Hi everyone!

At the of June, my wife & I are going to spend 6 nights in GT (Jackson Lake Lodge) and 6 nights in Yellowstone (3 Canyon & 3 in Mammoth). Also 1 night in Jackson near the airport for the return trip.

Our loves are to take day hikes and enjoy the evening's relaxing. Love seeing wildlife anytime we can get it.

Our current itenerary in GT include identified "best" day hikes each day, Horse Ride / Breakfast combo from the lodge, & Snake River float.

Our current itenerary in Yellowstone includes spending the day at in the Old Faithful area on our way to the Canyon and again, several identified "best" day hikes.

Anything obvious things we're missing as far as activities? We've done so much reading and researching and realize we'll never see or do it all. Just need to absorb as much as we can.

We're both in decent shape and enjoy being "on the go" all day. Accomodation requirements include only a decent place to sleep. We aren't after too many "frills" as we spend as little time as possible in any hotel.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks!

The park service does fabulous tours for reasonable prices. In Yellowstone take the 2 loop tours, both all day bus tours with experienced guides. The lower loop we took from Old Faithful, the upper loop we took from the Lake Hotel, We paid $40-50 . There are multiple pick uplocations for each trip. Well worth the $. Check the website for Yellowstone or call the lodging company. You can get half day tours of GT from the lodge that are nice
Drive into Jackson, take the whitewater rafting trip through a private company down the Snake. Its so much fun, we used Barker Ewing.
The float trip is also very enjoyable
In both parks look for wildlife, it is so thrilling. You will see cars stopped along the road, get out to see what they spotted. At Jakcson lake lodge spend time on the verandas looking for moose and elk. The Mural room has great views for dinner
I love this vacation

You have to go to Boiling River (not in most guidebooks) but a legal and legitimate area in Yellowstone where hot spring and Garner River merge in an area where you can sit in a natural jacuzzi - put Boiling River in search title here and you will get more detailed description and directions. It is near northern end/Gardiner.

We actually enjoyed a weeknight rodeo in West Yellowstone - thought it would be a hokey touristy thing, but we appeared to be only tourists there - everyone else knew each other. Who knew there were still events in US where you paid a couple of dollars to get in and everyone but us seemed to bring in a pack of cheap beer.

Several mild white water rafting companies out of Gardiner as well.

In the Tetons might want to be at Mormon Row at sunrise to see the old barns lit by first light with mts in the background. Schwabacher Landing is another good sunrise spot. Can get the peaks reflected in still pools. Also good moose area. The Snake River overlook is photo made famous by Ansel Adams-grown up now. Oxbow Bend anytime but especially good at sunrise or set. Area between it & Teton Jct is good area for moose. There is a dirt road to the left about half mile past Oxbow turnoff which leads back to river. Have seen moose and otter and bald eagles back in there. Is also put in for float trips around the Oxbow. There are usually a couple of swans on Christian Pond near Jackson Lake Lodge. Some nice day hikes are String Lake, Cascade Canyon, Swan Lake and Hidden Falls.
In Yellowstone look out on the hoodoos above the river in Canyon area. A number of them have osprey nests on them. Usually a couple of swans on the Madison River where the road crosses the river midway between Madison Campground & W. Yellowstone. Spend the day in the upper geyser basin. Be sure to carry water and sun protection. Hayden Valley has beautiful landscapes usually with bison herds. Lamar Valley between Mammoth & Cooke City is where most of the wolves will be found. Will probably see cars pulled over on roadside. Will have to climb the moraine to get a vantage point & will need binoculars. Best time to spot them is near dawn or dusk. In Gardiner go to Helen's and get a buffalo burger. Between that entrance & 51st Parallel is good spot to look for bighorn sheep on the cliffs to the left. Pronghorn often seen in flats on the right closer to Mammoth campground.

second the oxbow bend at sunset with tetons in backround, probably one of the best spots in the universe...

then head to The Hatchet in Hatchet for a steak and a beer....

I have two favorite geysers to watch erupt: Castle and Grand.
Both are predictable within fairly wide time windows. Both are worth the wait.

If the window encompasses meal time, take your lunch or a picnic supper and wait.

I agree with Bob. Spending more time seeing geysers is a real highlight. Each one is unique and very worth waiting for. Love Castle and Grand! Riverside is great too!

Be extremely careful if going into the rivers. They don't call it the Boiling River for nothing. People do die there.

Take a tour of the Old Faithful Inn.

If you love to day hike ask one of the rangers in Yellowstone to tell you how to hike from the parking lot at Uncle Tom's (where you go down the stairs to see the bottom of the falls) along the canyon rim to Artist Point. Then instead of backtracking, circle around past a couple of "dead" lakes, through a fumerol area, then an Alpine meadow back to the original parking lot. You won't see many people. (We did it in early August and saw maybe a dozen others and that was all along the rim trail.)

Also, we were always up before dawn in order to see more animals and fewer people. One morning we were at Norris Basin just as the sun came up. Absolutely no one else there. You look down on Norris Basin and the cool air combined with the hot water made it almost invisible from the top. But you could hear the geysers and it was amazing, and a bit eerie. Then as you go on down and along the boardwalk, you can begin to see more, but the only thing we heard was the "Park". No talking, no laughing. It gave us a bit of the sense of what it was like for the earliest people who knew about Yellowstone. Norris can also have some beautiful sunsets. And we like to sit and wait for Echinas (sp?) Geyser to erupt. It erupts out of a pool which drains almost completely just before the geyser goes off.

Mostly you'll find that if you just get away from the parking lots a bit, you also leave behind most of the people. Holds true for every Park I've visited. Being up early also helps. We watched Old Faithful do its thing early one morning with a dozen or so other people then headed on out into the basin to see the other geysers. By the time we got back to watch OF go off again, there we at least two hundred people there. Probably more. So timing is everything in more ways than one in Yellowstone.

In GT, we really enjoyed the hike from the visitors "center" around the lake to the Falls (can't recall the name at the moment, I want to say Hidden, but I'm not sure) but you can take a boat back, if you don't have the time or energy to hike back.

There are also some neat backroads to drive in GT. Sorry I can't be more specific but all my info on YNP and GTNP are still packed away from the last hurricane that ran us off.

Regardless, you'll love both parks. It never ceases to amaze me what a breath-takingly-beautiful country we live in.

Have a great trip.

Fran

Thanks all for your replies....

Fran - like yourself, the early bird seems to get the worm in the parks for us too. Acadia National & Grand Canyon was the same. We seldom had a line and saw more wildlfe and surrounding areas than most due to the early "up and at 'em" schedules we keep.

Thanks again!