Yellowstone question ?
 

Hi everybody

My questions are:

Is June a good season to visit the Yellowstone park ?

What is the nearest airport ?

What is the summer holiday period in USA ?

The park seems to be very large, is there places with more interest than the others ?

I'm looking for all advices.

Thanks a lot


Gilles

I have been there twice to shoot video of wildlife and landscapes..went in late may mainly to see baby animals, and then again in late sept..I dont think I would ever go there from mid june to labor day, the weather may be nicer but all those people! if someone sees a coyote or bear or whatever from the road everyone stops and create huge backups..pain in the ass. We have always flown into bozeman, montana and rented a car, then stayed in the town of Gardiner just on the northern border of the park. While I have not seen every area of the park, my favorite area by far is the Lamar Valley, followed by the Hayden Valley area...but its all good.

I second what John says. I've been to Yellowstone many times and try to avoid the summer months. Cheers.

Probably the two airports to consider are Jackson Hole Airport which is right inside Grand Teton National Park and the Bozeman airport.

I've always flown into Bozeman. I have friends that live in Bozeman so I try to get there around lunchtime so we can grab a bite to eat, visit and I can pick up a car and head into the park.

If you are set on June as the month you want to go, the earlier the better.

The stupidity of tourons ( that's tourist morons as we like to call them ) increases greatly the more into Summer you get. I've been there late May which is fantastic but by the beginning of June my patience starts to wear thin as I have to deal with more and more idiots in the park.

I've been going to the park for almost thirty years so I feel I know it pretty well.

The wildlife is less prime the farther into Summer you get. They are shedding their winter coats, growing antlers etc.

Fall, Winter and Spring are the best times to be there. Summer is the worst.

My advice for a June trip is to get up and out EARLY! Most tourons don't get up with the sun. I've had Grand Prismatic Spring, Artists Point etc all to myself in early June just by being there at first light.

The sun climbs in the sky so fast in June that you lose the good light by 9 or so anyway.

So, be out there early.

The second thing is to get off the roads.

If you go 100 yards off the roads onto a trail you vastly reduce the number of tourons you will run into.

If most people can't drive up to it with a latte in their hand then they don't want to see it. So places like Old Faithful, the Lower Falls etc will be packed after first light. That's where all the tourist buses and everyone else goes.

Take a hk e to Specimen Ridge and you will see very few people. The ones that you will see are very friendly and are usually of the same mind set as you.

I will base myself out of Gardiner for part of my visit and then in West Yellowstone for others.

Sometimes I camp in Grant Village. Depends on what I want to film that day.

In June you can usually tell by the size of the car jam what kind of animal it is. If it's a bear then tourons will just stop their car wherever they are and run out to the bear like the tourons they are.

Usually it takes a ranger or two to drive up to get traffic moving. So be prepared for long waits if theirs a bear near the road cause no one will move their car.
Oh the stories I could tell about tourons! None of them good!!

Hey Kevin, love your description about tourons (great name BTW). I totally agree with what you are saying..in general our species is not as smart as the animals they are looking at anyway. I have lived just outside the border of Olympic Natl Park for 31yrs, and while we don't have anywhere near the amount of tourists as yellowstone, they are still around doing stupid stuff.

I have been there on different months, and enjoyed late Nov. They close all the park except for the North entrance, I was once one of 7 cars inside the entire park. I also have been there in Aug, and was the only person watching Old Faithfull, it was at 4:00 a.m. and very cold.

As a former Park Ranger (not in Yellowstone) I can tell you that 99% of the people use 2% of the park. So just get off the sidewalks and out of your car, and you will find your self alone.

Hello

Thank's a lot for all these information, continue i'm very interested for all remarks.

Gilles

Is Yellowstone N.P. still requiring a $400.00 US fee to video in the park?

I concur with what is being said, except, be prepared for rain and snow if you go before mid June. To me, September and early June are the best due to having to put up with less people, but the weather can be tricky. I like early June best for the baby animals and the spring green on the Aspens.

As to the $400.00 fee for video taping, I don't know.

I was there last year - early September - and I taped a lot without a fee.

There are a million people taping.

I think the fee is only required for commercial production.

I would also avoid the summer, and start your day early. That way you are ahead of the crowds hitting the major places.

Don't even get me started on Yellowstone fees!!!
I lost several thousand dollars on a trip there a couple Winters ago because they required me to have a permit to shoot with a bunch of pro photographers.

Was $250 for the application and then they wanted me to pay $60 or $65 an HOUR to have a ranger follow me around because my tripod was a tripping hazard. Even though I was using basically the same carbon fiber tripod as the pro photographers were using.

Even a call to from the tour leader to his Senator did no good. So I had to cancel the trip and the fees were non-refundable.

So, I picked up a DSLR type camera that shoots HD video and I'll shoot a couple stills and then switch to video.

BTW, Yellowstone considers anything other than family home video commercial.

One of the pro photographers asked a ranger if he flipped his camera from stills to video would he require a permit. The ranger looked at him and said yep.