The Aesthetic Voyager: Camping Trip in Yellowstone

A couple weeks ago I brought my first group - 11 eighth and ninth graders from Pennsylvania - to Yellowstone for 3 days of exploring and 2 days of camping. What an exhausting three days... but despite the lack of sleep we managed to pull off a fairly smooth trip that the kids really enjoyed.

The first day we packed up the vans and drove from Jackson up to West Thumb in Yellowstone, where we explored the geothermal features, including hot springs, mud pots, and fumaroles.

A hot spring at West Thumb, Yellowstone.

A mud pot at West Thumb, Yellowstone.

We also stopped at Dragon's Mouth, another great geothermal area.

Dragon's Mouth is a hot spring measuring 170.2°F.

Our next stop was the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, which is roughly 20 miles long and was formed due to erosion from the Yellowstone River, which is the longest undammed river in the continental U.S. We hiked the South Rim Trail up to Artist Point, which gave us amazing views of the Lower Falls as well as the rest of the canyon. The falls is twice the height of Niagara Falls.

The view from Artist Point looking down the canyon at the Lower Falls and the Yellowstone River.

The following morning we woke up with the sun and headed up to Lamar Valley, which is known to be a great place for viewing wildlife, especially wolves. Multiple coyotes crossed the road on the drive up to the valley and a few bison herds grazed in nearby meadows with their young. Once we made it to the valley we walked up a small hill overlooking the valley where a group of people were already congregated. I knew there must be wolves in the valley because Rick McIntyre, the leading wolf biologist of the Yellowstone area, was on the hill with his spotting scope set up. (You can always spot him easily by his bright yellow car parked alongside the road. I met him when I went to Yellowstone two summers ago.) Sure enough the alpha female of the Lamar wolf pack was crossing the valley below with a fawn in her mouth. You could see her with your bare eyes, however, watching her through the spotting scope was amazing - you could see the beautiful details of the animal. Shortly after we realized that there was another wolf on the hill behind us - the alpha male of the pack. He is a beautiful dark gray as oppose to the female which is a light gray to white color.

A beautiful male elk we passed while driving.

Bison grazing in a meadow alongside the road.

An adorable baby bison catching up with his mother.

A pronghorn pausing for a moment among the sagebrush - they are the fastest land mammal in North America, reaching speeds up to 60 mph.

After our excitement in Lamar Valley we hiked out to Trout Lake, where we saw Rainbow Trout and Cutthroat Trout swimming up river to spawn. It's amazing what these fish are capable of and the amount of energy they expend to spawn upstream - swimming up small waterfalls and against strong downstream currents.