Yellowstone National Park's six don't-miss sites
Beehive Geyser in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. Yellowstone has about 300 geysers and 10,000 hot springs, bubbling mudpots and steam vents. (Sept. 2009) Credit: AP
As we walked along the trail, partly shaded by towering and ubiquitous lodgepole pines, I turned and looked around. We were alone, had been for a couple of miles.
Backpack loaded with raincoats, sunscreen and cameras, and bear spray on my belt buckle, I was on a family tour of our country's first national park -- 3,500 square miles spread across Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, with five entrances. With us wasYellowstone, with my family and a guide from the Yellowstone Association Institute.
When I made the observation, guide Carolyn Harwood gave us this fascinating tidbit: Of the park's 33 million annual visitors, only about 1 percent ever leave the developed areas (visitors centers, pullouts, boardwalks).
Our hike, a 4.5-mile loop that started on the Clear Lake trail, took us through open pastures, where we saw elk, to wooded areas where we were on the lookout for bears, to a spot that looked like the moon with boiling pots of mud and steamy hot springs.
After a couple of miles, we emerged at Artist Point. It's not hard to see how the lookout got its name: A gorgeous view of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, its walls painted with a palette of yellow, red, orange and black, the result of hydrothermal alterations to the rocks.
It also affords a spectacular view of the Lower Falls, a gushing waterfall that plunges 308 feet, nearly triple the height of the Upper Falls, just up the river, and twice as high as Niagara Falls.
With several steep climbs and multiple educational breaks -- in which we learned to identify trees by needles and animals by scat -- the hike took about four hours.
The Yellowstone Association works with the National Park Service to connect people to the park through education.
"The best way to really see Yellowstone is to explore it, and that's what we help you do," said Harwood.
The heart of Yellowstone is a caldera surrounded by the spires of the Rocky Mountains. It's actually a giant sleeping volcano. When my 6-year-old heard this, he looked alarmed and asked, "Is it going to erupt?" Harwood paused and sat us down to explain. In the past, it has created massive explosions. It is, in fact, due to go off again. However, scientists will have plenty of warning, and we're not there yet.
That sleeping volcano isn't really so sleepy, either. The hot springs, geysers, mud pots and fumaroles (steam vents) are everyday reminders of the dangers that lurk beneath the Earth's surface. But they make magnificent sites for tourists.
Yellowstone is big, as in 3,500 square miles big. A windy, two-lane road takes you through the high points of Yellowstone National Park. If you only had one day, you could drive it and touch on them all. But I'd recommend at least three: one day for the upper loop; one day for the lower loop and a third day to get off those roads and really explore the park on foot. There are nine in-park lodges with more than 2,000 rooms (book at yellowstonenationalpark lodges.com, and know that there may be more availability in "shoulder" seasons like October and May).
This is by no means an exhaustive list, rather things we did and loved:
On my recent trip to Yellowstone National Park, we took a hike with a guide from the Yellowstone Association Institute.
Carolyn Harwood was like a walking encyclopedia of park knowledge. She loved talking about the reintroduction of the wolves, the fires of 1988 and the geology of the park. She was our guide for an entire day -- half on a hike, half in the car (with stops for exploring). She brought spotting scopes and found us the best places to look for wildlife.
The Yellowstone Association Institute works in partnership with the park to help educate visitors. Families (up to five people) can book a guide like Carolyn for $495 a day.
Or try one of the institute's Lodging and Learning programs, where you will be based in park hotels and taught by naturalist guides. For example, in the fall, the group offers the Fall Wolf and Elk Discovery, a three-day, four-night program where you delve into the world of wolves and elk and learn about their behavior on leisurely walks ($699 a person, double occupancy). Participants must be 12 or older.
