Yellowstone National Park: a unique experience! The Grand Canyon, the geysers, the endless valleys and the wild animals. Ready for adventure?
Lo Yellowstone, in full Wyoming and a small part in Montana, is one of the largest and most particular parks in the United States. Seeing it is a truly unique experience: immense landscapes alternate showing their extreme variety, from geysers to canyons, from immense barren and dry valleys to expanses of green meadows or woods and here you can admire various wild animals, sometimes even dangerous, like bears and the famous bison.
Where stay
To visit Yellowstone Park properly you need at least three full days and, given the immensity, a strategic accommodation.
The most popular are the Lodge inside the park which, however, entail not only high costs but also long booking times.
Some people even booked a year in advance in order to win a room at the Old Faithful Inn, the most famous lodge facing the Geysers. Anyway West Yellowstone, an anonymous tourist town, is a great home base just 45 minutes from the park's west entrance.
Day 1. The park's geysers
The first day in Yellowstone is dedicated to all the geysers, following the circular loop of the park.
It starts with the Lower Geyser Basin and the Fountain Pot. It continues with the Midway Geyser Basin with the most spectacular geyser ever for its colors: the Grand Prismatic Spring, impossible not to be enchanted.
Subsequently, the Biscuit Basin and the Black Sand Basin, to get there to Old Faithful: the oldest!
The peculiarity of the latter is a real powerful eruption that occurs at certain times, displayed right at the entrance of the info point. My advice is a take-away on the benches in front of the geyser at lunchtime waiting for the show!
The afternoon is for West Tumb. A break at Lake Village and a stop at Mud Vulcano: a boiling pool where around five in the afternoon it is easy to spot bison. And to close the Norris Geyser.
Day 2. The most remote areas of the park
The second day in the park is to be dedicated to the most remote areas. In order to admire the park in a different and unique light, the alarm clock is at dawn to reach the Lamar Valley, one of the most barren and wildest valleys extending to the south entrance of Yellwstone. Here you can spot dozens and dozens of wild bison herds, but if you are lucky and have a powerful zoom also other animals such as coyotes.
The best time is early in the morning or in the evening. Stop for the whole morning, then, returning from Lamar Valley, not to be missed Tower falls - in the Roosvelt Region: waterfalls that plunge into a small canyon, visible from a panoramic point reachable in a short time. The second part of the day is for Mammoth Hot Spring: huge lunar-looking thermal pools, it is no coincidence that some scenes from the Star Wars saga were shot here. The complete tour of the terraces takes about 45 minutes / 1 hour.
Day 3. The Grand Canyon
The third and last day is to be completely dedicated to the Grand Canyon which is divided into South Rim and North Rim. There are several and numerous panoramic points.
It starts from the North Rim: Brick of Lawer Falls, and Red Rock Point, with two viewpoints. The high one placed on a terrace two minutes from the parking lot and a 20-minute trail that, through a wooden walkway, leads down to a different point of view. Lock out Point and Grand View view canyons and not waterfalls.
Then move on to the whole South Rim: the 300 steps of the Uncle Tom Trail that descend into the canyon until the waterfall, challenging but spectacular. The most beautiful viewpoint ever that leaves you speechless: the Artist Point, where the canyon shows all its immensity. Bear Spray can be purchased in Grand Canyon Village.
Yellowstone is truly a crazy park and so varied that it never gets boring. There are also different thermal excursions, layered clothing is recommended to face the very few degrees in the morning (even in the middle of August) from a heavy sweatshirt and long trousers to warmer temperatures in the afternoon, suitable for shorts and short-sleeved T-shirt.
