Yellowstone National Park is an absolutely amazing place. It is so beautiful, and takes on many faces as you travel the figure eight loop road.

Yellowstone is a place of natural wonder and majestic beauty. Rolling hills and mountains, raging rivers and waterfalls, luscious fields and forests… Yellowstone has it all!

Beautiful Yellowstone Lake and the Grand Tetons

The enormous Yellowstone Lake occupies the Southeastern corner of the park. Yellowstone Lake covers 136 square miles and is 20 miles long by 14 miles wide. It has 110 miles of shoreline. The lake is at least 320 feet deep in the West Thumb area and has an average depth of 140 feet. Situated at an elevation of 7,733 feet, the lake remains cold the year-round, with an average temperature of 41°F. Yellowstone Lake is the largest natural freshwater lake in the United States that is above 7,000 feet and is one of the largest such lakes in the world.We saw some mule deer by the road when we were leaving here.

Amazing Lower Falls from Artist’s Point.

We drove down to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, carved by the Yellowstone River. It’s nothing like the Grand Canyon, of course, but still amazing views. The Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River is the most inspiring of the waterfalls in Yellowstone National Park. It is 308 ft. high, and thunders through the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. It is certainly a must see for all visitors to the park. We were able to see the falls from Artist’s Point, and it was quite a crowded place to be. On the north rim is the Brink of Lower Falls trail. When we were here, this trail was sadly closed due to washouts, but we understand it to be an incredible experience. We will have to plan on this trail for next time. We also went to the Upper Falls as well, but the Lower Falls were really amazing. Tower Falls and Undine Falls were also very pretty sites to see.

Along with cars on the roads of Yellowstone, one must watch out for the Buffalo as well!

The kids also loved driving by the buffalo that were just walking on the side of the road. I managed to sneak some pictures of them as we drove by.

This is zoomed in of the bear we saw in Yellowstone!

Some people go to Yellowstone many times before seeing a bear, we were lucky enough to see 3 on our trip. Thankfully they were all far enough away to not be a danger to us. We saw one bear, way in the distance, just walking along heading to the forest, another one sleeping, and then the third was right by the road on Scott’s side. Traffic had slowed to a crawl, so Scott said “Give me the camera!” So, I took over driving from the passenger seat so he could take pictures as we drove slowly by. The only thing that got a little hairy was when the car in front of us stopped suddenly, and I couldn’t reach the brake, so I yelled, “Brake, brake, brake!” The Ranger smilingly said, “I’m glad she’s telling you what to do, you know your primary goal is to drive, right?”The Ranger was laughing, and I think us crazy Utahans made his day!

Roosevelt Arch at the north entrance to Yellowstone

We sadly left Yellowstone, knowing we would come back again on another trip. On our way out the north entrance, we went by this awesome arch known as Roosevelt Arch.

“The Yellowstone Park is something absolutely unique in the world…This Park was created and is now administered for the benefit and enjoyment of the people…it is the property of Uncle Sam and therefore of us all.”

President Theodore Roosevelt
April 24, 1903 at Gardiner, Montana
Speech dedicating the North Entrance Arch

To President Theodore Roosevelt, Yellowstone’s uniqueness was not the geysers or wildlife he had observed during his visit. Its uniqueness was being the first national park anywhere in the world. It was a new symbol of democracy – land that the federal government set aside from development or settlement, land that belonged to all the people. President Roosevelt recognized this would be Yellowstone National Park’s legacy.

After taking pictures of the arch, we drove to Billings, MT for the night.

We also got the second set of our Snake River White Water Rafting pictures, to see them, click here!

To see our amazing pictures from Yellowstone National Park, CLICK HERE!

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Our Snake River tours were at 12:30 so we decided to stay in Jackson Hole for the morning to take a look around. Definitely a very touristy place, but we really liked it. Jackson Hole is approximately an hour from Yellowstone, with a beautiful drive through the Grand Teton National Park to get to Yellowstone.

Jackson Hole Whitewater – the tour company we used for our scenic float trip and white water rafting.

We decided to book our Snake River tours through Jackson Hole Whitewater. We were very pleased with them. Both trips were absolutely awesome, and would definitely do again.

White Water Rafting – Brittany and Scott.

Scott and Brittany went White Water Rafting. They were on class III rapids, and they had the best time. The water was still very cold, a chilly 34°F, so they were all given wet suits to wear. The first rapid threw Scott into the raft with its power, but he quickly recovered, and loved the trip. Brittany was a little scared, but still says it was the best part of the whole trip for her. They got to see a baby moose on the side of the river as they were going along, so that was really neat. The tour guide made it a fun time for them. We are still waiting for a second set of pictures to be delivered, so we can add some more white water rafting pictures to the album.

To be able to brag to his sister that he rowed the raft is what got him to do this in the first place!

Cole and I went on the Scenic Float Tour. We were on class I rapids, (basically means just a few bumps in the water) and the first couple of times, Cole was a little nervous, since we were in the front of the raft. But we saw tons of Bald Eagles, a blue heron, a red tailed hawk, and lots of pelicans. It was an amazing tour, and we had a fun time. We got to learn a lot about the area, even seeing some homes that were owned by famous people like Disney, and land owned by Harrison Ford. The best part of the trip for Cole was that he got to row the raft! It took a little pushing for him to get to try it, but after telling him he could brag to Brittany about it, he was all in! He was in heaven! The oars were very heavy, so of course, the guide helped a lot, but he was happy to be rowing the raft and was even called Captain Cole!

The kids watching Old Faithful – they really were amazed.

After both our Snake River tours were over, we still had about 6 hours before dark, so we decided to go to Yellowstone. Our primary goal was to see Old Faithful. Old Faithful eruption intervals are anywhere from 45minutes to 110 minutes, so we were hoping to get lucky to see it. When we got there, we saw a lot of people all gathered around, and to our surprise, it was only a 10 minute wait before it blew. We got there just in time to see an eruption. The water went to 130 feet high which the visitor center says is the average. The temperature of the water is only 204°F! The steam temperature has been measured at above 350°F! OUCH!! The kids were absolutely amazed to watch Old Faithful. It is definitely a must see when visiting Yellowstone.

Sapphire Pool – Love how you can see so deep into the pool

After Old Faithful, we visited Biscuit Basin. It is an isolated thermal group and is actually a part of the Upper Geyser Basin. Many are small, gem-like encrusted pools and geysers, including Silver Globe Spring, Sapphire, and Black Opal pools. We really loved the color of Sapphire Pool.

We decided to leave Yellowstone after Biscuit Basin, as it was starting to get late. It’s amazing how much Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons change at dusk. We saw so many animals. While it was exciting, it was also nerve racking! So many deer right near the road. The highlight of the night would have to be the buffalo crossing. We saw a few buffalo near the road, then the hopped the fence like it was nothing and went across the street right behind our car.

All of us at Lewis Falls.

On the way back, we found Lewis Falls. Lewis Falls drops 30 feet on the Lewis River, near the south entrance to Yellowstone National Park. The beauty of Yellowstone is amazing!

See Snake River Photos, including White Water Rafting here!

See Old Faithful and Hot Springs Pictures here!

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The map of our 10 day, 3000 mile trip through 5 states.

We are finally home (and recovered) from our 10 day, 3000 mile trip. It was an awesome trip, and we would totally do it again. It’s taken awhile to sort through the pictures, and get them uploaded..so sorry for the almost 2 week delay in getting these pictures and posts up. I wrote these blogs each night after the day was over, so I wouldn’t forget any details of the day.  Hope you enjoy the posts!

Friday, June 13th – Pilot Butte & Jackson

Pilot Butte Wild Horse Scenic Tour Sign

Today was a long day of driving… about 11 hours total. It would have been shorter had we gone directly to Jackson, but we decided to do a side trip to the Pilot Butte Wild Horse Scenic Tour from Rock Springs, WY.

We should have started this in Green River, but ended up passing Green River and started it in Rock Springs. Little did we know that the 26 mile horse tour led us from Rock Springs back to Green River! Oh well! We were passing through this area around 3pm, smack dab in the middle of the day. Wyoming scenery was pretty much the same…lots and lots of sage brush on flat land with mountains in the distance. About 6 miles into the trip, we saw our first horses…2 of them way into the distance. They were too far to even take a picture. There were lots of kiosks along the way describing different outlooks along the trail.

Pilot Butte – No we didn’t drive the road up there…we didn’t see any point.

We passed Pilot Butte, and was hoping to see a herd of horses in all the flat green areas, but there was no such luck. We saw lots of evidence that there were horses around at one point, since there were droppings strategically placed by the sides of the road, or sometimes on the road itself.

Finally saw horses near the end of the 26 mile drive.

After driving about 20 miles into the tour, almost to Green River, Scott spotted a set of 3 horses on the hill. It ended up being a family of a mom, dad and baby. We got some pictures of the family since it was the last sighting of horses we saw. A total of 5 horses in 26 miles…not quite what we were expecting. However, Brittany was quite happy to see wild horses!!

Jackson, Wyoming – We spent 2 nights here, and loved it.

After, we re-drove our way back to Rock Springs; we headed up to Jackson, and got stuck in some construction where we were at a standstill for 20 minutes. After that, it was clear to Jackson, and about an hour before Jackson, we entered a national forest that was absolutely beautiful. We really like Jackson Hole, Wyoming …lots of neat places here, cowboy saloons, antler entry ways in the town square, lots of log cabins… very western theme in Wyoming!

Tomorrow, Brittany and Scott tackle white water rafting, while Cole and I do a scenic float tour on the Snake River! We can’t wait!

To see all the pictures from today, click here!

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