08/24/2026
Well, folks… we woke up before the sun even had the decency to show up and headed out with our Yellowstone Forever guides for a morning adventure into the Lamar Valley. And let us just say: the valley didn’t mess around.
We split into small pods and headed out to explore one of Yellowstone’s most spectacular landscapes because we know, you can’t truly experience the Lamar Valley in a motor coach. Oh, the wildlife? It basically rolled out the red carpet.
We saw pika, squirrels, osprey, an eagle, mountain goats, elk for days, pronghorn… and approximately 7.5 million bison. (Okay, perhaps not quite 7.5 million, but if you ask our sleepy morning eyes, it felt pretty close.) Oh!! And 4 wolves!!! 🐺🐺🐺🐺
But what made this morning especially meaningful was who we were exploring with.
Our Yellowstone Forever guides aren’t simply people who know where the animals tend to hang out. They care deeply about Yellowstone. They study the wildlife, understand the landscape, and work to be thoughtful stewards of this incredible place. There are plenty of outfitters we could choose from, but we intentionally choose Yellowstone Forever because we want the Yellowstone Forever heart to be part of our tour.
And there’s an important reason for that: Yellowstone Forever is the official nonprofit partner of Yellowstone National Park, and its work supports education, wildlife, conservation, research, and projects inside the park. So when we choose to explore with them, our dollars help support Yellowstone itself rather than simply going into an individual outfitter’s pocket.
In other words: we get the adventure, Yellowstone gets the love. And that feels like a pretty great trade.
After our wildlife-filled morning, we climbed back aboard our trusty motorcoach and headed up Dunraven Pass. And because apparently Yellowstone had decided we hadn’t seen enough wildlife yet… we spotted a grizzly bear. 🐻
Because Yellowstone.
From there, we turned our attention from furry residents to one of the park’s most spectacular geological masterpieces: the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.
We hiked between Uncle Tom’s area and the Brink of the Lower Falls. But that’s not all. We drove and walked the North Rim toward Lookout Point. And suddenly, there it was—the canyon stretching out in all its ridiculously dramatic glory, with the Yellowstone River carving its way through those incredible colors.
Now, you may have heard the famous Yellowstone story about artist Thomas Moran standing at Artist Point, painting the scene that helped inspire Congress to preserve Yellowstone as a national park.
It’s a wonderful story.
It’s also, as we now know, a little bit of a fairy tale.
Moran did visit Yellowstone and made sketches of the canyon, but he didn’t simply stand at Artist Point and paint the masterpiece that magically resulted in the creation of the national park. His famous painting was a composite work, created after he returned to Washington, D.C., using sketches and observations from his Yellowstone expedition.
So today, we visited the places that inspired those sketches—and got to see the real thing for ourselves.
And honestly? No artistic license was required.
Yellowstone gave us bison, bears, birds, elk, pronghorn, goats wolves towering mountain passes, waterfalls, and a canyon painted in every color nature could possibly invent and that’s pretty danged fantastic.
