Yellowstone Pack Trips

Welcome to Yellowstone National Park! Established in 1872, Yellowstone National Park is America's first national park. Located in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, it is home to a large variety of wildlife including grizzly bears, wolves, bison, and elk. Preserved within Yellowstone National Park are Old Faithful and a collection of the world's most extraordinary geysers and hot springs, and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

If you are ready to take an amazing trip into some of the most remote landscapes in the United States these rides are for you. In co-operation with an experienced local horseback riding concession holder and guide, we can arrange professionally guided and accredited horseback trips inside the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park. The gentle horses and mules will carry both you and your belongings to comfortable camps surrounded by the pristine scenery of America's favorite National Park. Well trained guides will prepare delicious meals, see to your comforts, and create a cozy camp atmosphere. Everything is provided except the guests clothing and personal items.

We invite you to come join us on your next vacation and experience Yellowstone National Park on horseback!

Here are a couple of our most popular and sought after trips in the Yellowstone National Park in the USA. These are for people who are comfortable riding 60 to 70 miles in wilderness situations over a 5 day period. We ride with our pack string so it is often at a walk but the back country terrain doesn't give us much opportunity to do more than that due to the roughness. Yellowstone is a very large place so we never run out of places to ride.

Washburn Expedition Ride - Yellowstone Lake (5 Day)

With Special Guest: Dr. Kim Alan Scott; Author of Yellowstone Denied: The life of Gustavus Cheney Doane.

Enjoy your Yellowstone National park vacation by horseback with our trip entitled The Washburn Expedition. The Washburn Expedition is a progressive travel trip of fifty to sixty miles following the route of General Henry Dana Washburn as he and several other men discovered the Upper Yellowstone and worked diligently to make it a national park. This trip will both explore the rugged wilderness of this region and discuss the history that has helped to shape this area.

A native of Vermont, General Henry Dana Washburn, following the Civil War, was appointed surveyor general of Montana in 1869. In 1870 he headed the Washburn-Langford-Doane expedition to find the headwaters of the Yellowstone River and discover what is now known as Yellowstone National Park.

Joining us for this expedition is special guest Dr. Kim Alan Scott, author of Yellowstone Denied: The Life of Gustavus Cheney Doane (University of Oklahoma Press, 2007). Captain Gustavus Cheney Doane was a member of the Washburn-Langford-Doane expedition.

We will stay along Lake Yellowstone our first night, then move down and ford the Yellowstone River, each day discussing the trip and trials of the Washburn, Langford, Doane party. Our last night will be spent on the shores of Heart Lake discussing the perils of Truman Everts, one of Washburns party, who was lost for 37 days and faced life and death perils. We will also discuss the current values of the National Park system set in motion by this historic party. Our information is pulled from the published journals and papers of the members of this party.

Mirror Plateau Ride (5 Day)

For the curious adventurer seeking sights few have travelled to see, this horseback vacation trip is for you. This pack trip will take you to secluded areas of Yellowstone National Park which have limited access. The landscape is pristine with remote thermal spring areas that few people have seen. The land is also dotted with old buffalo salt licks left over from the time when the park service used to ranch buffalo.

This horse pack trip is designed for fun exploration. We are currently working on scheduling a retired ranger as an expert guide for part of the time, and he will enlighten us with some of the unique history of this secluded area of Yellowstone National Park.

Our trail will start out at Pelican Creek Trailhead, head 12 miles through the bear management area to Astringent Creek, and then onto the Mirror Plateau. Once on the Plateau we will camp at two different sites and explore outward from them each day until we return home down our original trail.

The history up on the Mirror Plateau is fantastic. It was one of the possible hiding places for Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce indians, (best known for his resistance to the U.S. Government's attempts to force his tribe onto reservations) when he fled from the army in 1877. There are tipi rings left by them on the rim of the plateau over looking the Lamar Canyon.

When the Park service was raising buffalo to save the almost extinct herd they ran bison up here. The evidence still lies in the form of carved out logs used as salt lick and old trails. There is also evidence of new and historic forest fires that have shaped the landscape in this wild place. You will see all of this and plentiful wildlife including buffalo, grizzly bear, elk, moose, deer, wolves, and coyotes.

If you are looking for an intimate look at wildlife off the beaten path of Yellowstone National Park, this is the adventure for you.

Thorofare ride (6 Day)

Come with us as we follow the trails of fur traders and trappers who traveled north and south through this area between 1806 and the 1840s. Sit before our campfire and learn the stories of mountain men who have passed through this area like Jim Bridger and Osborne Russell. Hear the stories of rangers capturing poachers who tried to take advantage of these remote places.

This trip is a progressive travel trip where we will move every day and see new scenery and new places. Our gentle horses will cover some miles as we wind along the Yellowstone Lake, then follow the Upper Yellowstone River where few people go. We'll ride below the Trident, along the Thorofare River or at least to its confluence with the Yellowstone River. It will be some of the most amazing scenery you will ever see in your life. For the photography enthusiast, bring your camera. We will ride an average of 12 miles a day and cover close to 70 miles by the end of the trip.

And although this trip isn't a designated trout fly fishing trip, bring your fly rod along. There will be places every evening to fish, and the resident Yellowstone Cutthroat here, though small in numbers, are not small in size.

You will have the opportunity to see abundant wildlife. While guiding trips in the area we have seen grizzly bears, gray wolves, moose, elk, mule deer, bison and black bear.

Hoodoo Basin Ride - (5 Day)

On this vacation by horseback, we will explore a remote and often forgotten part of Yellowstone National Park. Retired park ranger John Lounsbury will join us in our exploration of the Lamar River Canyon. The canyon is home to wolves, bear, and buffalo. Our destination will be the base of Parker Peak where we’ll explore the Hoodoo Basin with its wonderful wind weathered formations and haunting solitude. This is a progressive trip that will take us to Yellowstone’s eastern boundary deep in the Absaroka Range.

The Hoodoo Basin lies at the head of the Lamar River within the farthest reaches of the Upper Lamar region below Parker Peak. A Hoodoo is an eerie looking wind eroded geological feature cut into erodible rock.

Our journey will begin at the Soda Butte trailhead. From here we will head into the Lamar River Canyon. We will cross Cache Creek and the Calfee Creek before turning up Miller Creek to its head waters. From here we will head up the switchback trail toward Parker Peak before dropping down into the Upper Lamar region below Hoodoo Peak where the wildlife is abundant. Elk, deer, moose and buffalo all roam within the canyon. There are abundant predators as well: wolves, grizzly bear, and black bear.

This region’s history is rich with Native American tales. We will travel portions of Chief Joseph’s trail as he fled from the U.S. Army in 1877 trying to save his people. There are places high within the mountains where local tribes went to knap flint into knives, spear points, and arrowheads. You can still see evidence of these places today. Gathered around the evening campfire, we’ll discuss tales of the Sheep Eater Indians and Chief Joseph’s flight. We will also discuss how the army tried to protect the fledgling Yellowstone National park, poachers and their part in the wild life management, as well as fire ecology, and the Folsom, Peterson, Cook Expedition of 1869. Join us and become mesmerized by the solitude of Yellowstone’s Hoodoo Basin

Geysers and Waterfalls in the Bechler Region - (6 Day)

Thousands of years ago when the Yellowstone National Park region was a caldera, after the volcano blew, it began to fill with water collecting from snow melt and summer rains. Eventually the walls of the old volcano could no longer withstand the weight of the water and a fissure erupted allowing that water to rush out. That rushing water came down a canyon we now call the Bechler River Canyon named for Gustav Bechler who was a topographer who rode with the 1871 Hayden Survey as they verified the findings of the Washburn, Langford F. Doane expedition of 1870.

This year our six day trip will begin near Old Faithful at Kepler Cascades and take us to our first camp at the Lone Star Geyser Basin. We will then cross the Continental Divide in three places as we visit the Shoshone Geyser Basin at the head of Shoshone Lake and then continue to Douglas Knob. Our next stop will be at Three River's Junction where we will take a dip in the Hot Pots. The following day's ride will take us all the way down the canyon, past a half a dozen waterfalls and into the beautiful Bechler Meadows.

This area is acclaimed for wide meadows containing tall grasses and shallow sloughs with spectacular views of the Teton Mountains to the south, and the Madison Plateau to the north. To the east is the rim of the mysterious Pitchstone Plateau, a place with only few sketchy watering holes making travel across it nearly impossible.

The Bechler region is called the Cascade Corner. Waterfalls drop from the plateaus into the meadows. The canyon is spectacular, one water fall after another broken in between by cascades and cataracts. When we ride up the canyon we will stop and feel the mist from some of the falls and you will have the opportunity to take some very exciting photos. After this we will ford the river at a number of places, leading the pack string up to their bellies through the clear cold waters.

Bechler is a photographer’s paradise. There is nowhere one can look without finding something worth capturing on film. Wild flowers, wild life, waterfalls, horse and people, hot springs or the Grand Tetons, all are right here.

Beside photography, the Bechler region is filled with swimming holes for the family or just friends. There are hot springs, warm water falls, and comfortable pools to swim in. Whether cooling off on a hot summer day or taking a warming dip on a cool fall day, the water is always inviting.

Experience moose walking through the meadows and eagles nesting in trees over looking the river. This is a once in a lifetime wilderness experience.

Other options (please enquire)

Slough Creek Ride (4 days)

Sportsman's Lake Ride (3 days)

Black Butte Trail (3 days)

Northwest Corner Ride (4 days)

Trip summary

Group price guide per person from 8-2 riders

Quality horses
Fast riding pace
Accommodation standard

Dramatic scenery
Sunny weather
Cultural interest