Yellowstone National Park

Visited Yellowstone National Park September 14-17 (Monday-Thursday), 2020. September is a great time of year to visit, and temperatures were comfortable during day in 70s and lows at night in 50s. There was some haze from the wildfires west of Yellowstone, and even though we visited during what should have been a low season, there were more people than we expected.

This post includes: Hikes, Places to Stay, Restaurants in West Yellowstone and General Tips.

Day Hiking in Yellowstone:

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

You can hike either the North Rim or South Rim (both offering multiple overlooks and stunning vistas). We hiked the South Rim, parking off of South Rim Drive. Hike was 6 miles and took us 3.5 hours (541 feet elevation change) We ate lunch at end of trail at Sublime Point and made our way back to the trailhead. Alternately, you can drive most of the North and South Rims and park and walk to viewpoints. We did this for the North Rim and saw Upper Falls View and Brink of Lower Falls. 

An excellent option is to hike to Uncle Tom's Point, however this is closed for a few years, and it is recommended to ask the park rangers when planning this hike. Uncle Tom's Point is a steel staircase to the base of the lower falls.

Just south of Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, you can drive and visit Mud Volcano and Dragon Cauldron, and Sulfur Cauldron. We drove even further south to see Yellowstone Lake, and as a result saw more wildlife.  As you drive, watch the river, as we saw a coyote drinking from the river. We also saw bison up close at Lake Yellowstone, and lots of elk on this drive as well.

Old Faithful & Upper Geyser Basin Boardwalks

We spent about 3.5 hours at the Old Faithful area, hiking the boardwalks which take you to more geysers. Also hiked to Observation Point (rise of 160 feet).  This is the Upper Geyser Basin, and you can walk to see Grand Geyser, Castle Geyser, Daisy Geyser and Riverside Geyser and information at the Old Faithful visitor center will give you estimates of their eruption times. Highly recommend seeing the Grand Geyser. The predicted time was a wide range, and I recommend you get there early, as it hard to predict (unlike Old Faithful).

Old Faithful has a lot of steam or mist which can obscure the view of the water. We hiked to Observation Point, which was about 2 miles round trip and has a great view looking down on Old Faithful. 

Highly recommend walking the boardwalks to see Morning Glory Pool:

Grand Prismatic Spring and Midway Geyser Basin Boardwalks

These are hot springs, and when we first visited it was early in the morning, and the air was much cooler, and as a result there is a lot of steam coming off of the springs.  We returned later in the day and the view was much better.  Grand Prismatic is not to be missed, and I recommend hiking to the overlook (you need to park at Fairy Falls trail parking lot).  We were tempted to hike to Fairy Falls, but did not have time. 

Here is the view from the Grand Prismatic overlook:

Before sunset, we drove the 2 Firehole one way drives - Firehole Lake drive and Firehole Canyon drive. There are more boardwalks and pools and geysers to see from these drives.

Places to Stay in West Yellowstone

Due to Covid-19, almost all of the lodging inside the park was closed. We would have preferred to stay at Old Faithful Inn but it was closed. We decided to stay at Kelly Inn, but Explorer Cabins and Golden Stone Inn were close behind.  We really liked Kelly Inn and would definitely stay there again.  West Yellowstone is a short drive away from the park, however I recommend you get up early and enter the park as early as possible, because traffic starts to back up from cars stopping for wildlife viewing (shortly after the entrance).   

Restaurants in West Yellowstone

For casual and fast, we highly recommend this food "bus": Las Palmitas.  For excellent food (we were able to get takeout due to Covid-19), highly recommend Madison Crossing.

General Tips

Cell Phone Service in Yellowstone

We were surprised to find that we did sometimes have cell phone service inside Yellowstone. Here is a map of coverage areas. Please note, even though there is coverage, it is very weak and slow, but good enough for texting, directions (google maps), and email.

Bucket List / Next Time We Visit

• Fairy Falls Trail
• Uncle Tom's Trail
• Mount Washburn
• Specimen Ridge