Afternoon: Arrive at lodgings in Jackson; check-in between 4 and 5 pm.

Dinner: Welcome Dinner at downtown restaurant

Evening: Orientation and Introductions

Lodging: 49er Inn and Suites

Meals Included: Dinner

Breakfast: Expanded continental breakfast at hotel

Morning: Introductory presentation of the Greater Yellowstone Area: an overview of the largest intact, temperate ecosystem on earth whose habitat continues to preserve the nation's wildlife heritage. Lodgings check-out. Docent-led tour of the National Museum of Wildlife Art. The museum contains approximately 4,000 works of art; its exhibitions and programs focus on wildlife of the world.

Lunch: Lunch at museum restaurant

Afternoon: Snake River scenic float offers pristine riparian habitat, exquisite views of the Teton Mountain Range, natural history interpretation. Expect to see waterfowl, songbirds, shorebirds, possibly deer. Continue north through Teton National Park for check-in at Jackson Lake Lodge Cabins.

Dinner: Dinner at Jackson Lake Lodge Dining Room.

Evening: Free evening; optional wildlife viewing from the back balcony overlook. Expect to see moose activity.

Lodging: Jackson Lake Lodge Cabins

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Breakfast: Breakfast Buffet at Jackson Lake Lodge Dining Room

Morning: Continue exploration of Teton National Park with a morning boat trip across jewel-like Jenny Lake where a backdrop of the mighty Teton Peaks stuns the senses. Enjoy a moderate 1/2 mile hike to Hidden Falls, truly hidden and delightful.

Lunch: sack lunches at String Lake

Afternoon: Learn of early settlers in the Jackson Hole area; visit historic Chapel of Transfiguration and Menor's Ferry. Explore Discovery/Visitor Center at Moose.

Dinner: Dinner at Jackson Lake Lodge

Evening: Free evening for scenic and wildlife viewing aided by spotting scopes. Several walking and hiking paths on and near Lodge grounds.

Lodging: Jackson Lake Lodge Cabins

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Breakfast: Breakfast buffet at Jackson Lake Lodge Dining Room

Morning: Morning presentation is a snapshot of Yellowstone's Geology. Depart Teton National Park and journey north into Yellowstone country. Exploration will include either the Grant area or West Thumb Geyser Basin. Grant Visitor Center highlights, via exhibits and film, fire’s role in the ecosystem. Learn of the historic fires that swept through the area in 1988. Continue along Yellowstone Lake's wooded shoreline to West Thumb. The West Thumb Geyser Basin showcases some of the park’s deepest and most colorful hot springs. It is speculated that the Basin’s heat source is only 10,000 feet down! The thermal features here extend under the surface of the lake as well as along the shore. Climb westward from here and traverse 8,262' Craig Pass.

Lunch: Picnic lunch enroute

Afternoon: Enter the Upper Geyser Basin, home to the world's largest concentration of geysers. Here is the world's best known and most beloved hydrothermal feature - Old Faithful - offering thousands of gallons of scalding water and billowing steam gushing skyward with each eruption. What a grand welcome to the Old Faithful area. Check in at Old Faithful Snow Lodge. Become acquainted with the grounds - Old Faithful Visitor Center, Old Faithful Inn, Old Faithful Lodge and Old Hamilton Store.

Dinner: Dinner at Old Faithful Snow Lodge Dining Room.

Evening: Free evening to enjoy the Old Faithful area; relax, take an evening geyser walkabout, revisit the Visitor Center, enjoy an ice cream.

Lodging: Old Faithful Snow Lodge

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Breakfast: Breakfast buffet at Snow Lodge Dining Room.

Morning: An in-depth exploration of the Upper Geyser Basin is led by your naturalist among hot springs, mudpots, fumaroles and geysers with splendid names - Grand, Plume, Beehive, Castle, Lion, Doublet. Find out about the hotspot beneath Yellowstone and the resulting geologic processes of volcanism, earthquakes, faulting and large-scale movement of the earth's crust. Alternatively, enjoy a tour of historic Old Faithful Inn with historian/author.

Lunch: Picnic lunch enroute

Afternoon: Discovery continues among Firehole River Valley thermal basins - Midway Geyser Basin, Fountain Paint Pot and Firehole Lake Drive. Several walks each day, up to two miles on moderate terrain - trails, stairs and boardwalks.

Dinner: Dinner at Old Faithful Snow Lodge Dining Room.

Evening: Optional ranger presentation.

Lodging: Old Faithful Snow Lodge

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Breakfast: Breakfast buffet at Old Faithful Snow Lodge.

Morning: Bid goodbye to Old Faithful and carry on to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, a massive and splendid wonder that is 20 miles long, 800' to 1200' deep and 1,500' to 4,000' wide. Time at Canyon's new Visitor Education Center offers state-of-the-art geology exhibits and insight into the world of Yellowstone today as well as a journey into its volcanic past. Here are interactive exhibits, animations, audio-visual productions and real-time scientific data that reveal the Yellowstone volcano and show how its geysers, hot springs and geologic history shape the distribution and abundance of all life found here today.

Lunch: Picnic lunches in the Canyon area.

Afternoon: An exploratory walk along the Canyon's South Rim to famed Artist Point Overlook reveals stunning geology, views of spectacular Upper and Lower Falls and the lovely pastel shades that describe perpendicular canyon walls, beautifully tinted by hot water's action on volcanic rock. Consider the geologic processes that created this mighty work - glaciers, a volcanic eruption, lava flows and huge ice dams. A late afternoon departure via Hayden Valley brings explorers to Yellowstone Lake's extensive 110-mile shoreline. The lake itself, an alpine lake extending 136 square miles, is so large that it often creates its own weather. Interpretation includes discussion of its fisheries, the fascinating volcanic activity taking place beneath its surface, the area's human history. Expect to see waterfowl, shorebirds, pelicans, perhaps moose. Arrive and check in at stately Lake Hotel, the "Grand Lady of the Lake." Architect Robert Reamer engineered its renovation in 1903, adding false balconies, ionic columns and extending the roof. The Hotel was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991, its centennial year.

Dinner: Dinner at Lake Hotel Dining Room.

Evening: Free evening to enjoy the hotel's spacious, glassed-in Sun Room with comfortable seating from which to enjoy the grand view of beautiful Yellowstone Lake, piano music and conversation or...time for leisurely strolling about the historic hotel grounds.

Lodging: Lake Hotel

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Breakfast: Breakfast buffet at Lake Hotel Dining Room.

Morning: Travel northward tracing the mighty Yellowstone River as it exits Yellowstone Lake to finally break out into Hayden Valley's vast, wide open spaciousness. The Hayden, a former lake bed, is now a shrub and grasslands habitat that supports a myriad of grazing critters from small rodents to large ungulates. And of course, scavengers and predators. Keep watch; you may spot bison, coyote, elk, raven, grizzly bear and birds of prey. Consider predator/prey dynamics, carrying capacity, wolf reintroduction. Keep camera and binoculars at the ready. Depart for the Mammoth area via 8,859' Dunraven Pass.

Lunch: Lunch at Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel Dining Room

Afternoon: Walk the Mammoth Terraces to observe her ever changing, graceful travertine beauty; boardwalk, asphalt path and several hundred stairsteps (downhill). About two tons of travertine are deposited daily as hot, mineral-laden water wells up from beneath the earth's crust to add to terraces that began building thousands of years ago. Visit the Albright Visitor Center and Museum, built by the US cavalry during "Fort Yellowstone" times for history themed and predator-prey themed exhibits, the Moran and Jackson Galleries. Tour historic Fort Yellowstone. Mammoth is now the administrative center for Yellowstone National Park

Dinner: Picnic supper in the park.

Evening: Evening return to Lake Hotel. Enjoy evening's distinctive light and watch for wildlife.

Lodging: Lake Hotel

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Breakfast: Breakfast buffet at Lake Hotel Dining Room

Morning: Depart Lake Hotel for Jackson Hole and Grand Teton National Park. Enjoy this visual review with supplementary interpretation while retracing the journey through both national parks. Appreciate time at the Colter Bay Visitor Center and its Indian Arts Museum in Teton National Park.

Lunch: Picnic lunches enroute

Afternoon: A relaxing two-mile lakeside hike is a fitting closure for the grand discovery. Arrive Jackson, Wy for lodgings check-in.

Dinner: Dinner at Jackson restaurant

Evening: Program Closing and Goodbyes

Lodging: 49er Inn and Suites

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Breakfast: Expanded continental breakfast at hotel

Morning: Independent departures

Meals Included: Breakfast