Venture Into The Great Outdoors: Three National Parks To Put On Your Bucket List

Contributed by MJ Muchow, The Hive Overland Park

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When the cooler temps arrive, early fall is a great time to visit our national parks. Montana and Northwest Wyoming offer a terrific opportunity to visit three different parks in one trip.  Recently my husband and I set out for Glacier, Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Parks, and found ourselves venturing into the great outdoors! 

Glacier National Park

We started at the Many Glacier east entrance of Glacier National Park, at the iconic Many Glacier Hotel.  A historical landmark dating back to 1915, it sits on the shores of Swift Current Lake across from majestic Grinnell Point, a mountain peek which is part of the Lewis Mountain Range.  We spent the day hiking from the hotel to Grinnell Glacier and looking for wildlife along the way.     

Big Horned Sheep

Grinnell Point

View at Grinnell Glacier Hike

The next day we traveled the, “Going to the Sun Road.”  The main attraction at Glacier, this 50 mile road is the only way to traverse the park. Its highest point at Logan pass is also the Continental Divide. (A must stop for a divide photo!)  The vistas from the Sun Road are too numerous to count.  You can spend all day in and out of the car taking photos of the waterfalls, lakes and mountains.  You can also stop for hikes along the way. For longer stays, McDonald Lake and St Mary Lake, (both along the Sun Road) offer a variety of lodging and numerous lake activities.  Our day ended with an overnight stay in Kalispell Montana, a good launch point for the 6 hour drive to Yellowstone the next day. 

Yellowstone National Park

We arrived at the furthest northwest attraction of Yellowstone National Park around 3pm.  This gave us enough time to visit Mammoth Hot Springs near Ft. Yellowstone.  Mammoth sits on a hill of multi-colored travertine. It was formed over thousands of years as the hot spring water cooled and deposited calcium carbonate sediment. Though it’s location is outside the Yellowstone caldera of underground volcanic activity, you’ll walk among some terrific geothermal springs.

Travertine Rock in Yellowstone

As we exited Mammoth Springs, I spied a herd of Elk hanging out in front of old Ft. Yellowstone.  Here is their fearless leader!  I know this picture barely looks real, but he put on quite a show for us.

Elk buck at Mammoth Springs

We spent four days in Yellowstone, which gave us plenty of time to visit the main attractions. You’ll find Old Faithful and other geothermal attractions like fumaroles, mud pots, steam vents and geysers on the west side of the park. Make sure you stay long enough to see Old Faithful blow! While you wait the 90 plus minutes, the Old Faithful Inn is a great place for lunch.  We had the buffet and our party of six all enjoyed it. 

Old Faithful

Hot Spring

Puff N Stuff Geyser

Two other must see areas of Yellowstone are LeMar Valley and the Grand Canyon.  Yes, there is a “Grand Canyon” in Yellowstone and you won’t want to miss it!  Lamar Valley provides the opportunity to see herds of bison and other grazing animals.  Right now Yellowstone has 2,500 bison and we may have seen two or three hundred. We also watched prong horned deer and a few eagles.  The Grand Canyon is absolutely stunning. Get there early when the sun is in the east for the best photos. There are two different ways to see the Canyon, and both take you down roads where you can stop at vista points and walk the canyon rim. 

Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

Bison along the road

Bison in Lamar Valley

Grand Teton National Park

It was difficult to leave Yellowstone but we felt fortunate to enjoy good weather for most of our stay.  We were also glad Grand Teton National Park is so very close to Yellowstone.  Drive about 10 miles south and you’ve arrived!  Take the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway to view the 40 miles of Grand Teton Mountains.  Being so close to Yellowstone it’s easy to assume these parks would look the same but they do not.  The towering mountainous rock of Grand Teton seem to rise from nowhere.  The big daddy of them all, Grand Teton, is the tallest in the range.  

Grand Teton Mountains

We spent the first day taking in the mountain vistas as we traveled the parkway.  Later we hiked  to Inspiration Point behind Lake Jenny, a beautiful deep lake bordering Grand Teton mountains.  The lake wasn’t the only attraction!  We watched a moose cool off in a  mountain pond, and a young brown bear munching leaves off our path.

Moose cooling off

Bear munching leaves

Hiking around Lake Jenny

Jackson Hole Wyoming is about twelve miles from Grand Teton National Park. Our last day was spent in Jackson Hole at the ski resort riding the gondola to the top of the mountain.  This seemed the perfect way to “cap off” our venture into the great outdoors.   One we will not soon forget!

View from the gondola in Jackson Hole

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