63 Best Sights in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

This one-way, 3-mile-long road takes you past Great Fountain Geyser, which shoots out jets of water reaching as high as 200 feet about twice a day. Rangers' predictions provide a two-hour window of opportunity. Should you witness an eruption, you'll see waves of water cascading down the terraces that form the geyser's edges.

This scenic picnic area overlooks the roaring Firehole River, a place where you might see elk grazing along the river's banks. There's a pit toilet.

If you can't distinguish between a Clark's nuthatch and an ermine (one's a bird, the other a weasel), check out the exhibits about the park's smaller wildlife at this distinctive stone-and-log building, built in 1931. Step out the back door to find yourself on one of the beautiful black obsidian beaches of Yellowstone Lake. Adjacent is one of the park's larger amphitheaters. Ranger presentations take place here nightly in summer.

Take the ½-mile loop boardwalk to see the fumaroles (steam vents), blue pools, pink mudpots, and mini-geysers in this thermal area. The trail is popular, and sometimes a bit overcrowded, in summer and winter because it's so accessible. Easy.

Along the easy 1.3-mile Geyser Hill Loop boardwalk, accessed from the Old Faithful Boardwalk, you'll see active thermal features such as violent Giantess Geyser. Erupting only a few times each year (but sometimes going quiet for several years), Giantess spouts from 100 to 250 feet in the air for five to eight minutes once or twice hourly for a few to as long as 48 hours. Nearby Doublet Pool's two adjacent springs have complex ledges and deep blue waters that are highly photogenic. Starting as a gentle pool, Anemone Geyser overflows, bubbles, and finally erupts 10 feet or more, every three to eight minutes. The loop boardwalk brings you close to the action, making it especially fun for kids.

The water of this 84-foot fall on the Gibbon River rushes over the caldera rim. Driving east from Madison to Norris, you can see it on your right, but the angle is even better from the paved trail adjacent to the canyon's edge.

You may see elk or buffalo along the Gibbon River from one of the several tables at this picturesque spot, which has a wheelchair-accessible pit toilet.

Exhibits at each visitor center describe a small piece of Yellowstone's history—the ones here provide details about the 1988 fire that burned more than a third of the park's total acreage and forced multiple federal agencies to reevaluate their fire-control policies. Watch an informative video, and learn about the 25,000 firefighters from across the United States who battled the blaze. Bathrooms and a backcountry office are here.

Children ages 4 to 12 are eligible to earn patches and become Junior Rangers. Pick up a booklet at any visitor center for $3 and start the entertaining self-guided curriculum, or download it for free online. Kids five and older can also participate in the Young Scientist Program. Purchase a self-guiding booklet for $5 at the Canyon or Old Faithful visitor centers and solve a science mystery.

Completed in 1891 and meticulously restored in recent years, the oldest lodging in Yellowstone National Park is a splendid wedding cake of a building with a gorgeous setting on the water. Casual daytime visitors can lounge in white wicker chairs in the sunroom and watch the waters of Yellowstone Lake through massive windows. Robert Reamer, the architect of the Old Faithful Inn, added a columned entrance in 1903 to enhance the original facade of the hotel.

Witness one of nature's epic battles as cutthroat trout migrate upstream by catapulting themselves out of the water to get over and around obstacles in the Yellowstone River. The ¼-mile forested loop takes you to the river's edge. Look for waterfowl and bears, which feed on the trout.

Midway on the North Rim Trail—also accessible via the one-way North Rim Drive—Lookout Point provides a view of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Follow the right-hand fork in the path to descend a steep trail, with an approximately 500-foot elevation change, for an eye-to-eye view of the falls from a ½ mile downstream. The best time to hike the trail is early morning, when sunlight reflects off the mist from the falls to create a rainbow.

With its mighty blasts of water shooting as high as 200 feet, the Great Fountain Geyser is this basin's superstar. When it spews, waves cascade down the terraces that form its edge. Check at the Old Faithful Visitor Center for predicted eruption times. Less impressive but more regular is White Dome Geyser, which shoots from a 20-foot-tall cone. You'll also find pink mudpots and blue pools at the basin's Fountain Paint Pots, a unique spot because visitors encounter all four of Yellowstone's hydrothermal features: fumaroles, mudpots, hot springs, and geysers.

In this stone-and-timber National Historic Landmark, park rangers share the space with a store that sells books, maps, and learning aids. You might find spotting scopes set up for wildlife viewing out the rear window; if this is the case, look for eagles, swans, bison, and elk. Rangers will answer questions about the park, provide basic hiking information, and issue permits for backcountry camping and fishing. Rangers also staff the Junior Ranger Station for kids here. Picnic tables, toilets, and an amphitheater for summer-evening ranger programs are shared with the nearby campground.

Called "Hell's Half Acre" by writer Rudyard Kipling, Midway Geyser Basin contains the breathtaking Grand Prismatic Spring and is an even more interesting stop than Lower Geyser Basin. Boardwalks wind their way to the Excelsior Geyser, which deposits 4,000 gallons of vivid blue water per minute into the Firehole River.

Shaped somewhat like a morning glory, this pool once was a deep blue, but the color is no longer as striking as before due to tourists dropping coins and other debris into the hole. To reach the pool, follow the boardwalk past Geyser Hill Loop and stately Castle Geyser, which has the biggest cone in Yellowstone. Morning Glory is the inspiration for popular children's author Jan Brett's story Hedgie Blasts Off, in which a hedgehog travels to another planet to unclog a geyser damaged by space tourists' debris.

This 0.6-mile loop hike in Hayden Valley curves gently around seething, sulfuric mudpots with such names as Sizzling Basin and Black Dragon's Cauldron, and around Mud Volcano itself. Easy.

This historic ranger station housed soldiers from 1908 to 1918. The six-room log building is now an engaging museum where you can watch a movie telling the history of the National Park Service and visit with the retired rangers who volunteer here. Other exhibits relate to Army service in Yellowstone and early park rangers.

From the west end of Biscuit Basin boardwalk, this 2.4-mile round-trip trail climbs gently for a mile through heavily burned forest to the lava-rock base of 70-foot Mystic Falls. It then switchbacks up Madison Plateau to a lookout with the park's least-crowded view of Old Faithful and the Upper Geyser Basin. Easy–Moderate.

From the 1930 Norris Ranger Station, which houses a small museum that helps to explain the basin's geothermal activity, you can stroll a network of short boardwalk trails—some of them suitable for wheelchairs—to Porcelain Basin, Back Basin, and several geysers and other interesting and constantly evolving thermal features.

Offering great views of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, the 3-mile (each way) North Rim Trail runs from Inspiration Point to Chittenden Bridge. Particularly fetching is the ½-mile section of the North Rim Trail from the Brink of the Upper Falls parking area to Chittenden Bridge that hugs the rushing Yellowstone River as it approaches the canyon. This trail is paved and fully accessible between Lookout Point and Grand View, and it can be accessed at numerous points along North Rim Drive. Moderate.

Commonly called Dunraven Pass, this 19-mile segment of Grand Loop Road climbs to nearly 9,000 feet as it passes some of the park's finest scenery, including views of backcountry hot springs and abundant wildflowers. Near Tower Falls, the road twists beneath a series of leaning basalt columns from 40 to 50 feet high. That behemoth to the east is 10,243-foot Mt. Washburn.

Starting at Slough Creek Campground, this trail climbs steeply along a historic wagon trail for 1½ miles before reaching expansive meadows and prime fishing spots, where moose are common and grizzlies occasionally wander. Allow two or three hours for the full 3.4-mile round-trip hike. Moderate.

The sheer black lava walls and boulder-strewn landscape of the deep Lewis River canyon make this somewhat underrated drive toward Grand Teton National Park highly memorable. Turn into the parking area at the highway bridge for a close-up view of the spectacular Lewis River Falls, one of the park's most photographed sights. There are several pull-outs along the shore of Lewis Lake that are ideal for a picnic or just to stretch your legs.

Well marked and mostly flat, this 2.3-mile loop leaves the south side of the road for a perfect beginner's hike out to Yellowstone Lake, particularly with a setting sun. The trail rounds the western edge of Indian Pond, then passes moose habitat on its way to Yellowstone Lake's Storm Point, named for its frequent afternoon windstorms and crashing waves. Heading west along the shore, you're likely to hear the shrill chirping of yellow-bellied marmots. Also look for ducks, pelicans, trumpeter swans, and bison. You'll pass several small beaches that kids enjoy exploring. Easy.

This is one of the easiest waterfalls to see from the roadside; you can also view volcanic pinnacles here. Tower Creek plunges 132 feet at this waterfall to join the Yellowstone River. While a trail that used to go to the base of the falls has washed out, it will take trekkers down to the river.