One Day In Yellowstone

Can you see Yellowstone in just one day? You certainly can’t see everything in one day, but you can see the highlights, as I found out on our epic road trip west in 2015. Even with a late start, we were able to see the “greatest hits” of the geological wonders of the park which make Yellowstone so special.

I don’t want to take all the credit for this itinerary–I found it online and we used it as a starting point for our day. It worked really well for us, so I highly recommend it!

Breakfast at Old Faithful Inn

The Old Faithful Inn (by far my favorite place to stay in the park) serves a buffet breakfast every morning from 6:30-10:30 am and this is where we started our day. We had to drive in about an hour from our cabin but if you are staying in the park or better yet, somewhere in the Old Faithful Historic District, this is the perfect place to begin. Eating inside the rustic dining room in the historic lodge is just a really fun way to kick off any day in the park.

Upper Geyser Basin

We looked around the lodge for a bit and caught the next eruption of the biggest attraction in the park, the Old Faithful Geyser. Actually, I missed it entirely the first time around, due to misreading a posted time somewhere in the lodge. So I walked around the Upper Geyser Basin behind Old Faithful containing ~150 more thermal features before returning to see Old Faithful erupt again. And it is certainly worth waiting for! Old Faithful is unfailingly an amazing experience. The anticipation, the popping and bubbling as the pressure underground builds, then the final explosion as it shoots 100-200 feet in the air! This is one of America’s greatest wonders that everyone should see.

If you have the time, this is a fantastic area to look around. But you have to have patience if you want to see some of the other not-as-faithful geysers go off. Sometimes the interval between eruptions at these geysers can be as much as several hours to a few months! The next anticipated eruption is usually posted near each geyser and I think you can get a schedule of all of them at the Old Faithful Inn.

I would have loved to walk all the way to Morning Glory pool a mile & a half down the trail. If you want to do true slow travel, then spending a whole day just in the Upper Geyser Basin would be time well spent.

Midway Geyser Basin

From the Old Faithful area, we drove to the Midway Geyser Basin and the Grand Prismatic Spring. Grand Prismatic is the big attraction here, a colorful thermal spring as big as a football field. It’s actually so big that it’s pretty hard to see from the boardwalk. And even in the height of summer, the steam from the superheated water makes it hard to photograph.

Your best bet is to hike the beginning of the Fairy Falls Trail, just south of the Midway Basin. At a little over half a mile in and a 105-foot climb in elevation, you’ll come to an overlook for the best vantage point for the most colorful spring in the park. It’s also worth visiting the springs on the hottest days of the year, which may result in slightly less steam obstructing your view.

Firehole Lake Drive

We didn’t do the hike but instead drove the one-way loop at Firehole Lake Drive as our next stop. This area of the park, the west side of the lower loop, contains the majority of all the thermal features of the park, so none of these areas are far from each other.

The 3-mile, one-way loop passes by several more springs and geysers, plus a short boardwalk along Firehole Lake. You’ll find the Great Fountain Geyser here, which erupts about every 9-15 hours.

Lower Geyser Basin & the Fountain Paint Pot

I was really entranced by the Lower Geyser Basin with the Fountain Paint Pot and the roaring fumaroles. Up to this point, most of the thermal features took the form of impossibly deep blue pools, steaming cones, and shooting geysers. In the Lower Geyser Basin, added to these were bubbling mud pits and rock caves that sound like the entrance to hell.

The Fountain Paint Pot is a brown mud pond with mesmerizing bubbles that constantly rise to the surface. They are really cool to watch! Further along the boardwalk is the mottled Leather Pool, the blue Silex Pool, and when you get a little higher in elevation, the roaring fumaroles. They really do sound menacing!

Yellowstone Canyon

By this point, we really were wanting lunch but didn’t come up with anything to eat at either Madison or Norris, so we didn’t explore those areas fully. We ended up at a cute retro diner in the Canyon Village for a late lunch.

Since we were there, we explored the adjacent museum and drove around the rim of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, stopping to take pictures at various overlooks of the river and the big waterfall. This is a great roadtripping section, we really enjoyed it.

Mammoth Hot Springs

From the canyon, we drove over 30 miles north to Mammoth Hot Springs, in time to see the sun set over the huge travertine terraces. The top pool is huge, and trickles down the sides, forming beautiful yellow deposits in terraced pools all the way down the hillside. Sometimes this area makes you feel like you’re on Mars, more so than any of the other bizarre landscapes in the park.

Below the Springs is the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, a beautiful yellow complex of buildings with the ever-present elk hanging about on the lawns. We had a wonderful and well-earned meal here to cap off our day.

Conclusion

I really think we did a good job of hitting the highlights with our limited time at Yellowstone National Park. We didn’t really manage any time in the northeast corner of the park, around Roosevelt’s Tower and Lamar Valley, nor did we see any of Hayden Valley between the Canyon and the Lake. But with seeing the Fishing Bridge area, Lake Yellowstone, and the West Thumb Geyser Basin the day before, I think we really did a good job of it overall.

For visitors with more time, there are plenty of rewarding hiking trails all over the park. Yellowstone is also a fantastic roadtrippers park, with beautiful drives along Beartooth Highway in the northeast corner, the scenic drive around the canyon rim. Basically driving anywhere in the park is a joy! Be prepared for Bison Jams, though. Huge herds of bison cross the roads at once and you just have to wait for them (because nudging is not allowed.)

Basically, the more time you spend in Yellowstone, the more you will be rewarded. I don’t think this is a park that you can ever be “done” with or see absolutely everything. But it is possible to see a lot of it without feeling like you’re missing out.