The northeast part of the park has few of the thermal features so prevalent in the rest of the park. This section is more mountainous than some of the other parts of the brush, with striking vistas of a wilderness of high peaks and deep valleys. Vegetation ranges from grasses and sagebrush to aspens and pines. All of the wildlife found in other parts of the park may also be seen here.
Our route for this video is shown in darker red on the map. The dotted line represents a one-way dirt road – well maintained, and a favorite of ours – that crosses the Blacktail Deer Plateau.
With each visit we generally make the whole Grand Loop Road. Doing the whole loop all at once makes for a long day – and it truly is impossible to see everything in a single day.
If you’re a camper, my recommendation would be to stay at either Madison Campground or Canyon Village Campground. These are in the middle part of the long sides of the Grand Loop Road. This will eliminate a lot of repetitive travel over the same areas. In 2011, we stayed at Fishing Bridge for a week. It was plenty of time to see everything. However, we spent a lot of time just in transit, much of it in the Hayden Valley or nearby, caught up in excruciatingly slow traffic, generally caused by buffalo – or people slowing down or stopping to see the buffalo.
If you want to stay in the park, whether you are camping or staying a lodge, make reservations very early. The reason we ended up at Fishing Bridge instead of one of our preferred campgrounds was that we didn’t plan far enough in advance. Six months in advance may not bee soon enough.
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Yellowstone References and Resources:
Yellowstone is one of the most popular destinations in the U.S. and there are a lot of available resources, including books and DVDs
- National Park Service
- Wikipedia
- UNESCO World Heritage Site
- National Geographic
- New York Times Travel Guide
- Wikitravel
- Gorp
- PBS
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Mike .. loved the seeing the vistas, the flora and fauna .. beautiful part of the world. Love the geological formations in the canyon … was that snake a water snake – or just one have a mud bath? And was that a wolf .. ? I’m not too brilliant on these things!
Thanks for the info re where to stay etc .. really helpful – if people are thinking of travelling … love the thought of the dirt road pass .. must be beautiful. Cheers Hilary
Hi Hilary — It was a Wandering Garter Snake. I’m not an expert on snakes. I just happened to have looked it up when I did a blog post later that day, http://exit78.com/yellowstone-the-northern-loop . According to Wikipedia, garter snakes in the American West have more affinity for water than their eastern cousins. The canine critter is the wolf’s younger cousin, the American coyote.
Hi Mike .. lovely pics on the other earlier post – slim line snake – looked a reasonable length .. and I wondered if it was a coyote – but was too lazy to pop on over to Wiki to look! Wonderful names creatures are given .. Wandering Garter … what a great idea process!
Enjoy the trip .. cheers Hilary