Yellowstone National Park

United States (Wyoming) · Subalpine meadow, conifer forest, geothermal basins · best: May through June and September · 6 visits

Cloud forest canopy in soft gray light — Parking lot at first light.

Coastal bluff looking out over the surf — Looking back toward the trailhead.

Grassy headland with fog bank offshore — A quiet stretch I keep coming back to.

Yellowstone National Park sits in that useful middle ground between “too obscure to bother with” and “too famous to enjoy.”

The trip in is less complicated than it looks on a map, provided you’re flexible about where you sleep.

You can spend three days at Yellowstone National Park and only scratch the surface of the subalpine meadow.

My default advice is to go may through june and september. Outside that window there are still good days here, but the baseline quality drops.

Gear advice is boring: something long, something short, and enough layers that you’re not rearranging in the car.

The best single image I’ve made at Yellowstone National Park was an accident I reached for without thinking; the ones I set up for are the ones I’ve half-forgotten.

Honest assessment: Yellowstone National Park is good but not magic. On a bad day you’ll still have a bad day here.

If you go, take nothing, leave nothing, and be quieter than you think you need to be.