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Ten favorite family activities in Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone has been my backyard for about 20 years and it's pretty much the
best backyard you could ever find so there's a lot to do and it's a really
big park but we're going to show you some of the highlights for a
family-friendly visit to Yellowstone and we can't cover it all and you shouldn't
try this all in one day these are some of the spots you're not gonna want to
miss.
Norris Geyser Basin is my favorite geyser basin in the park and that's for
a couple reasons. For one there's a little more walking here than some of
the other boardwalk areas. you can get out and move around lots of hot springs
and geysers to see and it's pretty diverse and also you usually get less
fewer crowds here fewer people and not maybe today it's kind of busy but it's
just it's a great place to be so we try to stop here whenever we're in this
section of the park and just bask in the sweet smell of sulfur
so we usually try to bring our lunches when we come to Yellowstone because you
can wait a long time at the grills and restaurants and it's kind of expensive
but they do do a good job of trying to get local food and everything but
they're also because the picnic area is throughout the park are really pretty
and it's a great opportunity to get outside of your car one more time.
the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is one of my favorite places in the park there
are a lot of little spur trails to get a good view of the canyon and of the Upper
and Lower Falls and they're all worth seeing but there are too many to see all
of them probably so we usually pick one or two depending on how we're feeling
I'm here on the North Rim which is a sidewalk we are on right now great views
of the geothermally Altered canyon it's orange it's soft it's sort of yellow
looking but it is not as I overheard someone telling their child why this
park is called Yellowstone just happens to be that color so we're going to walk
around a little bit up here and then check out the South Rim for artist point
artists point is a great place to take a family picture
and a great hike over there is Uncle Tom's trail which takes you down 300
steps stairs to an incredible waterfall view.
all of the major developed areas in
the park have visitor centers and each one is different has a different theme
so you can stop at as many as you can fit in to learn about different aspects
of the park I think this one here at Canyon is a geology themed visitor
center also a great place for kids to get hands-on interactive exhibits
especially the ones that Old Faithful and a couple of the other one and you
can pick up there Junior Ranger packets here and when they're done with them
they can turn it in and become Junior Rangers at any of the visitor centers
Yellowstone Lake is one of my favorite places in Yellowstone and this is the
largest alpine lake in the United States if not larger area and by Alpine just mean
above 7,000 feet. there's a lot of great ways to explore the lake it's super
super cold so swimming is probably not one of them but you can take a boat out
one of my favorite hikes and I always take people from out of town on is storm
point and it goes out to the lake and a little beach is really pretty. we are
hanging out right now having some second lunch on the beach behind the Fishing
Bridge visitor center which is just a great big sandy beach that the kids love
and of course there's the Lake Hotel which is on the lake you can stop by and
have a cocktail or a cup of tea or spend the night so come see the lake
west thumb geyser basin is one of my favorite basins in the park and it's
right on the edge of Yellowstone Lake which is really beautiful this is a
great place to come with kids because it's easy board walk around and you see
some really cool things here like the fishing cone geyser where they say I
don't know if it's true or not but that you that in olden times that people
would cast a line into the lake catch a fish and then cook it on the line in the
fishing cone geyser
Old Faithful geyser basin is probably not my favorite place in the park but it
is pretty cool and its iconic and if you haven't been here before you should come
see it and the geyser itself is cool is just really crowded most of the time
there's bleachers and everything but we're here we're going to check it out
we're going to appreciate it for the role it played in making this a national
park
Emily you
a bear skiing on a lamp that's adorable. my favorite time to visit Yellowstone is
in the winter when we can cross-country ski and play in the snow
we have come a couple times down here to the snow lodge which is where we are
right now and it's an amazing magical experience
we've also skied up at Canyon with the Yellowstone Expeditions Yurt Camp and
then at Mammoth Hot Springs because we can just drive there from our house so
that's the time to come. one of our favorite things to do is take a soak in
the boiling River it's about a half a mile walk down a flat path to where the
hot spring comes out of the ground and mixes with the cold Gardner River if you
find the right place the temperature is perfect
you