We were up at daybreak ready for a big day. We have heard and read about Yellowstone since we were kids so being able to actually go experience it for ourselves was extremely exciting. We headed out around 7am to make the 2 hour drive up through Grand Teton to the South Entrance of Yellowstone. As we entered the park we had the gigantic Yellowstone Lake on our right, the largest lake above 7,000 feet in North America.

Our first stop was at the “Mud Volcano” in the eastern section of Yellowstone. This was originally an active volcano that exploded and now constantly bubbles with boiling mud, carbon dioxide, steam and hydrogen sulfide. It was fascinatingly bizarre and the most interesting part came when we rounded a corner to look at one of the geothermal features and came face to face with a bison relaxing about 5 feet away by one of the mudpots.

We made our next stop at the “Sulphur Caldron” then moved on to Cascade Canyon, also known as the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. This was a magnificent sight, one of our favorite stops in Yellowstone. Before we arrived though, we saw another gathering of cars on the side of the road which we have come to learn usually means an animal sighting. We pulled over and saw a coyote darting through the brush on the hill next to the road. It was quite elusive and ran next to the tree line, only showing itself at a few clearings. Thankfully we were able to snap a quick picture while it was out in the open.

We arrived at Artist Point overlooking Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and saw it from above but decided to make the hike down 500 feet to the brink of the lower falls for a better look. We took “Uncle Tom’s Trail” down the canyon…the hike was about a half of a mile and then 300 steps winding down the canyon. It was definitely a workout but it was completely worth it. The falls were incredible, plunging 308 feet and curiously creating a glacier that was still frozen at the base of the falls. We reached the base, took plenty of pictures and rested for a few minutes and then turned around and worked our way through the steep hike back to the top of the canyon.

After catching our breath, we jumped back in the car and took off farther north. The northernmost portion of Yellowstone extends into Montana, so we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to add another state to our list. Only about 15 minutes later though, we had to make another stop when we saw a group of people that told us they had seen an elk bull grazing behind a patch of trees right off the side of the road. We walked down and as the group had said, a giant elk was standing in a small clearing. The picture below can’t even come close to describing how magnificent this animal was, it was incredible.

I’ve run out of words to describe how blown away, awe-inspired, amazed, and taken back by the beauty of what we’ve seen on this trip, but I think we can safely say that Yellowstone surpassed everything else in its level of grandeur and magnificence. The expanse of land and collection of wildlife is astounding. On our way north, we went through Dunraven Pass, the highest elevation in Yellowstone (8,859 feet). That’s over a mile and a half above sea level. At certain points you pass a plateau and take a turn around the edge of a mountain and see the world open beneath you and feel like you could reach out and touch the clouds.

At that high altitude, there was still unmelted snow on the sides of the road. So of course, we jumped out at a roadside pullout and played in the snow for a few minutes. Snow in July is not quite something we would have found back at home in North Carolina.

Just after moving through Dunraven Pass we noticed another collection of people on the roadside and asked them what they had seen. They said they had seen a bear in the valley. That was one of the last animals that we had yet to cross off of our list, so needless to say we were quite excited. I jumped out of the car with my camera to try to get a picture while the bear was still there. The bystanders said they had seen a Grizzly move between a set of trees in the valley about 300 yards away so I started scanning the area with my camera. It was far away but, sure enough, after about 5 minutes I saw a little bit of movement in the area that the bystanders had pointed out, and was able to snap a (somewhat blurry) picture. The rest of the family arrived right after the Grizzly disappeared behind another set of fallen trees so Mom took out the binoculars and another bystander lent us her spotting scope. About 15 minutes later after continuing to scan the area, Mom and Hope were able to spot it again for just a split second as it popped up from behind a tree. Then it disappeared just as quickly and we had to move on. Thankfully, about 30 minutes later while driving we spotted another group of people and the whole family was able to see a small black bear resting in the shade of a pine tree about 100 yards off the side of the road (unfortunately it was a little too dark in the shadow to capture that one with a photo).

We continued our journey north towards Montana got another treat when a bus in front of us stopped suddenly. After avoiding a collision with the bus, we noticed movement next to the road and saw what was either a fox or a coyote slinking toward some brush in a ditch. Once again, we were blessed because it paused just long enough for me to be able to snap a picture before it disappeared into a patch of sagebrush.

Just before entering Montana, we arrived in Mammoth Hot Springs, a large collection of hot springs that Yellowstone built a small village around for the employees and visitors of the park. The most incredible thing about this village is that it has been overrun by elk. Not just a few, but an entire herd of male and female elk as well as calves sat on street corners and grazed in the medians and sheltered under trees.

Mammoth Hot Springs Mammoth Hot Springs

We crossed over into Montana around 2pm, took a picture of the sign as proof and then started making our way south back down the other side of the figure-eight loop around Yellowstone.

Our next stop came at the Artist Paintpots, our first up-close look at pure bubbling hot springs. The mud volcano had been impressive but we couldn’t necessarily describe it as beautiful. These, however, started to give us a taste of how alluring some of the Yellowstone hydrothermal features could be. It was about a third of a mile hike to an area where boardwalks took you over crystal bubbling pools with steam rising from the tops of them.

At this point, we realized we needed to pick up our pace a little in order to make it to Old Faithful before the next eruption. But we couldn’t skip the Midway Geyser Basin that included Grand Prismatic Spring, one of Rachel’s discoveries in our pre-trip research. We quickly hiked through the boardwalks up to the collection of hot springs and geysers in Midway. They were gorgeous, and Rachel will explain to you that the colors in Grand Prismatic come from pigmented microbial bacteria that feed on the minerals in the water. The result is stunning, a vivid prism of colors spreading across the water.

From there, the timing couldn’t have worked out more perfectly. Old Faithful erupts approximately every 91 minutes and had last erupted at 4:11pm. We arrived at 5:34pm and gathered with hundreds of other onlookers surrounding Old Faithful. We all agreed that this evoked similar emotion as did standing in front of Mount Rushmore. To wax patriotic, few things seem as American as standing with fellow citizens in front of a national historical icon. It was quite dramatic. We waited for 12 minutes, then at 5:46pm after teasing us with a few minor jolts, Old Faithful erupted in a tower over 100 feet tall. It was the perfect end to our day at Yellowstone, seeing something in person that we had read about in our science books years and years ago. We stopped in at the visitors center to grab some souvenirs and then started our drive back to the cabin.