Yellowstone, Grand Teton and Glacier: the great Rockies road trip
Three national parks on one road, from the Tetons to the glaciers of Montana, by way of the geysers of Yellowstone. Twelve days from Jackson to Kalispell, with bison by the roadside and two great mountain roads.
From the Tetons to the glaciers of Montana
The trip starts in Jackson, Wyoming, at the foot of the Tetons. These peaks of granite and gneiss rise straight up from the valley, with no foothills. You take them in from Jenny Lake, the barns of Mormon Row or Oxbow Bend, where Mount Moran is reflected in the Snake River at sunrise.
Further north, Yellowstone steams all over: geysers, hot springs, mud pots. Bison cross the road in Hayden Valley and in Lamar Valley. You must stay at least 91 metres from bears and wolves, and 23 metres from other animals.
Two mountain roads frame the drive across Montana. The Beartooth Highway climbs to 3,337 metres, through tundra dotted with lakes. After the Great Plains, the Going-to-the-Sun Road crosses Glacier over Logan Pass, at 2,026 metres, on the Continental Divide.
The Yellowstone volcano
Yellowstone sits on a hotspot, a column of scorching rock rising beneath the Earth’s crust. Its last big eruption, about 631,000 years ago, left a huge collapsed basin, the caldera. The heat that remains feeds more than half of the world’s geysers, according to the National Park Service. The Yellowstone River has cut a canyon through volcanic rock turned yellow by hot water. The Lower Falls drop more than 90 metres there.
The colours of Grand Prismatic Spring, the largest hot spring in the United States, come from micro-organisms. Each species lives at a precise temperature. The species thus form rings of colour around the blue centre, which is too hot for life. Old Faithful erupts roughly every 100 minutes.
Yellowstone is the world’s first national park, created on 1 March 1872. The watercolours of Thomas Moran, painter on the 1871 Hayden expedition, and the photographs of William Henry Jackson helped to convince Congress. Yellowstone is also the only place in the United States where bison have lived continuously since prehistoric times.
Yellowstone is the world’s first national park, created on 1 March 1872.
Lewis and Clark and the Plains peoples
Between Bozeman and Glacier, the road follows the Lewis and Clark expedition, sent towards the Pacific by President Jefferson. From mid-June 1805, it took nearly a month to get around the falls of the Missouri, at Great Falls. In July, at Three Forks, it gave the three rivers that form the Missouri the names Jefferson, Madison and Gallatin.
Long before them, the Plains peoples hunted bison by driving them over a cliff. The First Peoples Buffalo Jump, near Ulm, is one of the largest sites of its kind in North America: a cliff about 1.6 kilometres long. East of Glacier, the road crosses the Blackfeet Reservation. In Browning, a museum tells the story of the Plains peoples. Running Eagle Falls is named after a woman warrior of this nation.
Dead Indian Pass
The Chief Joseph Scenic Byway follows the escape trail of Chief Joseph’s Nez Perce, pursued by the US Army in 1877. From the pass, at 2,460 metres, the view drops to the Clarks Fork valley and the hairpins of the road. It is far quieter than the Beartooth Highway.
Practical notes
- When to go
- Late June to mid-September. The Beartooth Highway and the Going-to-the-Sun Road close in winter; the second only opens all the way between late June and mid-July.
- Getting there
- Fly into Jackson Hole Airport and out of Glacier Park International, near Kalispell. A hire car returned in another state comes with a one-way fee.
- Access
- Almost everything is tarmac. The Moose-Wilson Road in Grand Teton, closed to long motorhomes, has roadworks until 2027, with closures: check its status. The central stretch of the Going-to-the-Sun Road is closed to vehicles over 6.4 metres long.
- Sleeping in a van
- Campsites in all three parks, to book months ahead for the summer. Wild camping is not allowed in the parks; the national forests nearby have spots for the night.
- Worth knowing
- Since 2026, non-residents pay a surcharge in all three parks; the non-resident annual pass soon pays for itself. At Logan Pass, parking was limited to three hours on a trial basis in 2026: check the rule for the year.
- Allow
- Twelve days from Jackson to Kalispell, two weeks to hike in Grand Teton and Glacier.
What not to miss
- 1Jenny LakeA boat crosses the lake to the trail for Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point.
- 2Mormon RowThe barns of the Mormon settlers, facing the Tetons, at sunrise or sunset.
- 3Mammoth Hot SpringsTerraces of white limestone, next to Fort Yellowstone, from where the army ran the park from 1886 to 1918.
- 4Lamar ValleyThe bison herds, and the wolves brought back in 1995, to look out for with binoculars.
- 5Many GlacierSwiftcurrent Lake and the trailheads for Grinnell Glacier and Iceberg Lake.
- 6Saint Mary LakeWild Goose Island and the peaks of Glacier, best seen at sunrise.
Yellowstone, Grand Teton and Glacier in pictures
Jenny Lake and the snow-capped Teton Range.
The Rockies table
On the menu, meat: bison steak, elk burger, chili. Trout is caught in the rivers and served grilled.
In Montana, huckleberries, a kind of wild blueberry, turn up in pies, ice cream and sodas. Bozeman and Red Lodge have their microbreweries.
Jackson → Kalispell
+40stops- 1George Washington Memorial Park · National Museum of Wildlife Art · Blacktail Butte
- 2Laurance S. Rockefeller Preserve · Chapel of the Transfiguration · Jenny Lake · Signal Mountain (Wyoming)
- 3Oxbow Bend Overlook · Abyss Pool · Dragon's Mouth Spring · Hayden Valley
Free, no account needed — start from its places and make it yours.
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