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This week in Yellowstone National Park, from July 9th to July 15th, 2026, I try to get you excited for the bison rut, talk about how Yellowstone once had a zoo, and hope to inspire you to look at the region beyond the park boundaries. I will also give you the complete weather forecast, a cool trail to hike, the snowpack update, the wildlife report, and everything else you need to have an incredible time, “This Week in Yellowstone.”
LISTEN TO THIS AS A PODCAST
The text below is my notes for the podcast. They may be incomplete.
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-yellowstone-national-park/id1789397931
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/41E5WWldz4s7n6NXh2Lahr
RSS: https://rss.com/podcasts/this-week-in-yellowstone-national-park/
Disclaimer: I may miss a few details, so please feel free to reach out with any questions. I also mention park locations casually. If you’re unfamiliar, a quick search can help. This report only covers drivable areas of the park.
Also, this podcast is a passion project. If you enjoy it, I’d love a review or a quick email! To support my work, check out my hiking and wildlife-watching guidebooks, or join me for a guided hiking tour in Yellowstone’s backcountry. For more information, visit outdoor-society.com or contact me directly. Seriously though, come book a trail tour with me.
THIS WEEK’S YELLOWSTONE NEWS
The Bugs Are Out
Hot Weekend
EXPERIENCE OF THE WEEK
The Bison Rut
This week marks the beginning of one of Yellowstone’s most exciting wildlife seasons. At least, I think so. While many love the elk rut in the fall, the summer bison rut is so awesome. Over the next several weeks, the park’s broad valleys will become the stage for one of North America’s greatest wildlife spectacles as the annual bison rut gets underway.
If you’re visiting Yellowstone during July, there is a good chance you’ll notice the first signs of this remarkable event. Mature bulls are beginning to leave their bachelor groups and join the large cow and calf herds. Their deep bellows echo across the valleys, dust rises from fresh wallows, and the first breeding displays begin to unfold. As the month progresses, the activity only becomes more dramatic, making the bison rut one of the park’s can’t-miss summer experiences.
The bison rut, or mating season, generally begins in early July and continues through August, with the most intense activity occurring from late July into early August, according to the National Park Service. During this time, Yellowstone’s northern and central breeding herds gather in impressive numbers. Herds that may seem scattered earlier in the summer can grow into groups approaching 1,000 animals as mature bulls join the females, creating one of the largest wildlife gatherings in the Lower 48.
For much of the year, mature bull bison spend their time alone or in small bachelor groups. As breeding season approaches, they seek out the large cow and calf herds in search of mating opportunities. Although both males and females become sexually mature at around two to three years of age, most successful breeding is carried out by dominant bulls between about seven and twelve years old. Their size, strength, and experience give them a significant advantage over younger competitors.
One of the first things visitors notice during the rut is the sound. Mature bulls produce deep, rumbling bellows that can carry surprising distances across Yellowstone’s open valleys. These vocalizations advertise their presence to rivals and females while warning competing bulls to keep their distance. Visitors will also see bulls pawing the ground and rolling in dusty wallows. Wallowing helps remove loose hair and discourages insects, but during the rut, it also coats the bulls with scent and creates an impressive visual display that signals their breeding condition.
Not every confrontation turns into a fight, but when two evenly matched bulls refuse to back down, the results are unforgettable. After circling, posturing, and sizing one another up, they may lower their massive heads and collide with tremendous force. The impact echoes across the valley. Most contests are relatively brief, with one bull eventually conceding and walking away, and serious injuries are uncommon.
One of the most fascinating behaviors is known as tending. After identifying a cow that is approaching estrus, a dominant bull remains close to her, sometimes following her every movement for hours or even days while preventing rival males from getting too close. Once she becomes receptive, the pair mates before the bull resumes searching for another female. Visitors may also notice bulls curling their upper lips after sniffing a female. This behavior, called the flehmen response, helps them detect chemical signals that indicate whether she is ready to breed.
The best places to witness the rut are Hayden Valley and Lamar Valley. Hayden Valley, located between Canyon Village and Fishing Bridge, is home to Yellowstone’s central breeding herd and offers excellent roadside viewing throughout the summer. Lamar Valley, stretching east from Tower Junction toward Cooke City, hosts the northern breeding herd and is equally impressive. Both valleys feature expansive grasslands where visitors can safely observe the action from designated pullouts while keeping an eye out for pronghorn, elk, coyotes, wolves, and even bears.
The logic of getting to the spots with lots of bison in the early mornings and evenings is still true. Cooler temperatures often make the animals more active (e.g., mating), the light is also ideal for photography, but most importantly, visitor traffic is usually lighter than during the middle of the day. As the rut intensifies later in July, expect more frequent “bison jams” as breeding herds move across park roads. These delays are part of the Yellowstone experience. If traffic stops, stay in your vehicle unless you are parked safely in a designated pullout, be patient, and allow the animals to move through at their own pace.
The excitement of the rut also makes this one of the most important times to respect wildlife. Yellowstone requires visitors to stay at least 25 yards away from bison at all times. During breeding season, hormones and competition make bulls far less predictable than they are during much of the year. Despite weighing as much as 2,000 pounds, bison can run up to 35 miles per hour, pivot quickly, and easily outrun people. The safest and most rewarding way to watch the rut is from your vehicle or from a designated roadside pullout while giving the animals all the space they need.
If you’re visiting Yellowstone over the next several weeks, make time to stop in Hayden Valley or Lamar Valley. The annual bison rut is just getting started, and before long, the park’s largest residents will be putting on one of the most remarkable wildlife shows in North America.
TIP OF THE WEEK
A Trip to Yellowstone Should Be More Than Just the Park Boundary
When most people come to Yellowstone, they consider the trip officially started when they go through the entrance gate. While there is nothing wrong with that at all, some coming to the region hope for something more. Some come to Yellowstone, see wildlife and the geysers, and then feel they need to go to the Tetons or to Glacier for a stunning hike in the wilds of the west. The truth is, there is a magical wonderland resting to the north of the park.
The Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness is one of the largest designated wilderness areas in the lower 48 states, managed primarily by the U.S. Forest Service within the Custer Gallatin National Forest. According to the U.S. Forest Service and the Wilderness Act of 1964, wilderness areas are meant to remain undeveloped, without roads, motorized vehicles, or permanent structures. That definition fits this landscape perfectly. It is a place where granite peaks, alpine lakes, and glacier-carved basins stretch for miles without interruption, and where you can hike all day without seeing anything that feels engineered or built.
What makes the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness especially important is how closely it connects to Yellowstone’s northern and northeastern edges. Wildlife does not recognize park boundaries, and neither does weather, water, or terrain. Grizzly bears, elk, moose, bighorn sheep, and wolves all move freely between Yellowstone and this wilderness area, depending on season and food availability. The National Park Service has long emphasized that Yellowstone functions as the core of a much larger ecosystem, where surrounding public lands are essential for migration, genetic diversity, and long-term survival of wildlife populations.
From the Yellowstone side, the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness is most often accessed through trailheads near the park’s northeast region, especially around the Beartooth Highway corridor and the communities that sit just outside the boundary, like Paradise Valley between Livingston and Gardiner, Montana. Once you step into that wilderness, the feeling changes quickly. The crowds thin out almost immediately. Trailheads that might be packed inside the park feel quiet here. Within a few miles, even the sound of traffic disappears completely, replaced by wind, running water, and the occasional call of an unseen bird moving through high alpine terrain.
The landscape itself feels like a continuation of Yellowstone, but more raw and less interpreted. Instead of boardwalks and railings, there are talus slopes, glacier lakes, and ridgelines that seem to go on forever. Elevation plays a huge role here. Many trails climb quickly into alpine environments where snow can linger well into summer, and where sudden weather shifts are part of the experience rather than an exception. Even in mid-summer, it is not unusual to see patches of snow tucked into shaded basins while wildflowers bloom just a few hundred feet below.
One of the most striking things about the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness is how quickly it delivers solitude. In Yellowstone, solitude often requires timing or careful route selection. Here, it can happen almost immediately. A short hike can put you in a place where the nearest road is miles away, and the only signs of human presence are faint boot tracks fading into the landscape. That sense of distance is what makes this wilderness so valuable as part of the broader Yellowstone region.
It also plays a critical ecological role. The Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness acts as a buffer and extension of Yellowstone’s habitat, allowing species that rely on large territories to move freely between seasons and elevations. Snowpack, river systems, and vegetation zones all connect seamlessly across the boundary. What looks like a line on a map is, on the ground, a continuous living system.
A trip to Yellowstone becomes something very different when you think beyond the park entrance. The geysers and valleys inside the park are only part of the story. Just beyond them, the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness offers a quieter, steeper, and more unfiltered version of mostly the same world. It is not an add-on or replacement for Yellowstone. It is the continuation of it, stretching the experience far beyond the boundary fence and into some of the wildest country left in the United States.
RANDOM YELLOWSTONE FACT OF THE WEEK
The Lake Lodge and Zoo
Most visitors who settle into a relaxing time near Lake Lodge drift away in thought while taking in the tranquil sounds and sights of Yellowstone Lake itself. Pelicans drift across the surface, elk or bison sometimes graze along the shoreline, and the Absaroka Range rises in soft layers across the horizon. The scene here feels timeless and entirely natural. What most people do not realize is that just a short distance away sits one of the park’s most unusual historical sites, an island where visitors once paid to see Yellowstone’s wildlife kept inside fences.
On Dot Island, a small wooded island just offshore from the Lake Hotel and Lake Lodge area, Yellowstone once operated what was known as the Island Zoo. From the shore, it looks like any other forested island in the lake, but for more than a decade beginning in the late 1890s, it was a managed attraction where tourists arrived by boat to view captive bison, elk, deer, antelope, and even bears. It is one of those stories that feels almost impossible to reconcile with modern ideas of national parks, yet it was a real and popular part of Yellowstone’s early tourism era.
The Island Zoo opened in 1896 under entrepreneur E. C. Waters, who had secured a lease to operate recreational services around Yellowstone Lake. At the time, visiting Yellowstone was a very different experience. Roads were primitive, travel was slow, and wildlife sightings were never guaranteed. Many visitors spent days in the park without seeing large animals at close range. Waters recognized that demand and created a place where tourists could reliably see Yellowstone’s famous wildlife in one setting.
Boats ferried visitors from the Lake area to Dot Island, where wooden fences enclosed animals in simple exhibits. Historical photographs preserved by the Yellowstone Heritage and Research Center show bison standing behind heavy rail fencing while visitors gathered nearby. For many tourists at the turn of the twentieth century, this was a highlight of their trip, even though it would feel completely out of place today.
From a modern perspective, the Island Zoo reflects a very different stage in conservation history. Yellowstone had been established in 1872, but early ideas about wildlife protection were still developing. Zoos were widely accepted as educational attractions, and viewing animals in controlled settings was not unusual. Over time, however, attitudes shifted as visitors increasingly wanted to see wildlife in natural conditions rather than behind fences.
Park officials also began questioning whether a commercial zoo belonged inside a national park. By 1907, just eleven years after it opened, the Island Zoo was closed. The animals were removed, the enclosures dismantled, and Dot Island was left to return to a wild state. That closure marked an early step toward Yellowstone’s modern philosophy that wildlife should remain free-ranging whenever possible.
Today, Dot Island still sits in Yellowstone Lake, but nothing remains of the zoo. No fences, buildings, or docks are visible. A visitor would never know its history without already understanding the story. More than a century of weather, ice, and regrowth has erased nearly all surface traces.
Even so, archaeological work by the National Park Service has documented cultural evidence on and around the island, including both prehistoric Native American use and artifacts from early tourism around Yellowstone Lake. These findings show that Dot Island has a much longer human history than its brief time as a zoo suggests.
That broader history connects to nearby Lake Lodge, which was built in the 1920s near the site of William Wallace Wylie’s earlier tent camp from the 1890s. As tourism grew, the rustic lodge replaced the old camp while maintaining the same lakeside setting.
Today, visitors see something entirely different. Instead of fenced animals offshore, they watch wild birds, shifting light on the lake, and occasionally a bear moving along the shoreline. The Island Zoo is gone, but its story remains a reminder of how Yellowstone changed, from displaying wildlife to protecting it in its natural state.
WEATHER FOR THE COMING WEEK
I am too lazy to type it all out, so you’ll have to listen to the podcast to get the weather forecast, or just contact me.
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-yellowstone-national-park/id1789397931
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/41E5WWldz4s7n6NXh2Lahr
RSS: https://rss.com/podcasts/this-week-in-yellowstone-national-park/
ROADS CONDITIONS
No main park roads are closed now. There are a few spots of construction, but there should be minimal delays. While unlikely, be aware that roads can close at any time due to inclement weather.
For up-to-date information, call (307) 344-2117 for recorded information, or sign up to receive Yellowstone road alerts on your mobile phone by texting “82190” to 888-777.
CAMPING INFO
Everything is Open that will open this year!
WILDLIFE WATCHING UPDATE
You have to listen to the podcast to get this information. Sorry.
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-yellowstone-national-park/id1789397931
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/41E5WWldz4s7n6NXh2Lahr
RSS: https://rss.com/podcasts/this-week-in-yellowstone-national-park/
PICK UP A GUIDEBOOK
Love what you have heard on this podcast and want more information on wildlife watching? Get a copy of my wildlife-watching guidebook to the region! Available in both ebook and paperback formats, my book will help you spot wildlife like a seasoned local. Please consider buying a book directly from me, as I make next to nothing when they are sold on Amazon. Grab your copy now at outdoor-society.com!
TRAIL ALERTS AND UPDATES
The backcountry Conditions Page is updated! I have a link to it in the show notes. That site is the easiest way to check the status of a trail you want to hike.
Carry bear spray. Have it readily accessible and not in a backpack. Know how to use it.
TREK OF THE WEEK
Bechler Falls
Bechler Falls is one of those Yellowstone hikes that feels like a secret you were lucky enough to hear about. Tucked into the park’s far southwest corner, the trail is short, quiet, and surprisingly lush compared to the sagebrush and thermal landscapes most visitors associate with Yellowstone. Instead of boardwalk crowds or geyser traffic jams, you get a green corridor of river bends, shaded forest, and constant water sound as the Bechler River gathers strength on its way downstream.
Reaching Bechler Falls is part of what makes it feel so different from the rest of the park. The trailhead is located at Cave Falls on the southern boundary of Yellowstone, accessed via Cave Falls Road from the Ashton, Idaho area. This is a long, unpaved approach road that passes through national forest land before reaching the park boundary, and it is not a quick detour from the main roads. Most visitors drive in from the south entrance region or from Island Park, then continue west toward the Ashton area before turning onto the gravel road system that leads to Cave Falls. The final approach to this overlooked region is remote, slow-going, and best suited for vehicles prepared for dirt road conditions.
From the Cave Falls parking area, the hike to Bechler Falls is straightforward to follow. The round-trip distance is roughly 2.5 to 3 miles, with very modest elevation gain, as the trail traces the Bechler River upstream. The walk begins near the impressive Cave Falls itself, where the Falls River pours over a wide rock shelf in a curtain-like drop. From there, the path follows the river corridor through a mix of forest and riverbank, staying close enough that the sound of water rarely fades. Early in the hike, you pass the confluence where the Falls River meets the Bechler River, a wide, braided junction where the water spreads out in multiple channels before tightening again into the canyon below.
The final approach to Bechler Falls feels less like a dramatic reveal and more like a gradual build. The river grows louder, the channel narrows slightly, and then the falls appear as a broad, low cascade rather than a tall drop. Bechler Falls itself is only about 15 feet high, but it is powerful, wide, and energetic, more of a rushing chute than a vertical plunge. It is not the tallest or most famous waterfall in Yellowstone, but it fits the character of the Bechler region perfectly. This is a landscape defined less by single iconic features and more by continuous water, movement, and layered scenery.
Mid-July is when this area really comes alive, but it also comes with tradeoffs. Snowmelt and spring runoff are typically fading, which makes river crossings easier and the trail more defined, but water levels are still strong, and the vegetation is at its peak. The Bechler region is one of the wettest parts of Yellowstone, often called “Cascade Corner,” and that moisture shows everywhere in midsummer.
Meadows are thick, wildflowers are in bloom, and the forest understory is dense and green. It is also the height of mosquito season, and multiple backcountry reports and trail accounts consistently warn that biting insects can be intense in early and mid-summer, especially in low, wet areas near the river.
This is not a bison-heavy landscape like Hayden or Lamar Valley. Instead, you are more likely to see deer moving through the trees, the occasional elk or moose, and a strong chance of birdlife along the river corridor. Bears are present in the broader Bechler region, so carrying bear spray and making noise on the trail is standard backcountry practice. The solitude is one of the biggest draws here, but it also means you are largely on your own once you leave the trailhead.
What stands out most on this hike is how different it feels from Yellowstone’s more famous corridors. Even though the distance is short, the setting feels deeply backcountry. The trail is shaded, often soft underfoot, and shaped by constant water influence. You will cross small side channels, pass sections of slow-moving river, and hear cascades long before you see them. At Bechler Falls itself, there is usually enough space to sit and take a break, with the river spreading out below and forest closing in tightly around the channel.
For many visitors, Bechler Falls is less about the waterfall and more about the atmosphere. It is an easy introduction to Yellowstone’s southwest corner, a place where the park feels wilder, quieter, and more geographically remote than almost anywhere else accessible by trailhead. The reward is not just the falls, but the sense that you have stepped into a different version of Yellowstone entirely, one defined by water, solitude, and deep green forest instead of crowds and geothermal spectacle.
NEXT WEEK
In the next episode, I’ll return with all of the information you need to have a good week in the park, including wildlife, weather, and trail updates. Until then, book a tour with me, pick up a guidebook of mine, and happy trails!
