I can tell you about all the animals I saw (which I will) but I want to take the time to review the feeling that I (we) felt and why you need to take the trip. I thought the trip was a bit expensive but I booked it anyway for two of us and by the end of the tour I felt they didn’t charge enough and I’ll explain why. First of all, our tour guide, Gary picked us up promptly at the designated time as well as another couple. He was vocal, upbeat and just loving life. We didn’t know, but he would change the way we look at the world. He was a Forest Ranger with over 30 years of experience in the field. You never realize how important this would be. Our drive to the park, yet icy and snowy, at the end of May was amazing. We fired off questions about history, animals, LIFE in general and he was more than obliged to answer them all. Knowledge is power and this tour was powerful. Yellowstone Park is not only educational but it is emotional and I wasn’t prepared. We were informed of the types of soils and rocks, what is in the waters, eco systems, how apex predators affect everything else in the food chain and how changing any part of the dynamic could be detrimental to life and fires which can still affect what you see within the park. You never think of any of this stuff until you have a tour guide like Gary. He knew it all. He had all sorts of reference material to assist and maps of all sorts. Nature does not need humans to sustain but humans need nature and this tour will show you just that. The animals are wild and as you witness herds of bison set upon a backdrop of snow capped mountain or free flowing waterfalls flowing over 2 million old rocks, you can’t help but think what life used to be when Louis and Clark came through, or the Indians when they lived on this land or dating back to what the ice fields looked like and the ice age floods. Emotional. Gary helped walk us through all of this. Gary is an extensively trained professional and it definitely paid off. My husband had studied the wildlife in the park, declining animal rates and introduction of new animals and how it was done. Gary knew this and expanded on it which was amazing. I studied the history of the park and Gary expanded on all of this. It was a guided tour with every stop we took and it was definitely a full day. We saw bison, gray wolves, big horned sheep on the side of mountains, black bears right next to us, a fox, bald eagles, osprey, bison, elk, squirrels, ducks and all sorts of other birds. These were amazing to witness in their natural habitat. Old faithful blowing was probably the most emotional for me. As I stand and anxiously wait for this geyser to erupt, I think how this amazing park is showing humans that we need to get it together and preserve all this beauty. The geyser begins to boil and then erupts. The mantle of our Earth’s crust is being witnessed as hot water spouting in front of us as a volcano below the surface. The true testament of time which shifts as our plates shift. Amazing. Timed and predictable, this geyser showed us history over thousands of years, reveal itself from the inside out; to be soaked into the soil and plume of smoke to lessen until next time. The different hot springs all over the park were a sight to see; our earth boiling but cultivating life with its heat. The prismatic springs which is the spectrum of life, Gary educated us as to the reason for all the colors produced by nature. The waterfalls were breathtaking. The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone dated itself with the Rhyolite siding and erosion from the elements and history. The old faithful inn is a site to see and the history behind it, the Yellowstone Lake is beautiful and I could go on and on. This tour was amazing and Gary made it over the top. He was a wealth of knowledge and the price of the tour is 100% worth it. You can’t recreate any of these moments again, the moment in time you snap your picture is frozen in that moment. What you will remember are the smells and the way it made you feel but you can’t recreate it. Take the trip, learn to do better with preservation wherever you are, get educated before you go and request Gary, you will not regret it. Take-the-trip.