Lamar Valley, 2026

 

If you have never been to Yellowstone, do it!  Yellowstone is one of my top 5 National Parks, up there with Yosemite (my favorite), Zion, Arches, Rocky Mountain and Glacier.  Frankly I have not been to a National Park that I did not like...it is just that some are better than others.  Yellowstone is one of the best.

The red lines in the map above are the major roads of Yellowstone.  It is laid out like a figure 8 loop, with five entrances/exits, and the grand loop covers 142 miles.  To get from Henrys Lake to the West Yellowstone entrance is 20 miles.  From the entrance to grand loop is another 12 miles.  Depending on how you drive the "Loops", it is another 58 to 66 miles.  Lamar Valley is another 8-12 miles depending how deep you go into the valley.  I figured it was nearly 100 miles since we went through Mammoth Hot Springs to get there.  Our trip home was about 90 miles.  Once in the park, maximum speed limit is 45 mph, with many 35 and 25 mph zones.  All of this needs to be taken into consideration, including the 20 minute wait at the entrance to get in due to it being 10 am...so the entire trip was close to 8 hours in length.

So, next will be a few pictures BEFORE we got to Lamar Valley.

 

So these pictures take us from the West Entrance to Madison Campground Area, then up North to Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces area.  As you can see, there are many things to see, many walks to take, many views to cherish.  I have read about people who have taken a full day just to cover the area from Madison to Mammoth.

We turned right to head towards Lamar Valley, passing through the Hot Springs "mini village" where you can find a General Store, one Gas Station, a few Restaurants, and lots of bathrooms, which seemed to be the most popular of all places.

See the Elk bottom center in this picture

 

There is a large herd of Elk that are in the Mammoth Hot Springs region.  A few small groups live in the "mini village" year round.  Sometimes they are in competition with the roads you are driving on!

 

The pictures above is from Mammoth the start of Lamar Valley.  You typically see Pronghorn as you enter the Lamar Valley area...this year we saw much less than we did last year.  This group had just run down the hills to the North, went across the road, and out into the open valley.

So, WHY drive so far to Lamar Valley???  Well, there is ALWAYS the huge herd of Buffalo.  Around 2,500 Buffalo are in the Lamar Valley area.  This time of year, they have typically given birth, and the calves start thriving.  Another thing in the Lamar Valley is the Wolf.  Wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone, specifically Lamar Valley region, back in 1995 when 14 gray wolves were brought down from Canada.  Today there are 80 to 120 wolves, in 8-10 distinct packs.  Although they now roam through the entire park, and outside of the park, Lamar Valley is not only the best place to see them...but the premier place in the World, according to experts, to view active wolf packs.  We did not see any this trip, but saw some of the "Pros", with their fancy huge cameras, concentrating on certain areas of the valley.  In the past I did see a few wolves, but I did not get any good pictures because I don't have a "pro camera".  

At first you see the buffalo far away...but as you go deeper into Lamar Valley, they come closer to the roadway.

 

 

Not too many places you can see a Bison (Buffalo) Calf feeding from its mother...

After staying the valley for nearly 2 hours, we headed back home.  But first, I got this picture to to east where the Northeast entrance is, and where the Beartooth Highway starts.  

 On our way home, we did finally see one bear...  It is hiding in those bushes.

It RAINED much of the trip back to Henrys Lake, very hard in places...hence, no pictures after the bear.  We enjoyed our visit...you always wonder if this is your last visit when you hit your upper 90's like Marcia is getting to.  This trip was taken on Thursday.  Today, Friday, we went over to Old Faithful, a much shorter, easier trip which I will blog about tomorrow.

 

 

At Henry's Lake, Bill Frome County Park

 

Bill Frome County Park is on the west side of Henry's Lake.  Frome park has no thrills...no water, no electricity, but two modern outhouses for $15 per night (was free up until a few years ago).  Generators are ok except between 10 pm and 6 am.  With this boat dock pictured above, the park entertains many boaters, some of whom camp overnight too.   

This is our third or fourth time staying here. It is 30 miles from the entrance at West Yellowstone.  Yellowstone has comping, but you need to make reservations at most of them.  Since we will be visiting Yellowstone 3 or 4 times while being here, the drive will keep our batteries full, although I typically run the generator for 60-90 minutes at nightfall when we dry camp like this.  

So we left Cracker Barrel in Missoula around 8:30 am.  Had a good night sleep, and figured we would be at Henry's Lake around 1:30 pm.  On the way our GPS reboot itself, and in doing so, wiped out my trip.  I quickly found "Henry's Lake" and input it into the GPS and continued.  This route had me turn south on I-15, which we did.  Around 2 while getting gas I realized the GPS had the wrong lake...we needed to go east to highway 20 and back up through Island Park and to Henrys Lake...90 miles away.  I figured we drove 150-180 extra miles...and that was not fun since I had programed myself for a 5 hour drive, 6 after rest stops.  We arrived at the park around 5 pm.

Today we went NOWHERE.  Tomorrow we will go to Yellowstone, and probably Friday and Saturday, maybe Sunday.  We paid for two nights here at Frome, but my guess is we will pay and be here through Monday.  Tuesday we will move further south so that we can be in Salt Lake City on Wednesday for a couple of days.