Before I jump into sharing about our two days in Yellowstone National Park, I want to highly recommend Ash’s itineraries at Dirt in My Shoes. She does offer ambassador programs where people can benefit from referrals, but I was denied for both of the programs (not influential enough, ha), so please know that for me to devote time to referring her, it’s simply because I truly find it useful and not because I’m benefiting at all from the referral.
We purchased her itinerary for both Yellowstone and Grand Teton (where we visit next) and after using her two day itinerary in Yellowstone, I’m a believer. This isn’t our first national park to visit and I’m pretty good at planning. But purchasing her itinerary took SO much guesswork out of the planning process and truly maximized our time in the park. Only having a few days in each park means we didn’t have time to waste, and it was amazing knowing exactly what we would do next, while also understanding we have flexibility to adapt some things if needed to fit our family.
When you purchase one of Ash’s itineraries, you get several itineraries based on the number of days you’re in the park – so you can choose what works for you. I now have access to itineraries for the future that include 1 day visits, 2 day, 3 day, 4 day, etc. This is SO valuable to me.
I’ll be sharing below where we visited but do not think you should just follow what I say below and think it’s all you need. Ash’s itineraries include driving directions (something I’ve never had before when I’ve researched and looked at other blogs) complete with maps that totally take the guesswork out of where you’re going. She shares where bathrooms are located (or even if they are pit toilets) so you can plan ahead as best as possible. She shares trail distances, difficulty level, can’t-miss stops, etc. It also includes a dining guide so I felt like we could make informed decisions about where to eat, or if we wanted to even purchase food in the park or nearby cities. Truly – check out her website and utilize her itineraries for your travels into National Parks. I don’t know that I’ll ever not use her itineraries moving forward.
Day 1 in Yellowstone National Park (day 5 of the trip)
We started early, which I’ve learned through the years is always key to visiting some top spots in a national park. It is totally worth it to beat the crowds in certain areas before the busyness picks up later in the day!
Firehole Canyon Scenic Drive – this is a one way scenic drive with a pullout that we loved stopping at to see the falls and snap a family picture. It was definitely worth the drive and runs parallel to the main road to Old Faithful.
Grand Prismatic Overlook Trail – our first hike of the day and it was a great way to start!
Old Faithful – We showed up and checked the next eruption time, which was in ten minutes! We were able to have a restroom break and begin walking around the side of Old Faithful. We didn’t make it to the back as we hoped before eruption time, but we saw the eruption just fine where we were!
Geyser Hill – We then just explored on Geyser Hill through several boardwalks. It was a fun area to wander and we didn’t go as far as Morning Glory, but that’s definitely on my list for the future.
Lunch – since most reviews of the park restaurants were that we’d be paying a good bit of money for the convenience and experience and not necessarily the quality of the food, we planned picnic lunches for both days in the park and this worked out so well! Since there are nine of us, I decided not to try to pre-make lunches, but just put all the ingredients in our car that anyone might need: deli meats, a loaf of sourdough bread that I’d made, sliced and frozen (four loaves total for our picnics throughout the trip), peanut butter and jelly of course, mayo, fruit, etc. Nammaw brought chips, plates and plasticware, and we enjoyed her blueberry and chocolate chip muffins for a treat after we finished our sandwiches. We enjoyed our lunch on picnic tables outside of the Yellowstone Lodge.
Norris Geyser Basin – we then started the drive to Norris but had to pull over so I could drive and Nick could take a nap, ha. He could have used a Starbucks trip after our lunch, for sure! I forgot to mention – a tradition we started years ago on our vacations is to listen to audiobooks while we are in the car. We are finishing up the Wingfeather Saga this summer, so we are on the final book. We have loved pairing a good story with our scenic drives through national parks – it truly stirs me to worship the goodness of our Creator, and I pray it does the same for our kids. We highly recommend books when you’re driving longer stints in the car throughout the park!
Norris Geyser Basin was probably one of my favorite stops of the day – a lot to see here and many superlatives, as the museum explains, including the tallest geyser in the world! The last time it erupted was in April and we stood for a while to see if it might be our lucky day, but alas, it was not! 🙂
Mammoth Hot Springs – This is another interesting stop! Due to the heat of the day and how tired we were, I don’t know that it was worth wandering as much as we did on this trail up many stairs, but I definitely recommend seeing Devil’s Thumb and Liberty Cap, which doesn’t require too much walking from the parking lot.
Roosevelt Arch – finished in 1903 and truly magnificent to see! We recommend if you have the time to drive this far north. We especially enjoyed looking up into the side supports of the arch. We spent a little more time than we wanted here because Nick needed the phone service for a business call, which put us heading back to West Yellowstone pretty late.
Dinner – Because of arrived after 7pm at West Yellowstone, we decided to try a highly recommended local restaurant – Firehole BBQ. It was incredible. The prices reflect the quality, for sure, and it was a great end to a long day for hungry, tired hikers. We would definitely recommend!
We returned to our RV park, showered and went to sleep easily after getting in bed!
Day 2 in Yellowstone National Park (day 6 of our trip)
I forgot to mention that for breakfast on these days, it’s been super helpful to have items like yogurt, pre-made and frozen muffins, breads, breakfast sandwiches, burritos, etc. It allows us to warm up and get out of the door quickly since we want to enter the park early.
Gibbon Falls – this was a great, brief stop to see some waterfalls.
North Rim Scenic Drive – Brink of the Lower Falls Trail – Okay, this was my far my favorite stop of the entire visit into Yellowstone! It’s a steep trail down and then back up, but worth every minute to see the power of the Lower Falls by literally standing right beside where it goes over the cliff of the mountain. I’ve never seen anything like it before in all of our trips and it’s even my favorite out of our visits to Yosemite and Glacier. Truly amazing! My mother in law quoted someone she heard recently who said, “the only thing more powerful than water is God.” This hike and view illustrated those words so well!
Lookout Point – another quick stop and beautiful view
Red Rock Point Trail – a similar hike to Lower Falls, but gives you another beautiful view – worth hiking!
Artist Point – This is another incredible view of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, which includes the Lower Falls. A must stop!
On our next drive to our picnic area, we stopped for a buffalo crossing the road – he actually stepped onto the road in front of us and just stopped and stared at traffic for a while! He took his time and let everyone know he was controlling the flow of things. There was a herd of bison we enjoyed watching with a few babies. This was a neat area to drive through on our way to lunch!
Lunch – for our picnic we drove just south of the Mud Volcano area (which was planned to be our next stop) to a picnic area near the river. We enjoyed a similar lunch to the day before, with my momma’s cherry bread for dessert. Nick and the boys walked across the main road to the river to get some fishing in while the rest of us finished lunch and enjoyed the shady, wooded area of our picnic.
Mud Volcano – we drove back to this area and explored a bit. I didn’t find the entire trail worthwhile necessarily, but did particularly enjoy Mud Volcano and the Dragons Mouth Spring! I asked our 6 year old if she thought Smaug was in the cave (we recently finished The Hobbit for a second time). It was neat to see!
Yellowstone Lake – we went by the hotel on the lake to get Nick some Starbucks from the deli, but it was closed! However, seeing the yellow hotel and the vastness of the lake from it was worth the stop!
Pelican Creek Trailhead – this was one of my favorite hikes and I’m so grateful Ash recommended it – I love quieter hikes that few people know about and this was definitely one of them! It loops around to the beaches of the lake and was beautiful. We did have bear spray ready since it’s a bear heavy area, but we didn’t see any large animals – only some squirrels, chipmunks and Canadian Geese. It was a beautiful, quiet and easy hike!
Next on our itinerary was West Thumb Geyser Basin, but we knew that if we went there, we wouldn’t make it back to our RV park in time to grill, and that was our plan for dinner. We felt like it was time to drive over an hour back to West Yellowstone, and we grilled burgers and enjoyed some huckleberry ice cream for dessert, which was buy 1 get 1 free at our RV park general store! It was another full, wonderful day! I’m truly grateful for the itinerary from Ash at Dirt in My Shoes. I felt like it helped us have a smooth trip with accurate expectations, and maximized our two days in Yellowstone!
jami lee gainey 