Yellowstone in 4 days

When you think of American national parks, usually Yellowstone is the first thing that comes to mind. After all it is the oldest national park in the world. Buffalo, wolves, Elk, Bear, and of course old faithful. It is situated on a giant volcano. Yellowstone definitely deserves days to really appreciate. We spend 4 days there and we wished we had more time. But we did manage to see everything.

Getting there

Seeing that we were coming from Yosemite we decided to this time just give it a shot with the first come first serve camping spots. We entered the park from the West. We arrived at the gate and were amazed at the line of cars trying to get in. We knew then that this was going to be a ride. People galore. Everywhere. We went to the first ranger station and enquired if there was any camping. No luck. She gave us some advice on getting camping and which camps fill up last. So we headed north. One thing to remember is that the park is really big so driving from place to place takes a long time. There was also road construction on the road north so it took even longer. We arrived in the northern part of the park and decided to head out to the little town just outside of the entrance. We were hoping to find some place to stay for the night in town. We ended up finding out about this hostel a few miles out of town. Hostels in America are far and few in between. We arrived there and as our luck was going for the day they were full. Thankfully they said we can pitch our tent outside. Amazing. We found a nice little spot next to the river and we were set. It was a really great place. Planning our trip for the next day. We ended up staying there for two nights and booking a camping spot in the park for the days after.

Day 1: Mammoth Hot Springs and Bunsen Peak Hike

We finally got settled and we were of. The Mammoth hot springs are ever-changing. Water flows from the earth and makes carbonate deposits. Over hundreds of years it formed the massive area now known as Mammoth hot springs. The different colors you find is actually bacteria growing in the warm water. We did the free ranger guided tour around the springs. This is one trick we learned. Whenever there is a free ranger tour it is a good idea at least to contemplate going on it. They are very informative. After strolling around the springs for a while we decided to go for a short hike to one of the nearby peaks. The hike was called Bunsen Peak. The views were amazing. It is a bit of a steep climb but it was worth it. We saw some kind of ground bird showing of and two eagles battling it out in the air. We drove a bit around after that just to see if we can spot some wildlife and indeed we did. The elusive Buffalo or as I would soon discover not so elusive. At first I was a bit disappointed with the amount of Buffalo but that would change in the next few days. Also I did realize that humans are very selfish and stupid. I don’t want to rant but stay in your car or at least if you get out have a safe distance and DON’T APPROACH THE ANIMALS. We saw A LOT of people doing this. We headed back to our little tent seeing it started to rain in the park.

Day 2: The Mud volcano

The next day we went to Mud volcano where once again we took the free ranger tour. This time she was really amazing. The place itself was also magical. I now totally understand why people believed in dragons and other creatures. One of the ones we visited actually sounded like a dragon breathing and steam came out of the mouth of this cave. There were many others that if I didn’t know any better would have made me believe that there actually is a dragon inside. I’m sure I don’t even need to mention the sulfur smell everywhere. Here we experienced our first Bison (Buffalo) traffic jam. We were in the parking lot so it was kind of funny seeing it from the sideline. We moved camp the same day so we only went to the mud volcano. Now camping in Yellowstone in peak season is like camping out at a rock festival. Lines and lines of tents. But hey at least we got a camping spot ;). So we set up our tent and got settled in. We never used the bear lockers and just kept it all in the car. Not long after we made food a couple of Chinese showed up next to our spot. You could see that they have never put up a tent in their live. We helped them out and had a chat. They left the same day we did. They wanted to throw away their tent and sleeping bags because they were flying out again ad didn’t want the hassle of taking it with them. We offered to take it of their hands and we ended up giving the tent to Coen and Heleen’s three little kids.

Day 3: Old Faithful, Artists Palette, Grand Prismatic Springs

Day three was packed with thermal features. We got up super early to see Old Faithful blow. We made it just in time with us still approaching it while it was going off. Lindsay was not too happy with me that morning. Old faithful is the most famous geyser in Yellowstone so I was happy we saw it without too much of a crowd. To tell you the truth it was better in my head. Don’t get me wrong. It is amazing but I guess I blew it up in my mind. We headed out to see the Grand Prismatic springs in the Midway Geyser Basin. Well turn out you should not try and go to early. The steam does not really clear until 11AM. We headed to the Upper geyser basin in the meantime and did the side loop. This turned out to be worthwhile seeing that Great Fountain Geyser was about to erupt. (Okay within the next hour) So we continued on the loop and backtracked to see the eruption. I think this may have been my favorite eruption. We headed out and finished the Lower Geyser Basin and headed back to the Grand Prismatic Springs. We were told that there is a hiking trail at the back of the springs that takes you up the mountain where you have a better view of the springs. The parking lot for this hike is about 200m towards the Upper Geyser Basin. I have to say that the spring was one of the most beautiful natural things I have ever seen. We headed back to the Lower Geyser Basin where old faithful is and low and behold it took us about 40 minutes to get parking. We did the loop and headed back to our camp. Oh yes I forgot to mention if you want to take a shower you need to do it in one of the nearby villages. Turns out it is REALLY expensive to shower.

Day 4: Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and Norris Geyser Basin

The last day before we headed out we hit up the grand canyon of Yellowstone. This was a much easier day seeing we could drive to most of the spots. We started with Artists point and then we did the Tom’s trail down to the lower waterfall. We then drove around to the other side of the canyon and did most of the stop offs. We ended the day by going to the Norris Geyser Basin and almost saw the biggest geyser in the world erupt. Actually it did erupt a few months after we were there. We ended up driving south out of the park and into the Grand Tetons.