothing to the cost)
Day to recover.
Washington to Bozeman (change planes in Denver)

Bozeman gets you about 1.5hrs from the west gate at West Yellowstone.
We actually stayed further south in Idaho (beautiful AirBnB) but a bit far from the park.

Recommendations:
You need to more than a week.
Accommodation in the park books up far in advance, book now.
Accommodation outside the park also books up, but you then have to add travelling time. It takes about 20mins to drive into the park from the West gate. It's a huge park.
Go see the classics, Grand Prismatic Spring, Old Faithful, Yellowstone Falls, Lamar Valley (good for wildlife). All of these can be seen easily by car.
If you are up for a hike, you can spend days hiking to some of the more remote places.
Take a private wildlife safari - this was a gift and rather pricey, but great to have a guide take us in at 5am for sunrise and he spotted wildlife miles away that we wouldn't have seen otherwise. But that said, we still didn't see a bear, in fact didn't see one all week.
On that matter, you can hire bear spray, essential if you are hiking.
Classic tour bus routes - these go from the Old Faithful Inn, we did one at sunset which was pretty good.
Lastly, if you have time, drive down to the Grand Tetons.

View attachment 439099
Grand Prismatic Spring - quite hard to get an angle to show it at it's best from the ground, but there is a higher view point that is supposed to be better. Use a polariser to cut down reflections and get the colour.

View attachment 439097
Lower Falls from Artists Viewpoint.

Gear wise, I'd just take a 24-105 and a 100-400 or longer. Even at 400 some of the wildlife was too far away.
Plus either a good pair of binoculars or a spotting scope.
Take very comfortable footwear.

We missed loads of the park, didn't have time to do much hiking even though we were prepared for it. Driving between places in the park takes quite a while, the distances are big, and there's another amazing view just around the corner, so you keep stopping for more shots.

Enjoy the trip.
Click to expand...
Do you remember who your guide was? We have just had a look and there are so many!
 
davidy233 said:
Here's the Grand Prismatic from the over look (which is about half a mile walk from the road down well maintained path) from our visit in 2018 - taken on a sunny day with a Fuji XT2

Grand Prismatic spring, Yellowstone Park by David Young, on Flickr

Some good advice from ABTog above about kit to take. I had a Canon R3 with either a 100-400 with 1.4 convertor or 400 f2.8 with a 2x convertor at my feet all week on our last visit in 2023 when we went from June 7th to 21st. During that trip we saw at least 30 different bears including 13 grizzlies - we saw grizzlies eight days in a row (not always different ones) - The most reliable place to see them is the Mary Bay area at the North End of Lake Yellowstone where at least two adult females hang out - they are known as Raspberry and Snow (mother and daughter) - Snow had a cub this year.

The best place to see black bears is near the road between Mammoth > Roosevelt junction > Tower - we called it the Bearmuda Triangle because every time we thought we were going to have a day without bears we saw at least one in that area.

What I found was a great resource on our last visit was looking at the trip reports from Max Waugh https://www.maxwaugh.com/blog/ who was out there running a wildlife photography tour in the week before we went - his reports gave me a general idea of where to look.

The other advice I heartily agree with is that you can't spend enough time there - We intend going back when my missus retires and hopefully we'll stay out there for a month - both times we've been two weeks have flown past.
Click to expand...

I cam to recommended the overlook rather than the boardwalk too.

Be aware that the hotsprings areas get very busy, and you'll queue anytime after about 9ish. Old Faithful was good to see, but I wouldn't rush back, and it was so cold at Prismatic (we were here in september) that we couldn't see for the mist lol

We saw a Grizzly on the east entrance road, there is a meadow that they favour as apparently it id good foraging there. It is about halfway up from Sylvan lake. This is where Raspberry likes to hangout
 
We went with the wonderful MacNeil Lyons of Yellowstone Insight in 2018, based in Gardiner - wasn’t cheap - I think it was 600 dollars for eight hours - picked us up at 5am asked us what we wanted to see - my missus said ‘grizzlies’ - he found us a mum and cub before 6am in an area where I’ve seen nothing before or since - then took us to see Raspberry being romanced - taught us so much about how to find wildlife in the park as well as so much about Yellowstone - maybe best money I’ve ever spent.
 
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