Yellowstone Lower Loop Full-Day Tour

Yellowstone Lower Loop Full-Day Tour

Yellowstone National Park, Old Faithful, Lake Yellowstone and more!  This is a tour of the Lower Loop of Yellowstone National Park, which will visit such points of interest as Old Faithful, Grand Prismatic Spring, Fountain Paint Pot, Upper and Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River, Hayden Valley, Lake Yellowstone, and much more!  Bring your camera as wildlife sightings including bear, elk, and bison are common.  Lunch included!

Our day begins as we head north from Jackson, WY towards Yellowstone National Park, passing through Grand Teton on the way. A couple of photo ops as we pass through Grand Teton, but mostly heading directly towards Yellowstone’s south entrance, of course stopping for a photo with the Yellowstone sign.

Generally our first major stop will be at Upper Geyser Basin, or the Old Faithful area. The old faithful geyser will erupt every ninety minutes and we will make a point of witnessing the eruption. Given the timing of our arrival we may have time for a short boardwalk stroll to view some of the other thermal features in the basin. In addition to Old Faithful there are numerous other fantastic geysers that will erupt with less certainty and frequency, which we may also have the good fortune to witness, including: Beehive, Castle, The Lion Group, Sawmill, Grand, Daisy,and more.

In addition to the numerous thermal features the history buffs will also enjoy a visit to the Old Faithful Inn, (in season) arguably one of the most magnificent National Park Lodges in existence. We will venture north and most tours we will have the time to spot at least two more times for short and exciting boardwalks excursions. Everyone enjoys stopping at both the Midway Geyser Basin, and Fountain Paint pots-both truly fantastic thermal collections unto themselves. I will not ruin the surprise but such features as the Grand Prismatic Spring, Clepsydra Geyser, Excelsior Geyser crater, and the Fountain Paint Pots are just a few of the features we will visit while walking on the boardwalks.

Early afternoon we are arriving at lunch stop, usually Fountain Flats, or beyond.. A great, fresh picnic spread provided by us including Boars Head turkey, ham, lettuce, onion, tomato, avocado (freshly prepped on site) chips and salsa, fruit, cookies for dessert, condiments, etc.

After lunch we will spend some time in the vehicle as we make our way north around the loop with our next real major stop being the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River. Some points of interest along the way will include: Firehole Canyon drive, Madison River, Gibbon River Falls, Elk Park, Virginia Cascades, etc. We will spend some time at the Canyon Area with the main draw being the Upper and Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River, 109ft, and 308 feet tall respectively. Also the beauty of the Canyon itself is not to be missed.

We try to be heading south by about 3:30pm with still some ground to cover. Heading south from the Canyon Area we will pass through Hayden Valley, Mud Volcano, Yellowstone Lake, and West Thumb. This will complete our lower loop as we head back towards Jackson from there, usually arriving back in Jackson between 6:30 and 7:30 pm.