Advice on Yellowstone Itinerary Please

Reading this forum has been so helpful in planning our trip this summer, people are so generous with their time and knowledge. We are a family of 3. Our son will be 13 when we travel in mid August. While in Gardiner we plan to do a paddle and saddle, and see the northern part of the park. We want to do short day hikes, and see wild life. We may spend a day doing Virginia/ Nevada City. We are interested in history, nature, and mild adventure.

Here is our current plan. Any comments, or adjustments you would make? I thought about flipping it, but it seems better to have an easy day physically in Cody than Gardiner on arrival.

Day 1 Fly into Billings, (arrive 10:30 am but will have been traveling for 9 hrs) Pick up rental car drive to Cody. Stay 2 nights to rest and adjust to altitude.

Day 3 Overnight Old Faithful

Day 4,5,6 Overnight Gardiner

Day 7 Leave Yellowstone via NE entrance, via Cooke City, maybe Red Lodge, Medicine Wheel to Little Bighorn. (Routing will depend on the motion sickness and time willing to spend in Car at that point)

(We have 2 nights in Hardin during the Crow Pow Wow and then will go to Glacier, returning to fly home from Billings 2 weeks total for trip)

Thanks in advance for any advice,

Colleen

Advice on Yellowstone Itinerary Please

Sounds like a great trip. I don%26#39;t know if you really will have time to drive to Virginia/Nevada City. Plus you do have a lot of driving on the trip... staying in one place will be nice. There are plenty of places to hike in YS.

Check out some of MT State Parks. Many interesting historic sites http://fwp.mt.gov/parks/default.html

Day 1 Billings to Cody.

Day 2 Cody day. See the museums www.bbhc.org and the rodeo.

Day 3 Drive to Old Faithful. See the Lake area, West Thumb Geyser Basin on the way to OF. Then spend the rest of the day visiting the Geyser Basins.

Day 4 Drive to Norris area, then over to Canyon to see the falls. Head to Tower and then to Gardiner.

Day 5 Gardiner day.. Paddle/Saddle

Day 6 Gardiner area. Hiking in YS around Mammoth area.

Day 7 Gardiner to Hardin.

Day 8 Hardin

Day 9 Drive to Glacier - 7 hour drive. Maybe stop along the way in Great Falls.

Day 10 Glacier

Day 11 Glacier

Day 12 Glacier

Day 13 Drive to Billings

Day 14 Return home.

Advice on Yellowstone Itinerary Please

your yellowstone plan sounds great %26amp; very much like what we do every summer. if you can spend a day down in teton national park %26amp; also visit jackson it would be great. it%26#39;d be a shame to be that close %26amp; not see both.

you are going to love glacier np. do you have your accomadations set there? i highly recommend many glacier hotel if you want to stay inside the park. to me that%26#39;s the most beautiful area %26amp; right among the best hiking in the country.

if you%26#39;ve never been, you%26#39;re going to love going to the sun road.

a few hikes i would suggest are hidden lake overlook, iceberg lake, grinnel lake or for a longer hike grinnel glacier, highline trail (lot of options on length here), two medicine lake, avalanche lake, trail of the cedars (very short), %26amp; there are many others.

Thanks for the suggestions. The routing through Yellowstone looks good. I will check out the Mt state parks site. One I%26#39;ve seen is Bannock Stae park that looked nice, but I think that was even further off our path.

I think we want to do the Fairy Falls hike, and some walks in the canyon area. From Gardiner maybe the Beaver Ponds hike. I know my son would be thrilled to see Beavers or Otters. (He will also like the marmots) I like to have a lot of possibilities of things to do but no firm plans, so we can decide based on weather, energy levels and desires.

In Glacier we are going to say in Whitefish at the KOA on the west side, relaxation days, maybe Flathead Lake, more rafting or kayaking, Apgar area, and up to Logan Pass, short hikes. Then we are going to stay at Swiftcurrent Motor Lodge in the park. From there I hope to do the Grinell Glacier hike. (It is a little long for us but from what I%26#39;ve read I think we can handle it and we will have a better feel for it by the end of our trip) Thank you for the hiking suggestions

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