Every morning for five months of the year, large numbers of native animals gather in Yellowstone National Park’s Lamar Valley. These migratory creatures are among the most perplexing, colorful, numerous, and potentially troublesome beings in North America. As the day advances, they congregate alongside the park road, clustering in dense knots, constantly scoping their surroundings and grazing. ...
On doughnuts and coffee.
Meanwhile, herds of American bison that also gather in Lamar Valley generally ignore all of the tourists as if they were annoying extras on a movie set—No question, the buffalo are the stars here. Other megafauna draw celebrity attention, too: In May and early June, grizzly and black bears hug the hillsides, stuffing themselves with spring greens rich in vitamins, cubs tumbling about like big puppies. Wolves occasionally appear in the distance, flitting through the sage. Elk dip in and out of the pine shadows at distant meadow edges.
It’s a show, all right—best seen first thing in the morning, before thousands of paparazzi arrive.
Afternoon is the time to stay off the roads in Yellowstone National Park, unless you have the patience for traffic jams as daunting and stressful as any urban gridlock. Yellowstone locals call these “bison jams” or “bear jams,” and with a zillion campers, RVs, tour buses, pickup trucks, and assorted other conveyances clogging the park’s two-lane, winding thoroughfares, they are thick jams indeed, and no laughing matter.
But are the bison laughing?
I’ve personally seen a few bulls the size of bulldozers huffing right along the pavement’s center line with an expression that can only be described as superciliously imperious. Wildlife biologists would scoff at me for suspecting that the bison enjoy causing human gridlock. But see for yourself. Wisely.
Hit the Road in the Morning, the Trail in the Afternoon
All of the park’s main roads clobber up starting at about 10 a.m., after most tourists have tanked up on coffee and doughnuts. Wise visitors will get on the road at 7 a.m. (yes! I mean it), go see the famous stuff, head back to their hotel or campground for lunch, then go for a hike or bike ride.
There’s a marvelous trail—Biscuit Basin, through the woods leading from Old Faithful down toward Grand Prismatic Spring—that passes by dozens of geothermal features along the way. It takes only a half-mile to leave 90 percent of the thronging hordes behind. There’s also a trail that leads to a 200-foot bluff overlooking the entire upper geyser basin, from where you can see the spectacle that first greeted human explorers centuries (and millennia) ago: dozens and dozens of steam spires rising from the forests, illustrating that this one valley has 150 geothermal features, including the greatest concentration of geysers on Earth.
10 Minutes of Fame, on Display
The most interesting sight at Old Faithful isn’t the geyser but the audience. Park rangers post expected times for this fairly predictable feature to erupt, and if it doesn’t do so, watchers start to fuss. “What’s the problem? Why’s it behind schedule?” The grandstand—yes, the park service built a grandstand, like at a rodeo—is packed, the phones click and whir, and the end of the eruption precipitates a rush to the nearby café that resembles the seventh inning stampede at Yankee Stadium.
The story is similar at Grand Prismatic Spring, Lower Falls of the Yellowstone, Mammoth Hot Springs, and a dozen other well-known sights. All are justifiably famed for their spectacular nature, and all are worth seeing if you go early. Midday, it’s Times Square.
Park Yourself in the Park
Though a day trip through Yellowstone is barely possible, it’s ridiculous. The park has more than 2,000 hotel rooms, cabins, and other accommodations, plus hundreds of campsites. Old Faithful Inn is one of the world’s most amazing architectural achievements, and a wonderful hotel besides. From here, you can easily spend three days seeing the sights—without even starting your car. Just get used to a little walking or biking.But isn’t it in high demand? Indubitably. The answer is to plan far ahead, be as flexible as possible, and choose the off-season if you can. Late May and September into early October are wonderful times to visit Yellowstone. And believe it or not, there are occasionally last-minute hotel room vacancies, especially in August and September.
Not a Playground
Human folly is often beyond understanding, and Yellowstone is the world’s biggest human zoo. Are bison cuddly? How about bear cubs? Do bull elk have antler racks sufficient for medieval jousting? Every day at Yellowstone sees people defying common sense, trying to get an Instagram post showing them “petting” a 1 ton bull. People! If you were visiting an asphalt playground in an inner city, would you try to get a selfie petting a 200 pound bullmastiff guarding a local crime figure?
Evolution works, but you can opt out of this part of natural selection. Be safe.
It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
The Yellowstone region has much to offer for travelers on their way to and from the park. Grand Teton National Park holds one of the most famous photographic vistas of all, and Jackson, Wyoming, is colorful, if a bit overwrought (and expensive). West Yellowstone has several attractions. The most interesting is the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center, whose resident ursids are not only easy to see safely, they all have jobs: The Discovery Center is a leading test lab for bear-proof containers such as garbage dumpsters. It’s astonishing to see the theoretically impregnable containers the bears have made short work of.
Cody, Wyoming, has several worthy sights, and the road from here into the park is the most user-friendly of all five entrances—less crowded and easier to drive. In town, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West is made up of five separate facilities. Among them, the best are the Whitney Western Art Museum and the Plains Indian Museum. Out of town a bit, the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center depicts the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans by President Franklin Roosevelt in a straightforward, uncompromising fashion.
The Beartooth Highway (U.S. 212) from Red Lodge to Cooke City, the northeast park entrance, is a spectacular alpine road that tops out high above the timberline at 10,947 feet. It’s a slow but memorable approach path to Yellowstone.
And where’s the Dutton Ranch of “Yellowstone” fame? It’s somewhere between the Ponderosa and Gunsmoke, embedded in the popular imagination—as is so much of this famous region. A visit shifts it from imagination to memory, a lifetime trip that’s arguably America’s most worthwhile.
