Yellowstone National Park dazzles with scenery and photo opportunities

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — It’s easy to find excitement in the world’s first national park. Just look for the lines of cars and vans, the forests of tripods, spotting scopes and cameras with long lenses.

Somewhere in the direction those scopes and lenses are pointing is a natural wonder: a powerful grizzly bear, a prowling wolf, a massive bison. Don’t be afraid to ask for help; those people behind the glass seem to be as cooperative as a pack of wolves working together to put an elk on the menu.

‘Stop right there’

The woman took charge without being asked. “Stop right there,” she tells a driver. “Your vehicle will stop the traffic.”

She then turns her attention to the crowd of photographers up the road. “Move that way,” she says, pointing uphill. “Make an opening for the bear to pass through.”

Her demeanor makes it clear she is a veteran of these bear jams, or at the very least a woman experienced in controlling a pack of Cub Scouts. Whatever her background, it works.

The grizzly ambles up the hill, through the break in the crowd, and resumes grazing on the other side of the pavement.

The shutters start clicking again, arms are raised in jubilation, and another host of Yellowstone stories, another group in awe of nature, is now ready to pass on that passion for the wild to kids and grandkids, uncles and aunts, or anyone else willing to listen.

Our National Park Service is very aware of the intense interest in visiting and photographing Yellowstone and its wildlife. There is a Guided Tours link on the Yellowstone website — nps.gov/yell — and there are 12 categories of interest, everything from avalanche safety courses to snowmobiling and snowcoach travel. A list of authorized tour guides is found at Plan Your Trip/Things to Do/Guided Tours/Authorized Companies on the park’s website.

The painting, filming and photography category lists over 70 phone numbers for entities authorized to provide tours of the park. Sure, you may not need or want professional guidance interpreting your park experience, but after driving the 1,014 miles from Albuquerque to Yellowstone’s Fishing Bridge RV Park, perhaps you would appreciate a break from the steering wheel. My family’s adventure total for a three-week June vacation was more than 3,600 miles, so, yes, I really appreciated the five-and-half hour Picture Perfect Photo Safari I was given for Father’s Day. The Safari is offered by Xanterra, the vendor that operates Yellowstone campgrounds, lodges, stores and other venues.

The safari began at 5:45 a.m. at the Lake Hotel, a mile or so south of Fishing Bridge.

Construction on the hotel began in 1889, and today there are 153 guest rooms and 110 adjacent cabins. In keeping with the historic nature of the world’s first national park, our photography tour is using a bright yellow 1930s bus with three seats capable of holding nine passengers comfortably. The front seat is occupied by a couple with a 10-year-old son, and each of the last two seats has only one occupant.

Our driver introduces herself as Maria, and she loves capturing the morning light breaking through the steam of fumaroles and geysers. This is her 11th season working at Yellowstone, which should give you the idea she likes the place immensely.

After a brief introduction, off we go, hoping to catch that fleeting morning light. Maria points the bus east toward Sylvan Lake. As we near Pelican Valley Trailhead, she slows down to look at a cow elk in the timber, and another guide stops his vehicle to caution her that his group just witnessed a boar grizzly grab an elk calf and disappear into the shadows to devour it.

It’s one of those situations that could end badly if a hiker stumbles upon the feasting bear, so Maria notifies the Park Service and the trail is temporarily closed.

Bear safety is a critical mission for the park service and vendors. There are notices on picnic tables, billboards and bear spray may be purchased or even rented at many locations throughout the park. Everyone is advised to carry bear spray. Read enough books about Yellowstone and one will find that in the past park rangers fed bears so visitors could see them, but those days are gone. Still, bears appear along park roads from north to south.

Don’t feed the wildlife

One of the advantages of riding with a guide versus driving yourself around the park is that the guides know where to look for the animals, and their experience pays off for passengers. Maria has stories about grizzly bears that catch guides and photographers off guard at high-altitude stopping points, and beyond her familiarity with the terrain her eyes are attuned to catching glimpses of animals that creep through the forests.

At one stop, she tells us to watch for the marmots begging for snacks. “You should not feed the animals,” she says. “They should not eat our food; that keeps them from watching for the predators that are nearby.”

By the time we reach Sylvan Lake, it’s time for a muffin and a bottle of juice, which we enjoy in the crisp mountain air. By this time, we have seen maybe four grizzly bears and a large cinnamon-colored black bear. As Maria explains, June is when the bears are romantically inclined. Cubs are on their own now, so sow bears are free to start over again.

Back on the road, there is a discussion about the rule of thirds, a well-practiced photographic composition guideline, and then Maria pulls out a laminated sheet that provides the group details about the park’s wolves. The Hayden Valley is our next destination. It is home to the Wapiti Lake wolf pack, which is fairly large with 14 adults and 11 pups according to the 2024 Yellowstone Wolf, Cougar, and Elk report.

The struggle to bring wolves back to the park is dutifully described in “The Return of the Wolf to Yellowstone” by Thomas McNamee and published in 1998. For years, the National Park Service faced legislative, congressional and biological battles before the first wolves captured in Canada were released in the park.

There were hearings, public meetings, lawsuits, threats of violence and accusations that the “environmentalism” driving the restoration of wolves, McNamee writes, is a new religion, a government-sponsored mix of “new age mysticism, Native American folklore and primitive earth worship.”

Once our vehicle negotiates a herd of park bison, we arrive in the Hayden Valley, where members of the Wapiti Lake pack are regularly being observed. Business names and numbers are on the vans, and expensive spotting scopes are focused on places where the guides anticipate seeing pack members. The business of wildlife watching doesn’t appear religious to this observer, but it certainly does attract tourists from around the world.

Maria explains that the crowds are here to see the animals — the bison, the wolves and the grizzlies — the animals the government once tried to eradicate.

Biologists monitoring these animals are impressed by this pack’s ability to share leadership roles — three different adult males showing dominance at different times during the year. Our group of merry photographers, however, passes through the valley without spotting a wolf, a disappointment for our group, and especially our youngest passenger.

Wolf restoration in Yellowstone began in 1995 and lasted until 1997. During that time, 41 wild wolves from Canada were released in the park, and Jan. 12, 2025, marked the 30th anniversary of the restoration effort’s start.

Worth the money?

Wildlife restoration is not new to this park. Between 1910 and 1966, 957 elk were released in New Mexico alone, a successful effort that included 660 elk from Yellowstone. The park also had to rebuild its own herd of bison after poachers gunned them down relentlessly even after the park was established. Lamar Buffalo Ranch, where the bison were produced, is still a prominent landmark in the Lamar Valley, a reminder that the late 1800s were bleak days for wildlife.

Back on the road, Maria points out a place where great blue herons nest, and we drive through the bison again. Close to the Lake Hotel, Maria sees cars pulled off the pavement, and she says maybe they are looking at a grizzly, but no, it’s a herd of elk.

Was the tour worth the roughly $140 it cost? Absolutely. It’s nice to concentrate on looking for wildlife and not constantly glancing at mirrors and pavement for other vehicles.

Maria knew the pullouts along the tour route, and my DIY trips often resulted in me walking from the parking spot to where I could see the chosen subjects.

Driving myself, however, did result in better pictures, although that was mainly luck. I bet I drove through the Hayden Valley 10 or 12 times — early morning, midday and evening — and saw wolves only twice. I was by myself the morning when the grizzly crossed the road as described earlier, and I just as easily could have been on a bus for that sighting.

Take a hike

Of course, there is a third way to see wildlife in the park. This spring, former Journal reporter Pat Gabbett Snow and Stephen Forest took to the shoe-leather express and hiked a trail. They struck gold along the way, and saw a wolf pack that included several pups.

“The experience is unforgettable,” she says. “It was absolutely magical to see them in the wild.” They also had a grizzly sighting, but from the road.

The trail they used is found in “Hiking Yellowstone National Park,” by Bill Schneider. Snow said Forest also used the NPS website — nps.gov — for updates.

Yellowstone National Park dazzles with scenery and photo opportunities