Tower Fall

Hikers at Grand Prismatic Spring in the Midway Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park.

The Ultimate Family Tour of Yellowstone

By Michael Lanza

Every American should see Yellowstone—and not just for the historical significance of it being the world’s first national park. Few places in the United States still host the range of wildlife thriving in Yellowstone: You are likely to see numerous bison and elk, bald eagles, osprey, possibly wolves, maybe black and grizzly bears (usually from a distance), and trumpeter swans among the park’s 285 species of birds. With more than 10,000 thermal features including hot springs and more than half the planet’s geysers, and nearly 300 waterfalls, it often feels like the park is putting on a live performance.

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Lower Yellowstone Falls, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River, Yellowstone National Park.

Video: Cross-Country Skiing in Yellowstone

By Michael Lanza

Consider these statistics: Yellowstone National Park receives about four million visitors a year. Ninety percent of them see the park between May and September. Less than four percent of visitors come between December and March. And yet, in many respects, winter is the best time of year to see Yellowstone: Wildlife congregate at lower elevations, making them easier to see (except bears, of course), waterfalls form towering columns of ice (like 308-foot Lower Yellowstone Falls, in the lead photo, above), and the geysers and other thermal features take on a different character when the landscape grows hushed under a thick blanket of snow.

Plus, you can see the park’s major features, like the Upper Geyser Basin—home to Old Faithful and one-fourth of the active geysers in the world (and the greatest concentration of them)—on skis. Cross-country skiing groomed trails in Yellowstone, many of which are beginner- and family-friendly, is one of the coolest experiences in the National Park System.

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Lower Yellowstone Falls in winter, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River, Yellowstone National Park.

Cross-Country Skiing Yellowstone

By Michael Lanza

The snowcoach rumbles away, leaving us in a wintry silence disturbed only by a slight breeze and the gastrointestinal emissions of a supervolcano that last let out a really big one 640,000 years ago. Back then, it ejected about 240 cubic miles of rock and dust into the sky. Today, as seems always the case with these things, it just sounds a little rude and smells badly.

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