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.

 

 

Yellowstone National Park - May 2025

 

Yellowstone is full of Rivers, Lakes and Waterfalls ...

... Mountains and Valleys ...

...and Thermal Activity.  This my 8th or 9th visit to Yellowstone, Marcia's 4th or 5th.  One can take pictures of the scenery.  Once you have seen Old Faithful shoot off a dozen times, you don't have as much enthusiasm to sit around and wait for it to go off again.  We both agree that the one thing that you can't get enough of is the wild animals.  So over the course of three different trips in the park this visit, we tried to get pictures of different animals.  Below is a pictorial of our visit.

 

BEAR

All the bears we saw were in the general area of where the turnoff to the Lamar Valley was.  Each time there were Park Rangers, once three of them, keeping the traffic moving, and keeping people inside their cars.  Rules are, you must be 100 yards away (or more) from the bears.  Looked like one of them was a Grizzly Bear (4th picture).

 

DEER

This is the only picture we got of any Deer, and I think there are four in the picture.  This was taken on the road to Lamar Valley, about 1-2 miles in from the Loop Road.  (If you have never been to Yellowstone, there are two loops which touch, forming a rough looking number "8", with five other roads connecting into the loops, two on the top loop of the "8" and three on the bottom loop of the "8".)  We "might" have seen deer three or four other times on our whole trip from Florida...what's up with that???

 

ELK  

The Elk we saw was in the Madison River Area.  You need to look close at the first Elk picture, there are three Elk in that picture, two are down in a small stream and you can barely make them out.  We did not see the herd of Elk that are typically found Mammoth Hot Springs area, but we did not go north of the Visitor Center, and they could have been up there.

 

PRONGHORN 

In the bottom picture there is a mother, and two newborns...but the mother is hovering over one of the newborns and you can't see it very well.  The other newborn is attempting to stand.  These Pronghorns were at the start of the Lamar Valley.

 

SANDHILL CRANE

I did not know that there are Sandhill Cranes in Yellowstone.  Our first sighting had the Cranes way out in the meadow...I did not get any good pictures...but later in the same area we found a few much closer.  The Cranes were the Norris area.

 

BUFFALO

  

 

Buffalo can be seen all over the park.  In May most of them are still in the "Herd" that is in Lamar Valley.  But you can also find them along the road, or out in groups of 2-5 Buffalo out in a meadow.  We saw some near Old Faithful, near Madison, near Mammoth ... but most of them were still in the Lamar Valley.  Give them another month or two and they will be clogging up the roadways, bringing traffic to a standstill.  They are a magnificent beast.

I have now been to Yellowstone in May, June, July, August and September.  Each month brings a new view of Yellowstone...as I am sure the views during the other months do too.  

We moved from West Yellowstone to the Bill Frome Memorial RV Park along the western side of Henrys Lake....$15 per night with no utilities.  It was a very peaceful place.  Today we moved to a park we found in 2020, the Juniper Campground near Idaho Falls.  We will be here through Sunday, then back to Salt Lake City, then head back to Sacramento.