Yellowstone/Tetons Summer of 2014 help

LoudDog wrote:
2012 in glacier we were hitting 100 degrees each day.

Was that 100 degrees in the trailer 'cause I couldn't find any record of 100 degree days on the east side or west side of the park last year? Just remember, West Glacier is around 3500' while West Yellowstone is around 6500'.

I agree with some of the posters above: at Yellowstone, either get a campsite at Fishing Bridge in the park with FHU or go a few days w/o hookups. As many have mentioned, you'll spend a lot of time driving. The speed limits aren't high, and you'll get stuck in "buffalo jams" from time to time, often for an hour, esp. in the evening. The line at the West Yellowstone entrance can get to be quite long in the mornings. If you have to return at mid-day to let the dogs out and then return to the park, you'll spend a lot of windshield time every day. While offering little space between sites, at least Fishing Bridge in the park is a little more centrally located and you'll avoid the lines at the entrance station every day.

June is better than July or August for crowds, and the earlier in the month the better. As for hiking, there are lots of great hikes at Yellowstone, such as into the canyon to view the falls from below. You can easily spend several days just walking all the geyser basins. Sure, there's a lot of walking on boardwalks, but you'll get a lot of miles in if you do the various loops. Get one of the geyser guidebooks to make your whole tour more interesting. I have found the book "The Geysers of Yellowstone" by Scott Bryan to be most interesting for us. Stop at the Visitors Center at Old Faithful and find out the predicted eruption times for some of the geysers and plan your walk through the geyser basins accordingly. The book I mentioned also gives the eruption intervals for many, many features in all of the geyser basin.

For wildflowers, hike up Mt. Washburn. We visited Yellowstone several times during the summers my mother worked at the Hamilton store at Old Faithful. Believe me, she showed us enough interesting hikes to keep one busy for weeks.

In Grand Teton, Coulter Bay RV park does have FHU. Taking the boat across Jenny Lake and hiking up Cascade Creek is an interesting experience, but busy. Our favorite hike is up to Amphitheater Lake. You end up right below Grand and Middle Tetons. Of course we see lots of mountains where we live, so Grand Teton isn't quite so exciting, so we probably split our time 80/20 YNP to GTNP. The thermal features are so unique they take a lot of our attention.