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Montana

Yellowstone: A Great Outdoor Adventure With Your Family

Program No. 20977RJ

Explore the wonders of Yellowstone National Park with your family as you horseback ride, hike, raft the Yellowstone River and learn about geysers, hot springs and fumaroles!

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6 days

5 nights

14 meals

5B 4L 5D

Check-in, Program Registration, Welcome Dinner, Orientation

Gardiner, MT

Old Faithful

Gardiner, MT

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Horseback Adventure.

Gardiner, MT

Yellowstone Park morning, Rafting & Riverside Camp-Out

Gardiner, MT

Rafting, Wrap up.

Gardiner, MT

Program Concludes

Gardiner, MT

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At a Glance

Tie up your hiking boots, hop on horseback and climb into a whitewater raft to explore America’s first national park on foot, horse and water. With your family by your side, take part in hands-on explorations of Yellowstone National Park in streamside habitats and forested mountains. Find out how the plants, animals, bugs, fish, water and weather patterns all work together to create this fascinating ecosystem. Plus, visit Old Faithful — the world’s most famous geyser — to investigate hissing fumaroles, steaming geysers, sulfurous mudpots and bubbling hot springs.

Activity Level

Outdoor: Spirited

Walking up to three miles on moderate terrain. Horseback riding one hour. Whitewater rafting seven miles on Class II/III waters. Long distances travelled by large motorcoach. Elevations of 5,200-7,700 feet.

Small Group

Love to learn and explore in a small-group setting? These adventures offer small, personal experiences with groups of 13 to 24 participants.

Best of all, you’ll…

Experience the exciting Class II and Class III rapids of the Yellowstone River on a rafting excursion, and enjoy a picnic lunch along the river.
Make trailside discoveries in the high country as you ride horses together, and end the ride with a cowboy cookout.
Set up camp along the river as you take in a Montana sunset and sleep under a star-filled night sky.

General Notes

This is a Family program for participants, their adult children and grandchildren ages 9 and up. For a comparable intergenerational adventure for just grandparents and grandchildren, check out "Yellowstone’s Great Outdoors With Your Grandchild" (#17306). For a Yellowstone program with younger grandchildren (ages 8-11) see "Wildlife & Geysers: Yellowstone With Your Younger Grandchild" (#14910). NOTE FOR UPCOMING SEASON (2025 DEPARTURES): We are aware of some disruptions within the Park Service and believe our programs in Yellowstone National Park can operate normally with minimal impact. Although the full effects of layoffs and hiring freezes for seasonal workers is unknown at this time, we have minimized our dependence on Park Service for lectures, clean-up and other services. We utilize lodging operated by both the park concessionaire and private hotels outside of the park. Neither are operated by the Park Service and shouldn’t be impacted by layoffs or hiring freezes. Our restaurants are also operated by residents of the gateway communities or employees of the park concessionaire. In accordance with the Leave No Trace Seven Principles, our groups pack out what they pack in and do not rely on Park Service for cleaning up after our visit. Finally, we don’t foresee Visitor Centers or sites in Yellowstone National Park to be closed due to staffing issues. We will of course be monitoring the situation through our partners within the gateway communities, National Park Service and the CUA office.

Featured Expert

All trip experts

Charlie Pyle

Charlie Pyle grew up on a family farm in Oklahoma, and he became enthralled with the Rocky Mountains and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem on family trips to Montana in the 1950’s. In Charlie’s long and distinguished career, he’s led trips to Alaska and Yellowstone National Park as a Girl Scout leader and served as a program assistant at the Lamar Buffalo Ranch and in Gardiner for the Yellowstone Association Institute, a volunteer park host at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge, and a Wilderness First Responder.

Please note: This expert may not be available for every date of this program.

Charlie Pyle View biography

Zack Baker View biography

Zack Baker attended high school in Livingston, Montana, 52 miles north of Yellowstone. His love for the park started while snowshoeing and observing wildlife. At Montana State University in Bozeman, he earned a B.S. in plant science, but it was Yellowstone’s mammals that grabbed his interest. He led private wildlife watching, hiking, and photography trips, and drove snowcoaches in the winter. He joined up with Road Scholar in 2017 and is now the Program Director for Road Scholar at the University of Montana Western.

Suggested Reading List (13 books)

Visit the Road Scholar Bookshop

You can find many of the books we recommend at the Road Scholar store on bookshop.org, a website that supports local bookstores.

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Yellowstone: A Great Outdoor Adventure With Your Family

Program Number: 20977

To Save the Wild Bison: Life on the Edge in Yellowstone

by Mary Ann Franke

The author brings clarity and revelation to one of Yellowstone's most complex struggles by tracing the history of bison and humans into the 19th century and further into the national parks era. Here's discussion of bison management and park policy - the battle over brucellosis, snowmobiles and groomed winter roads, desires of Native Americans, bison and predators.

It Happened in Yellowstone: Remarkable Events That Shaped History

by Erin Turner

Discover true tales from Yellowstone's past that shaped its history including geologic events like the volcanic eruption that formed Yellowstone over 600,000 years ago and the massive 1959 earthquake that created Quake Lake. Read about wildlife, the historic Nez Perce flight and early tourists, Truman Everts-lost in Yellowstone and a great stagecoach robbery.

National Geographic special issue - Yellowstone

by David Quammen

Divided into three parts and an epilogue, this issue spotlights Yellowstone National Park and includes, of course, marvelous photography. Part one - The Paradox of the Park explores the concept of why "What wilderness means to people has steadily changed since Yellowstone National Park was founded." Part two - Into the Backcountry considers how "Yellowstone has become a natural laboratory for tracing the delicate web of relationships that keep an ecosystem alive and healthy." Part three - Living With the Wild shows how "Yellowstone's wildlife is adapting to its changing realities" and why "Now people must adapt as well if the park is to remain untamed - and intact."

Hey Ranger? Kids Ask Questions About Yellowstone National Park

by Kim Justesen

Here are real questions - some smart and some silly - that kids ask rangers every day. This well researched, educational guide is fun to read and filled with fascinating facts and amusing anecdotes.

After the Fires: The Ecology of Change in Yellowstone National Park

by Linda Wallace, Editor

The ravaging fires of 1988 caused many scientists to predict long-term devastation which did not come to pass. This scientific summary by wildlife biologists, ecosystem and forest scientists and landscape ecologists discusses the many things that changed and did not change in the Yellowstone area. Realize the role of fire in the ecosystem and the resiliency of nature.

Watching Yellowstone and Teton Wildlife: The Best Places to Look From Roads and Trails

by Todd Wilkinson and Michael L. Francis

Pack this guidebook, along with your binoculars and enthusiasm, when visiting both Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. The authors identify numerous viewing areas for optimum wildlife watching and have included maps, color photographs, samples of animal tracks, driving tours, hikes and animal descriptions including behavioral information.

Who Pooped in the Park? Yellowstone National Park: Scat and Tracks for Kids

by Gary Robson and Elijah Brady Clark

Accurate information that is fun to read. Kids will learn how to identify critter scat and tracks in a straight forward manner. Lots of extra detail is included such as how to tell the difference between similar looking tracks, why wolf scat has hair in it and much more.

Decade of the Wolf, revised and updated edition: Returning the Wild to Yellowstone

by Douglas W. Smith and Gary Ferguson

Research and storytelling meld to document wolf recovery in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Wolf biologist, Smith, and nature writer, Ferguson, provide an inside look at the Yellowstone Wolf Recovery Project ten years after the controversial decision was made by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services to reintroduce wolves into the park. Smith, wolf project leader who has worked with the Yellowstone Wolf Project since its inception, has studied wolves for 25 years. Ferguson, whose writing largely arises from intimate experiences, followed through the seasons, the first 14 wolves released into Yellowstone National Park. Their collaboration offers hard facts and 'impressionistic portraits of individual wolves that reveal their epic lives full of struggle and conquest.' Here is the history of the return of the top predator to Yellowstone.

Yellowstone Place Names, 2nd edition

by Lee Whittlesey

Yellowstone National Park Historian's well-researched and entertaining reference source for information on many of Yellowstone's place names and their origins.

Scats and Tracks of the Rocky Mountains

by James Halfpenny

Scats and tracks have a story to tell and the author, a nationally renowned tracker, teaches the reader how to read signs to figure out who passed by. Includes written descriptions, track and gait pattern illustrations, glossary and more.

Mountain Spirit: The Sheep Eater Indians of Yellowstone

by Lawrence Loendorf and Nancy Medaris Stone

Drawing on the results of ongoing archaeological excavations and extensive ethnographic work among descendant native peoples, the authors discuss the many Indian groups, in particular the Tukudika Shoshone, who visited or lived in the Yellowstone area in prehistoric and historic times. The Tukudika or Sheep Eaters made skillful use of their environment and maintained an abundant way of life closely related to their primary source of protein, the mountain sheep of high-altitude Yellowstone.

Roadside Geology of Yellowstone Country

by William Fritz & Robert Thomas

Updated, classic roadside geology book for the Yellowstone Region explains current geological theories.

Lost in Yellowstone, Truman Everts' Thirty-seven Days of Peril

by Lee Whittlesey, editor

Read this true life adventure of the fifty-four year-old, nearsighted Truman Everts who visited the Yellowstone area with an exploration party in 1870. Although he was an inexperienced woodsman, he was determined to map and investigate the grand and mysterious Yellowstone country. After becoming separated from his party and abandoned by his horse, he wandered Yellowstone for thirty-seven days, injured, alone and with little food and shelter. Lee Whittlesey, Yellowstone National Park's historian, edited Everts' story which records one of the American frontier's most grueling survival adventures. Appreciate many early day photographs of Yellowstone National Park which illustrate the book.

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Yellowstone: A Great Outdoor Adventure With Your Family

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Protecting the Environment

At a Glance

Best of all, you’ll…

General Notes

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