Yellowstone is the first national park in the US, even before the National Park Service was founded. It expands over three states: Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. This blog will walk you through a four day itinerary in Yellowstone national park.

Summary

Where to fly to?
Where to stay?
Road closure
Day 1

Gibbon falls
Beryl spring
Monument geyser basin (Optional)
Artists paintpots
Norris geyser basin
Roaring mountain
Mammoth hot springs
Lamar valley

Day 2

Firehole falls
Fountain Paint Pots
Firehole lake drive
Midway Geyser Basin / Grand Prismatic Spring
Biscuit basin

Mystic falls

Black Sand Basin
Old faithful
Upper geyser basin

Day 3

Canyon village
Hayden valley
Mud volcano
Terrace spring

Day 4

Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center
Kepler cascades
Duck lake
West thumb geyser basin

Where to fly to?

West Yellowstone airport is the closest airport to Yellowstone national park. However, due to the price of the flight and the limited number of rental cars there, I chose to fly to Salt Lake city (SLC) instead. It is about a 4.5 hrs drive from SLC to West yellowstone.

Where to stay?

There are five park entrances to Yellowstone, each on different sides of the park. The most popular place to stay while visiting Yellowstone is West Yellowstone. I’ve visited Yellowstone twice, both times I stayed at West Yellowstone. I really like it there since it is close to the park entrance, close to most of the popular attractions, and has many hotel and restaurant options. I stayed at Best Western and Yellowstone West Gate Hotel respectively for my two trips there. They are both in the $250 - $350/room/night range, depending on the time of the year you visit. Both hotel rooms are not very fancy. However, we live there for convenience since they are both close to the park entrance.

I’ve heard good things about North Yellowstone as well. One of my friends who stayed at North Yellowstone describes it as more family-like. However, staying in the north is about 1 - 2 hrs longer compared to west, since you have to cut through the park.

Road closure

In the winter, some of the roads will be closed in the park. Please check the park website for the latest info on road closure conditions.

Day 1

Gibbon falls

From the West entrance, it is only a 30 min drive to this beautiful waterfall. It is literally on the side of the road, so you can just walk a short distance to the viewpoints from the parking lot. There are bathrooms there, but it is not the flushable type.

Beryl spring

This is a hot spring on the side of the road.

Monument geyser basin (Optional)

I mark this one as optional because the trail to this geyser basin is 2.3 mile round trip with 675 ft elevation gain. There are many other geyser basins in this park that you can easily visit without all the hiking.

Artists paintpots

It is a 1 mile loop with 101 ft elevation to the artists paintpots. I really like this one because of all the beautiful colors. When you are on the highest point of the trail, you will get a good view of the paintpots and the beautiful snowy mountains in the back:

Norris geyser basin

This is the most dynamic of Yellowstons’s thermal features. There are two loop trails in this area. We did both of them and they are totally worth it. If you can only do one, I recommend the shorter Porcelain Basin loop (¾ miles).

View from the Porcelain basin loop:

View from the back basin loop (1.5 miles):

Roaring mountain

This is a thermal feature you can literally see from its parking lot. I appreciate the park made so many of its wonderful features so accessible.

Mammoth hot springs

This is our favorite place in this park. The terraces here are so unique.

Lamar valley

This is a beautiful valley with many chances to see bison. We went there around May and saw many bison calves.

Day 2

Firehole falls

You can see the firehold falls by driving through the firehole canyon drive.

Fountain Paint Pots

This place is filled with different colors: blue, red, orange, white. It is also easily accessible from the parking lot (0.6 mile loop trail).

Firehole lake drive

This drive goes to the lower geyser basin and Great fountain geyser. We can’t visit this one this time due to road closure.

Midway Geyser Basin / Grand Prismatic Spring

This is a very popular place in the park. It can take a while to get parking. However, I see a lot of people just park their cars on the side of the road and walk to the Grand Prismatic Spring. The view of the Grand Prismatic Spring is not very good from the trail due to the steam.

If we were to go there again, we will try to hike to the Grand Prismatic Spring overlook, which might give us a better view of the Grand Prismatic Spring. It is a 1.2 mile out and back trial from the fairy falls trail parking lot.

Biscuit basin

This is a 0.6 mile loop boardwalk trail.

Mystic falls

You can also hike to Mystic falls from the biscuit basin. It is a 2.6 mile round trip, 225 feet elevation.

Black Sand Basin

This is a 0.5 mile out and back trail to see more hot springs and geysers.

Old faithful

When visiting Old Faithful, you can find when the next eruption is predicted at the Old Faithful Visitor Education Center, at the lodges, in the NPS Yellowstone Geysers app, or on Yellowstone's geyser prediction Twitter feed. It is normally every 90 min.

Upper geyser basin

While waiting for the old faithful to shoot out, you can take a walk to the upper geyser basin loop, which you can access from the old faithful visitor center.

Day 3

Canyon village

This is the place where you can see the lower and upper falls. Most of the points below can be accessed directly through its own parking lot. At first, we did not know that and we hiked to the lookout points from the first parking lot we saw.

Lookout points
Grand view
Inspiration point
Upper falls view
Artist point

The park’s name Yellowston is named after Yellowston river, which might have gotten its name from the yellow canyon here.

Hayden valley

There are a few overlooks along the side of the road in this area. However, we did not see as many bison here as in Lamar valley.

Mud volcano

This is a 0.6 mile loop trail that passes through a few interesting thermal features.

Terrace spring

On the way back to our hotel in West Yellowstone, we stopped by this place. It is a 0.2 mile loop trail with some hot springs.

What I find interesting is that along the edge of the hot spring, there is a ring of yellow flowers. I guess they might like the warmth near the hot springs.

Day 4

Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center

This is not part of the Yellowstone park, it is a non profit center in West yellowstone where they host some bears and animals that have been removed from the park due to bad behaviors.

I think this might be my first time seeing a wolf in person, unless I saw them before in zoos. They look like really big dogs:

I am definitely very happy to be able to see two bears close by:

Kepler cascades

This is a cascaded waterfall that you can see from the side of the road.

Duck lake

When you pull over by side of the road, you will see a beautiful view of the lake and snowy mountain in the background. The lake looks frozen when we visited in May.

West thumb geyser basin

To be honest, this geyser basin is a little bit underwhelming compared to the other basins. It is mainly because this geyser basin is not as active as the other ones. However, you will get a good view of the west thumb.

That is our four day itinerary in Yellowstone, mainly focusing on its thermal features. There are of course many other things you can do in the park (hiking, for example). We hope you enjoy your stay in the park. Stay safe and take care of yourself.

Four day itinerary in Yellowstone