Tetons-Yellowstone, Van I

Established in 1872, Yellowstone was America’s first national park, and the first such preserve in the entire world. Over the decades, the national-park idea has spread like wildfire; the National Park Service now oversees nearly 400 Park System Units, and worldwide nearly 7,000 national parks welcome visitors and protect important places. This great tour takes you through the park that planted that prolific seed — and also visits Grand Teton National Park, Yellowstone’s neighbor to the south.

Some of the sights you’ll visit on this ride are known throughout the world: Yellowstone’s famous bison and elk herds, the Teton Range, and Old Faithful Geyser, to name a handful. Others are less-known but no less spectacular: Mesa Falls, for instance, where the fabled Henry’s Fork of the Snake River flows in dramatic fashion off the lip of the Yellowstone Caldera in a pair of powerful waterfalls. Softer beauty also abounds: from cool forests of quaking aspen to a cow moose quietly enjoying her dinner in a roadside pond. Our group will take in all that this region has to offer, and we’ll do it in the relative luxury of our vansupported tour format.