Yellowstone
Yellowstone is as close as we’ll get to Jurassic Park.
In 2020, on our last day at Glacier, my friend and I were sitting by a lake, debating skipping Yellowstone and staying there. “This place is so cool, and we’ve barely begun to explore it,” we thought. Two women next to us spoke up. “Don’t skip Yellowstone.” We asked them what there was to do. “Well, you just sort of drive around and look at stuff. But it’s so much cooler than it sounds.”
And they were right. You do just sort of drive around and look at stuff. And it is, as they said, so much cooler than it sounds.
Yellowstone has it all. Do you hate hiking? Don’t want to walk more than two hundred yards from your car? You can still see mind-blowing shit. Want to spend a month lost in the wilderness? You can do that and not see a soul.
Yellowstone felt like a MASSIVE theme park, with different “rides” and experiences and wild animals appearing from all directions. It’s simply up to you to pick what you want to do.
Yellowstone has two separate loops that take an entire day to get through (and that’s moving fast). The South loop has all the iconic stuff – Old Faithful, the Grand Prismatic Spring. Yellowstone Lake – but the North loop is much more interesting, in my opinion. The landscape is more varied, the geological features a little more spectacular, and the Lamar Valley at sunset is a can’t miss spot.
But it’s all there. A massive, massive playground, ready and waiting for you to explore.
A Buffalo Jam
Smoke on the horizon
Oh come all ye faithful
Through the mist at Grand Prismatic
True Colors
Sunset in the Lamar Valley
When hell freezes over
On the Fly in the Yellowstone River
A geyser. Not THE geyser
Waiting to hear which way the forest fires are heading