You have 3 nights In Yellowstone

[Slooby]

I just got back last week. It was my first trip. We stayed at Mammoth and explored Lamar and Hayden Valley. We got a chance to photograph the Grizzly feasting on the ELk in the Yellowstone River. Yes it was crowded but it was an opportunity well worth the crowd factor. We also did a day trip into the Grand Tetons and found the mama bear with her four cubs crossing the road. I will definitely be returning.

 

[MartyD]

I just got back last week. It was my first trip. We stayed at Mammoth and explored Lamar and Hayden Valley. We got a chance to photograph the Grizzly feasting on the ELk in the Yellowstone River. Yes it was crowded but it was an opportunity well worth the crowd factor. We also did a day trip into the Grand Tetons and found the mama bear with her four cubs crossing the road. I will definitely be returning.

Excellent! We have been making at least one trip up every summer since 1979 and it never gets old.

 

[Cristobal]

I was there at the end of september 2019 and I was pleasantly surprised not seing crowds; most of wildlife I saw there was near the north entrance (elks along a small river, north of Mammoth Hot springs), along the Madison river to west entrance (elk with its harem,trying to bring at home a recalcitrant female) bisons, along yellowstone river and on my way to Lamar valley (really for me, one of the most beautiful wild landcape) and a grizzly mother not far from the road between Canyon village and Norris; my only fear was bad weather because we had to leave the park by the south entrance and I remembered having a discussion with a park ranger at Grand teton NP telling me that it may be easy to enter but very difficult to exit at this time of the year (we had a plane to take at Denver...).

 

[DRwyoming]

I just got back from 3 nights in Yellowstone. Always a beautiful place to be. I've gone up there a couple of times every spring and autumn and have never seen as many people up there in October. The place feels like full on summer right now. Tons of Bison as usual, some Elk up around Mammoth, a nice herd of Pronghorn in the Lamar and a young Bull Moose in the meadows between Norris and Mammoth. The Wolf watchers were out in the hundreds up in the Lamar, I stopped and chatted with a few and they were pretty excited about wolves that were small dots in their spotting scopes, really cool to see these beautiful predators at all but not much to get excited about from a photography perspective. I did see one Grizzly way out across the Lamar river but too far for even a decent figure on a landscape type shot but still great to see.

It really is an incredible place but for folks going for their first time be prepared to drive..... a lot! And be prepared to do a lot of that driving in traffic, even pulling over to let the folks in a hurry pass on by you still get caught up in little pods of moving traffic that can make it tough to scout and tougher to pull over when you do come into a good area. I was reminded how Yellowstone feels a bit like doing wildlife photography on a morning commute as I was rarely off by myself even though I drive every possible side and dirt road (which also ended up in traffic queues). Perhaps it's just a Covid thing with a lot of folks visiting the parks and some keeping their kids out of school this fall but this is the busiest I've ever seen the park this late in the year.

 

[Chad Huff]

I just got back from 3 nights in Yellowstone. Always a beautiful place to be. I've gone up there a couple of times every spring and autumn and have never seen as many people up there in October. The place feels like full on summer right now. Tons of Bison as usual, some Elk up around Mammoth, a nice herd of Pronghorn in the Lamar and a young Bull Moose in the meadows between Norris and Mammoth. The Wolf watchers were out in the hundreds up in the Lamar, I stopped and chatted with a few and they were pretty excited about wolves that were small dots in their spotting scopes, really cool to see these beautiful predators at all but not much to get excited about from a photography perspective. I did see one Grizzly way out across the Lamar river but too far for even a decent figure on a landscape type shot but still great to see.

It really is an incredible place but for folks going for their first time be prepared to drive..... a lot! And be prepared to do a lot of that driving in traffic, even pulling over to let the folks in a hurry pass on by you still get caught up in little pods of moving traffic that can make it tough to scout and tougher to pull over when you do come into a good area. I was reminded how Yellowstone feels a bit like doing wildlife photography on a morning commute as I was rarely off by myself even though I drive every possible side and dirt road (which also ended up in traffic queues). Perhaps it's just a Covid thing with a lot of folks visiting the parks and some keeping their kids out of school this fall but this is the busiest I've ever seen the park this late in the year.

Agreed, be prepared to DRIVE. And, it was busy. Not middle of summer busy (though I haven't gone through there in summer in about 7-8 years), but a lot more people than normal. We had a great trip and saw a lot. For whatever reason I had pretty good luck with Black Bears and Elk, but another friend kept seeing bull moose (I just saw cows and one small bull).