Your Yellowstone Guide: Let's Take a Hike
helping you plan your Yellowstone adventure
& sharing life lessons from mine
I’m Natalie. After living and working in Yellowstone, I now return nearly every year as a visitor. Not only do I know the park from the inside, I know what it’s like to navigate the details of getting there from the outside.
If you’re intimidated by planning your Yellowstone adventure, I’m here to help. If you’d like to read about what Yellowstone has taught me about living life by faith, I’m here for that, too.
Let’s take a hike.
Blog Posts: Tales from the Trail
How to Be Prepared: Be Alert
Crossing the gravel parking lot, Dad and I turned toward the Gardner River. Worn by wildlife and fly fishermen, the narrow path that paralleled it wasn’t an official trail. We knew it only because of the hours three generations of our family had collected here at...
Where to Picnic in Yellowstone: Our 5 Favorites
Because I promote picnicking as the best way to deal with the inevitable and recurring need for food, here are some YNP picnicking realities and a few of our favorite picnic areas. (Note: Each is near water—either beside a river or above Yellowstone Lake.) Our 5...
Gathering Winter’s Saving Graces
For Yellowstone's bison, it's the end of this season that's most dangerous. They've spent the winter foraging for frozen foliage by swinging their heads back and forth through the snow like a bucket on an excavator. After a long winter of burning their reserves...
Are You Prepared?
My husband and I were just approaching the trailhead when I saw the sign. Again. WARNING: BEAR FREQUENTING AREA. The weight of impending doom settled on my soul and my mind launched in with its barrage of questions. How many bears? Is it one or a mama with cubs? How...
Picnicking in Yellowstone: What You Need to Know
“He’s a good big brother, helping his little sisters like that,” said an older woman as she walked past us on her way to her picnic table. “Thanks,” my husband and I mumbled together, remembering. Our kids were playing quite happily together along the shore...
How We Prepare Him Room
Zipping my jacket to my chin, I picked up speed in hopes of generating more body heat. Before long it would be warm—possibly even hot—but that would be later. For now, the October sun hadn’t been up long enough to chase away the overnight chill. Earlier, when the...
“There is a great deal of good to be learned from what we see every day, if we would but consider it.”
~ Matthew Henry