Guide to a One Day Trip in Yellowstone Park - from the North Entrance to Old Faithful

A Photographer's Dream - Wildlife and Extraordinary Scenery!

Yellowstone National Park offers abundant wildlife and natural scenery to everyone - from professional photographers, to families taking snapshots, to those who just enjoy the outdoors.

The North Entrance to Yellowstone Park is located just outside the small town of Gardiner, Montana. Gardiner itself is a picturesque little town located in southwest Montana, on the banks of the Yellowstone River. 

The Roosevelt Arch in Gardiner marks the North Entrance. This stone arch was designed by Robert Reamer (who also designed the Old Faithful Inn) and built in 1903 when President Theodore Roosevelt positioned the mortar upon which the large cornerstone was set. Thus the arch took on his name. The inscription above the arch says, "For the benefit and enjoyment of the people," which was taken directly from the wording of the Yellowstone National Park Act of 1872 creating Yellowstone National Park, America's first National Park. In the early 1900s, visitors would arrive by train in Gardiner, and take stagecoaches through this entrance into the Park. Automobiles were not allowed into the Park for many years, as it was thought they would frighten the horses pulling the stagecoaches through the Park.

After passing through the Roosevelt Arch into Yellowstone Park, the town of Mammoth Hot Springs sits peacefully five miles down the road. This is where the Park employees live, where the Park headquarters is located, and where elk and other wildlife co-exist with humans. Tourists often forget these are wild animals and tend to approach them too closely when taking photos - sometimes being chased by a furious cow protecting her calf, or by a bull in rut.