The hike out to Storm Point had been glorious – three kids under 10, and not one complaint. We had crossed an open, grassy meadow where buffalo grazed in the sun, skipped rocks on the pounding shores of Yellowstone Lake, and then ambled through a forest of impossibly tall lodge pole pines swaying in the August wind. The camper van was only a soccer field away, but something mammoth and furry was in our way.
"Mom, there's a giant buffalo sleeping on the trail," our 8-year-old daughter Kate exclaimed. Our oldest, a fifth grader who had announced on her first day in the park that she had no intention of being gored by a bison, added, "it looks one of those lone bulls the rangers said to stay away from!"
It's true that the average buffalo weighs 2,000 pounds and can sprint at a speed of 30 mph, but this one looked dead to the world to me. "Couldn't we just scoot around him?" I asked.
"We could pet him," our 5-year-old son Gus suggested.
My husband, the Deputy of Safety for all our family wilderness adventures, gave me one of his "are you crazy?" raised eyebrows and surveyed our options. We decided to edge along the forest until we were directly across from the car and then beeline across the meadow. As we swished through the high grass, skirting giant, dusty wallows where buffalo roll and more than 100 piles of bison poop, we kept our eyes on the lone bull, who had lifted his head to watch us. We reached the gravel parking area with relief, waiting for a young French woman we had spotted following our escape route.
"Yellowstone truly is a wild place," she laughed.
Though more than three million people visit Yellowstone every year, she is right: Our nation's oldest national park still is a wild place – especially for those willing to leave their cars and walk even a mile or two on one of its many breathtaking trails.
International visitors who cross oceans to come to Yellowstone and neighboring Grand Teton National Park see their trips as something akin to an African Safari, with bison, bears and wolves taking the place of elephants and giraffes. Seattle families are fortunate enough to be able to go on this exotic safari in their minivans. West Yellowstone, Montana, the closest entrance to the park, is 739 miles away, just under a 12-hour drive from Seattle.
Wildlife is not the only attraction. Beneath Yellowstone is an active volcano. Even more exciting than seeing Old Faithful erupting are the thousands of other geysers, boiling mud pots, steaming fumaroles and Kodachrome-colored pools. One of our finest afternoons was spent exploring caves and shallow rapids at a 70-degree spot on the Firehole River fed by hot springs.
Further south, Grand Teton National Park has a more sophisticated array of lakefront campgrounds and beaches, classy lodges, and good restaurants to choose from. The first sight of the Tetons, rising straight from the Jackson Hole valley without a single foothill, will reinspire even a seasoned Northwesterner's awe of the American West.
Set aside at least a full week or more to see the two parks. Following locals' advice, we tried never to drive the same road twice, looping whenever possible. Those with young children who want to split up the drive from Seattle can stay a night, as we did, in the Spokane area, about a five-hour drive, or in laid-back Missoula, under eight hours.
You can follow our itinerary, which was planned with advice from experts, or use one of the many guide books available at book stores or the Seattle Public Library. If time is short, skip the Grand Tetons and concentrate on the Yellowstone loop only.
Our trip lasted 11 days and covered 2,130 miles. And everyone one of us would go back to the land where the buffalo roam.
