This Week in Yellowstone National Park, we look at how the low snowpack is impacting activities in and out of the park, celebrate the return of a once rare-to-see species in the park, and find out where I like to stop to use the bathroom in the winter. I even share a hike idea that is perfect for the warmer than normal weather in the area. This is a good one! Give it a read, a share and get ready to visit America’s first National Park.

This Week in Yellowstone, we continue to embrace the end of the year shoulder season by focusing on the quiet and calm. In this installment of my weekly series, I look at the infrastructure bill, let you know what the National Park is doing about the roadside bear den near Roosevelt Junction, give some tips for what to expect when visiting this time of the year, and share a few of my favorite spots to wander right now. 

It is officially the off season This Week in Yellowstone! In this post, I will talk about the drop in October visitation, how to make the most of one road being open in the park, where to see battling bighorn sheep, and even discuss the myth that bears hibernate. I even share a frozen waterfall location. This is a good one!

This Week in Yellowstone is one of change. After the weekend ends, we see the closure of interior park roads and a drastic drop-off for visitation. This will be your last chance until spring to drive to places like the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Old Faithful, Grand Prismatic and Yellowstone Lake. Even now, with the roads open, there is a calmness that has washed over the region. This week is honestly one of my favorite weeks to visit the park, so if you are in the area, make a visit over the weekend and enjoy one last adventure in the main part of the park.

Things have drastically slowed down around the park over the past few weeks. News is slow, visitation is low, and much needed snow keeps on falling in the higher elevations. This coming weekend will be the second to last weekend before interior roads close for the season, giving you just a few more days to enjoy the entire park. Since news is slow, this week we get an update on the woman who dove into a hot springs to save her dog, question the headline writers for USA Today’s FTW series, and celebrate the return of a webcam. As usual, I also give next week’s weather forecast for the park, tell you where you’ll have the best luck seeing animals, and give readers my tips and recommended experiences for this time of the year. 

Here we are, looking at the second to last weekend in October. Visitation has dramatically decreased and colder air is back, baby! If you are visiting the park this week, this is what you need to know: This week, we dive into what the park was really like during the record setting summer visitation, take a look at the impact of winter snowcoaches and snowmobiles on the park’s wildlife, catch up on the fate of the grizzlies just north of the park and find a lesser-known view of a popular waterfall. Readers of this week’s post will also learn about recent bear den sightings in the park, where to catch a late season grizzly sighting, and find out where you can still camp. 

Whew! We made it through the first major snowstorm in the region for the season! Last week, especially Monday to Wednesday, the park was bit chaotic. We will definitely get into the specifics in a bit.

This coming week, we will see the return of the sun, fantastic views of snow back on the mountains, a couple of campground closures, and all of the other wonderful things that Yellowstone has to offer. We will also dive into the recent storm, chronic wasting disease, NASA’s plan to harvest Yellowstone for energy and more.

Give it a read, a share and get ready to visit America’s first National Park. If you want to support my weekly park posts, please pick up a guidebook!

This week in Yellowstone, we learn of the fate of a woman and her dog that both jumped in a thermal feature, how climate change is impacting the park’s ecosystem and what delays you should expect. We also look at the coming campground and road closures, incoming rain and snow storms, and hear about a great overlook hike along the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone near Artist Point. 

Give it a read, a share, and get ready to visit America’s first National Park. If you want to support these weekly park posts, please consider picking up or gifting a guidebook!

This Week in Yellowstone is a weekly post to help everyone get ready for their trip to America’s first National Park. It is a labor of love and one that I hope helps make the next trip you take to Yellowstone even better. I’ll be trying to post this each and every week, as close to the weekend as I can. It should be released on Wednesday or Thursday, depending on my workload with real writing gigs. Tweaks and changes will be occurring over the next few weeks, but the content should generally be the same. You can expect to see news events that occurred in the park, the weather for the coming weekend and week, a highlight of the week and so much more. 

As I said, this is a labor of love. If you want to support me, please share this link with others, pick up a guidebook, or send me a tip via Venmo or PayPal. I’ll get those linked up in the future, but if you are interested, just shoot me an email. Anything and everything is appreciated. 

I hope you enjoy this week’s post, the first of hopefully many! 

Douglas Scott

Olympia doesn’t have a great reputation around the state. From Spokane to Bellingham, and Vancouver to Ocean Shores, the capitol of Washington State is known mostly for politics and a somewhat drab, occasionally unsettling downtown scene. Outsiders might quickly stop by on trips to more exotic locations, but for most, Olympia is skipped over. Even some locals avoid downtown Olympia, but those who decide to pass over this small town at the southern end of the Puget Sound are missing a spectacular annual event. At the end of August and first few weeks of September, the waters around Olympia become full of salmon, migrating home to spawn and die. While this event happens in most cities around the state, Olympia is one of the few that offers a stunning viewing area where you can watch salmon, seals and the tides, all from an overlook above the water.