Things to see & do in Yellowstone National Park

You always remember your first. Yellowstone, established in 1872 by President Ulysses S Grant, was the first national park not only in the United States, but in the world. There are now more than 4,000 across the globe – great minds and all that. Most of Yellowstone falls in Wyoming, with small sections in Idaho and Montana. Despite being one of the country’s most famous parks, thanks in no small part to the antics of Yogi Bear, Yellowstone is so vast – spanning around 9,000km² – and relatively remote, that there are many places where you can enjoy a splendid sense of isolation.

Yellowstone National Park is in fact located over the caldera of a gigantic, and active, supervolcano, which is what accounts for all the geothermal activity here, as well as how fertile the landscape is. Much of the park was destroyed by fire in the 1980s, but is has now almost entirely recovered, and the wildlife here doesn’t just survive – it thrives. Wolves, which were wiped out from Yellowstone in the 1920s, were reintroduced in the 1990s to manage an unsustainable elk population, and the process has been massively successful.

Great herds of bison wander open meadows, grizzly and black bears fish in freshwater lakes and streams (feeding them from your pic-a-nic hampers is strictly verboten) and elk, pronghorn and moose hide in the forests, wary lest they provide an unwilling meal for predators. Despite its age and international fame, despite the ubiquity of its iconic natural features, and the fact that four million people visit every year, Yellowstone retains a distinct wildness to it. It’s still possible to see what so captivated the early pioneers about this landscape and convinced them to preserve it.

Yellowstone’s landscapes have been shaped over millennia by powerful geothermal forces. Geysers jet boiling water and steam into the air, mud pools bubble and hiss, hot springs display kaleidoscopic colours, and fumaroles, er, fume. There are estimated to be around 10,000 geothermal features in the park, including geyser basins and travertine terraces. You can take a fascinating tour with a geology guide, to learn about volcanism and its effects, or explore on your own. But be sure to stick to the boardwalks – this is one place where we suggest you don’t head off the beaten track on the spur of the moment.

‘America’s Serengeti’ is one of the best places in Yellowstone National Park for wildlife sightings. Herds of bison, deer and pronghorn gather here and naturally also attract wolves. The landscape makes observation easy, and you may well also see bears. Dawn and dusk are the best time for wildlife viewing and the Lamar Valley is also accessible in winter, unlike many other areas of the park.

There are some 75 grey wolf packs in the greater Yellowstone area, around 600 grizzlies and another 600 black bears. Bald eagles, America’s national bird, and many other birds of prey, soar aloft. Magnificently horned elk and moose wander the forests, and you never know when you’re going to encounter a tank-like bison blocking your path and silently daring you to ask it to move. There are specialist wildlife watching tours available, such as wolf-tracking vacations where you travel in the company of expert naturalist guides, often on foot, and heading deep into the wilderness. If you really want to learn about the animals of Yellowstone, how they behave and interact, as well as enhance your chances of sightings, this is your best option.

Every season has its charms in Yellowstone. If you want to see a landscape swept with thick snow, take a snowshoe hike, track wolves and enjoy there being hardly anyone else around, visit in winter. Spring and autumn see the scenery vividly lit with seasonal colours, and bears at their most active. Summer means the warmest weather, and masses of wildlife around, but the downside of course is that the park gets very crowded in July and August, slowing traffic down and making it that much harder to capture the perfect photo. But never impossible.