Bozeman and Yellowstone

We flew into Bozeman from New York, but the reason was Yellowstone, 89 miles away at the far end of the Gallatin Canyon, which made Bozeman the base. It is a college town under the Bridger Mountains, and its Main Street is a row of early-20th-century brick storefronts that now hold breweries and wine bars. We tried the beer at one of the breweries, and liked it.

Stay downtown, where everything is a walk, and accept that Main Street is also a truck route and not perfectly quiet at night. Our room did its job, which was all we asked of it: we had come for Bozeman and the wildlife and wilderness around it, not the hotel. The courtyard was the find, fires going, and for a first evening we thought it the best seat in town.

On the way, we detoured west past Twin Bridges and Dillon to Bannack, a gold-rush ghost town. The one of us who was not keen admits it was kind of cool. Then Yellowstone, by car, about 45 minutes in from West Yellowstone to the geyser basins, where the ground steams. The hot pools come in colours that look mixed by hand, and Grand Prismatic Spring is best from the hillside above it, a blue pool in an orange rim. Old Faithful went up while we watched. The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone really is yellow, with the Lower Falls dropping into it and, in June, the last of the snow still on the ledges.

Come between June and September. April and May are mud season on both sides, trails turned to bog, and from around 7 November to 15 April the West Entrance is shut to cars and West Yellowstone belongs to the snowmobiles and snowcoaches. June is inside the window, which is not the same as warm.

West Yellowstone is one street of timber-fronted motels and outfitters. We slept ten minutes from the West Entrance, in a tent with a wood burner that still left it cold enough inside to see our breath, and on the first morning the phone read 3°C and snow showers. The bed was as cosy as the air was not. Over the camp were more stars than we had seen from New York, which has never really tried.