I hesitated to spend the money for a guided tour of Yellowstone, but I'm so glad I did, and…read moreespecially glad that we used Experience Yellowstone Tours. Dale's knowledge of the park - its history, its wildlife and its geology - was worth every penny. The van was comfortable and allowed for easy viewing of the park. We never felt rushed at any of the stops. Even the breakfast and lunch were good! Dale is very friendly and an easy person to spend the day with. He treated us as if we were long-time friends. I have zero complaints but lots of great memories of our day touring Yellowstone.

My wife and I are extremely glad that we decided to take this tour. We did the North Loop with a…read morewildlife emphasis. Dale is a rock star. He's been a geologist and professional wildlife photographer for 30-40 years. His wealth of knowledge about everything in Yellowstone is what takes this tour to the next level that other National Park tours don't even come close to touching. This tour is worth EVERY penny. Along our tour, we saw a bald eagle, many buffalo, mountain goats that were right next to the road, elk and deer. Dale was shocked that we didn't see any bears that particular day because they are so common. We saw waterfalls, canyons, geysers and way more. The only downside is that we wish we had more time to tour the rest of the park.

Great tour . Our guide Randoff was amazing he answered every question and was very informative, he…read moremade sure to show us some great wildlife... highly recommend

We did a snowmobile tour to Old Faithful. We had a grand time! Got to see a lot of wildlife,…read moreincluding wolves! Meredith was our guide. I cant recommend her enough. She was a great guide. She kept us all safe, well informed and did it all with genuine caring for our safety and enjoyment. I cant recommend her enough!

I booked a hiking tour: here's the link…read morehttps://www.yellowstone.org/experience/yellowstone-forever-institute/lodging-learning/ They schedule your stay and hiking for the duration of your stay. I enjoyed 3 nights at Mammoth Hot Springs and 2 nights at Grant. Breakfast and lunch included and a dinner. Out naturalist Josh was outstanding! Hikes were great and you really need to be in shape to hike, these were not your casual flat land hike. Totally worth it.....Only thing I would change.....getting the others in the group to stop talking long enough to really enjoy the scenery and maybe not scare off the wildlife because they were so noisy and busy talking too much of the time. (Next time I'll suggest some way to reduce group noise). So many tour choices and pricing was better than if you just went and stayed. Nice rooms, great food....worth it. I went solo, and single supplement was minimal. They have winter tours too! I'm planning on a return!

Taking this guided tour was the highlight of our trip to Yellowstone! Katy Fast was an exceptional…read moretour guide, educator, and wildlife spotter. We were able to see a Grizzly Bear, Coyote, Mountain Goats, Pronghorn, Elk, and of course Bison. Katy was an expert at spotting wildlife that we wouldn't have necessarily always noticed, and she was able to set up scopes so we could see wildlife clearly. Katy's knowledge of wildlife, fun stories, and bad dad jokes and puns made the trip fun even though we had to leave at like 5am. Really nothing but positive things to say about our tour! We hope Katy was able to recover her lost backpack.

After years of road tripping across this country, many of them having scheduled stops in…read moreYellowstone National Park, my family and I wanted to try something a little different this year. Mrs. Picante found this little campsite at Hebgen Lake. Assuming the whole area would be rather beautiful, we threw caution to the wind and booked it for three nights. The campsite is a couple of miles off the main highway, along a fairly well-maintained road that heads out into the wilderness. Our campsite was flat and very close to the pit toilets, but also very close to the Lakeshore. Our California plates got us a couple of second glances from a few folks, but nothing to worry about. All who love nature and respect her always seem to be welcomed among people who quickly become friends. I had heard whispers that this particular lake has a pretty good brown trout fishery, and I was not disappointed. Granted, a couple of locals and a multi campsite large family gathering we're overheard whispering to each other about "the guy with California plates and the long rod throwing the bass lure" ... but although this was not water I had fished before, I've learned a thing or two over the years. Patience and persistence paid off, as I landed quite a few fish including one of the largest I've ever caught. And I think I earned a lot of respect from those same locals, when I snapped a few nice pictures with my fish, turned back to the water, and watched her swim away, released healthy to fight another day. Fishing licenses can be purchased online, which is how I got mine. Notably, this is grizzly bear country, so putting your things away in the provided bear boxes is essential for the safety of other campers and of course the Bears themselves. There were quite a few jet skiers and other pleasurecraft folks on the water during the day, but things settle down in the evening, which of course lasts a long time during summer in those northern latitudes. My family enjoyed renting a paddleboard for the day, and I labored through blowing up their inflatable inner tubes at altitude, much to their delight. Absolutely beautiful country up here, and a place I hope I get to visit again.

I spent a day around Hebgen Lake learning about, finding, and exploring fault scarp and the…read moreaftermath of the 1959 earthquake at this location. This was as part of my geology field course in July 2015. When the fault formed part of the land moved down (slipped) relative to the other. You can think of it as the ground dropped down 10 feet along the fault itself. When the fault is fresh, the place where the land went swoosh is easier to identify. As time passes, the fault scarp slowly degrades and becomes less obvious. We also had to identify between which rock formations the slippage occurred. Some rocks are more slip prone kind of like some rocks are more prone to forming ridges. We also walked along the water's edge of the Lake and talked about the waves/seiches that formed as a result of the earthquake. The landslide dynamics were jaw-dropping. After the land slide, the land that was displaced sloshed in the valley. Imagine the amount of energy and precision of movement needed from Mother Nature to slosh the land and keep it in the valley. Worth a full day to explore!

Review Indian Creek We stayed at Indian Creek at the end of…read moreSeptember 2020. Let me preface my review by saying that we had a very pleasant time here, but the check in process of this first come first served campground just totally doesn't make sense to us! We arrived at 7:30am. We got in line with only a few cars ahead of us and were told that they'd open check in starting at 8am. By 9:30am, we were called up to the front of the line and told to park in one of three parking spots near the booth. At that point we were finally able to see what was taking so long: The one park ranger working would exit the booth to come up to the front car and ask them to park the car and then have the person get out of their car and meet them at the booth to check in. Then, she'd take about 15-20min with them to explain the rules of the campground and collect payment. With almost 30 people in line two days before the campground actually closed for the season, you can imagine how this process was completely inefficient. The campground itself is lovely. Each site has a bear box, picnic table, and fire pit with vault toilets and potable water nearby. We stayed at site 21 in the tent loop and had plenty of space with minimal privacy. Most campsites are close together so there isn't much privacy. We had no cell service (which is normal for the majority of the park). The campground is in a central location to explore the west part of the park. On our first night, we arrived late and found a couple setting up a tent on our site (we had our receipt hanging up on the marker and food in the bear box, but they didn't notice). It was a misunderstanding and we were able to amicably handle the situation, but what impressed me was that the campground had volunteers do a nightly security check every so often and happened to drive by when all of this went down. They checked in with us to make sure we were okay and if we needed any help sorting out the situation. I would recommend this site, just be prepared to be patient with check-in if you're lucky enough to get a site.

Great campground just north of Norris Campground…read more Getting a reservation in Yellowstone is basically like winning the lottery. And first-come first-serve sites when we visited the park at the end of July were still in high demand. (Showing up at 6AM at the Norris campground was apparently not early enough!) Indian Creek was an excellent alternative. The only con were the vault toilets, but they were the cleanest/best ones I used in the whole park. Plenty of toilet paper and hand sanitizer provided. The park rangers staffing the campground were SUPER friendly. Not as centrally located as Norris, but far easier then driving outside of Yellowstone Park.

On our second day in the park, we had visited the Grand Canyon area, and then we discovered the…read morelake. On that day, a storm must've been moving in because the wind was gusting and there were actually waves on the lake! We got out a couple times and explored the beachfront. I found a couple of bird feathers, which was exciting for me, and generally just amazing given the gusts of wind - I was surprised that they didn't blow away. On our third day in the park as we came back through from the fishing bridge headed towards Old Faithful, we went by the lake again, and we were stunned at the complete difference in personality that we were witnessing. The lake was completely and totally calm, quiet, and gentle. We had to stop and explore again, and it was such a different experience from the day before. This lakefront is amazing and it's definitely a place to be explored in the park.

I drove through Yellowstone Lake as I was going to West Thumb Geyser Basin on the eastern portion…read moreof the park. It's a HUGE lake and it took me a while to drive down the road with the lake by my side. There are a lot of pulloffs that you can soak in the views or even go down to the lake and play in the water. It'll take you a while to drive around the entire lake and there are multiple parts of it. West Thumb and Grant Visitor Center will be closest to the main sections of the park and closest to Grand Loop Road. Although the South and Southeast arms of the lake are further away I imagine they're less crowded so you can have more peace doing all your fun activities.