[Wednesday, March 19, 2008] According to recent studies, Yellowstone Park wolf packs have more members on average and have older average age than packs in the surrounding Greater Yellowstone Area. This may be a significant indicator of the environmental conditions.  For details click the Jackson Hole News and Guide link below.

[Tuesday, March 11, 2008] Bears are coming out in Yellowstone; it must be spring. Bears are coming out in political ads too; it must be…election season. First, the news from the field: Tracks from a bear of unknown species have been seen this week in the Central Plateau of Yellowstone National Park. It’s about this time of year that bears …

Keeping in the tradition of environmental conservatism, Yellowstone National Park announced yesterday that they will use “warm-mix” asphalt on a road-paving project in Mammoth Hot Springs. John Twedt, who works for Century Industries, the company on contract for road work, told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle the area being paved is, “in a wildlife-sensitive area the administration parking lots, where wild …

[Friday February 29, 2008] The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced that it intends to designate 42,753 square miles in six states as an area under tighter federal oversight for protection of the lynx as an endangered species. This area will include much of Yellowstone National Park and large portions of Teton and Lincoln counties in Wyoming. This ruling would reverse earlier …

[Thursday, March 6, 2008] To allow reconstruction of the West Entrance station, the West Entrance will be closed beginning the evening of Sunday, March 9. Since the park’s roads are closed to all traffic (snow or non-snow vehicles) between March 9 and April 18, this specific closure will not have much effect. It may delay off-season bicycle access. The Riverside Trail bypasses the …

As a haven for travelers, the Mammoth area predates the establishment of Yellowstone National Park when it comes to offering services for the curious. McCartney's Hotel, opened by James McCartney and Harry Horr, opened in the general Mammoth area in 1871 -- a year before Yellowstone was designated a National Park. Besides being an early Yellowstone hotelier, Horr has a greater claim to fame: he bestowed the Mammoth moniker on the nearby hot springs, the name that sticks to this day.

The table below is a great planning tool in selecting places to visit and things to see while going to and from Yellowstone Park. It covers things both inside Yellowstone National Park and outside the park but within the Greater Yellowstone Region. This is a checklist approach to seeing the greater Yellowstone area. There is obviously subjective judgment involved, and as they say, your mileage may vary. Planning with this kind of listing is certainly not the only appropriate way to visit the park. There are many other approaches, including completely random wandering. Depending on your interests, you can concentrate on things like seeing wildlife, taking pictures, studying geology, or just driving around to soak up the scenery. There are so many ways to see a place as rich and diverse as the Yellowstone region.

   Yellowstone National Park and the surrounding Greater Yellowstone Region can be enjoyed for exactly what it is—a beautiful and unusual place. There’s nothing wrong with taking at face value what you see here. However it’s important to understand that preserving and maintaining this beautiful and unusual place doesn’t happen by accident. It costs money and takes a lot of effort. It …

Tours of two days or more allow some spare time to see Yellowstone National Park, compared to trying to do it all in one day. However, the driving time almost inevitably increases, as typically it's necessary to drive to and from wherever you spend the night. Yellowstone's a big park, so even these drives can take an hour or more. Longer tours are also more open to variation; if you ask any ten Yellowstone veterans for the best itinerary for two (or three) days, you will probably get eleven or twelve answers. Our suggestions try hard not to be arbitrary, this two day itinerary more or less splits the park thematically: First day concentrates on the famous geysers and geyser basins, the second day visits Yellowstone River, Canyon, and Lake -- a water day. Both days involve at least six hours of sightseeing (not counting starting/ending drive time), but there's some flexibility to make unscheduled stops.

A three-day visit to Yellowstone National Park makes it possible to see the main highlights without the pressure to do a lot of driving every day. (Keep in mind that in a driving tour of Yellowstone, the driver rarely gets to enjoy the scenery.) Of course, depending on where you are staying the night, there may be considerable commuting to and from where you start and finish the day. Like the suggested Two Day Itinerary, Day One begins with Old Faithful and a stop at the Visitor Center to get the predicted times for major geyser eruptions. Everyone can and should see Old Faithful, but catching others, such as Grand, Daisy, Castle, Riverside, and Great Fountain, is a matter of luck and some planning. Day Two and Day Three are really interchangeable. Day Three is relatively short, and some might prefer to make it the middle day of a three-day tour.