Great Western Road Trip: The Best of Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park is located in the northwest corner of Wyoming and stretches a little bit into the southwest corner of Montana. It can be accessed by a number of major highways and the closest major interstate is Interstate 90 in southern Montana. Altogether, there are five entrances to the park, from every direction.

Yellowstone National Park is known primarily for its incredible geysers and brightly colored pools of boiling water. But, Yellowstone also has a large and beautiful lake as well as plenty of forests, meadows, rolling hills, waterfalls, canyons, creeks and rivers. Both features of Yellowstone National Park attract a huge variety of wildlife. There's plenty to see and do at Yellowstone!

Yellowstone National Park encompasses an ancient volcanic caldera that erupted less than a million years ago and spewed out lava long after. The resulting caldera (the Yellowstone basin) is over 50 miles wide. The geothermal wonders that make Yellowstone so attractive are really just the surface features of an active and volatile supervolcano. The majority of the national park actually rests on the relatively thin crust of this volcanic "hot spot." Although it is very possible, there is no reason to expect Yellowstone to erupt again in our lifetime.

The geothermal activity in Yellowstone has resulted in 300 geysers at more than 10,000 geothermal features altogether, including boiling springs, mudpots and fumaroles (steam vents). There are four major areas in Yellowstone National Park, all on the western side, for seeing the best groups of geothermal activity: the Midway Geyser Basin, the Upper Geyser Basin, the Norris Geyser Basin, and Mammoth Hot Springs. There are also plenty of smaller stops along the road for seeing everything from solitary geysers to colorful mudpots and elaborate mineral deposits. Sometimes when you're walking around in Yellowstone, you can really start to question what planet you're on, as the landscape often seems more lunar or martian.