Things to do
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Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone
Downstream of the falls the river has cut a gorge some three hundred metres deep through rhyolite stained yellow and rust by hot water. Two rim drives serve it, each with its own viewpoints; Artist Point on the south side frames the Lower Falls. Steep stairways descend toward the brink. Ospreys nest on pinnacles in the gorge and can be watched from the rail.
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Grand Prismatic Spring
Bands of orange, yellow and green ring a centre of deep blue, the colours made by heat-loving bacteria in scalding water. At around a hundred and ten metres across it is too wide to read from the boardwalk; a short climb on the Fairy Falls trail reaches an overlook that shows the whole disc. Steam hides it on cold mornings.
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Mammoth Hot Springs
Terraces of white travertine step down a hillside at the park's north end, built and abandoned as the hot water shifts its plumbing from year to year: a dry grey terrace one season can run again the next. Boardwalks cross the upper and lower groups. Elk graze the lawns of the old army fort below, and the road here stays open through winter.
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Old Faithful
Eruptions come roughly every ninety minutes, throwing water thirty to fifty metres up for a few minutes at a time, and rangers post the next predicted window at the visitor centre. Benches ring the cone. Walk on into the Upper Geyser Basin afterwards: the boardwalk loop passes Castle, Grand and Riverside, each with its own predicted times.
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Park
Yellowstone National Park
Signed into being in 1872 as the first national park anywhere, it sits on a caldera that still drives half the known geysers on the planet. Elk, bison, wolves and bears range across a plateau the size of a small country. A figure-of-eight road links the basins, the canyon and Lamar Valley, and driving between them eats more of a day than most expect.