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Montana

Choose Your Pace: A Walk on the Wild Side in Yellowstone

Program No. 4874RJ
Hike Yellowstone with a naturalist, exploring hidden trails, stunning landscapes, diverse ecosystems and glacier-carved peaks in the world’s first national park.

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climate
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Select your type of room
Price will update based on selection
Prices displayed below are based on per person,doubleoccupancy.
DATES & starting prices
PRICES
Aug 21 - Aug 26, 2023
Starting at
3,049
Sep 4 - Sep 9, 2023
Starting at
3,049
Sep 18 - Sep 23, 2023
Starting at
3,049
Sep 25 - Sep 30, 2023
Starting at
3,049
May 20 - May 25, 2024
Starting at
3,449
Jun 3 - Jun 8, 2024
Starting at
3,449
Aug 12 - Aug 17, 2024
Starting at
3,449
Sep 2 - Sep 7, 2024
Starting at
3,449
Sep 16 - Sep 21, 2024
Starting at
3,449
Sep 23 - Sep 28, 2024
Starting at
3,449
DATES & starting prices
PRICES
Aug 21 - Aug 26, 2023
Starting at
3,649
Filling Fast!
Sep 4 - Sep 9, 2023
Starting at
3,649
Filling Fast!
Sep 18 - Sep 23, 2023
Starting at
3,649
Filling Fast!
Sep 25 - Sep 30, 2023
Starting at
3,649
May 20 - May 25, 2024
Starting at
4,099
Jun 3 - Jun 8, 2024
Starting at
4,099
Aug 12 - Aug 17, 2024
Starting at
4,099
Sep 2 - Sep 7, 2024
Starting at
4,099
Filling Fast!
Sep 16 - Sep 21, 2024
Starting at
4,099
Sep 23 - Sep 28, 2024
Starting at
4,099

At a Glance

Yellowstone National Park offers 1,200 miles of hiking, walking and backpacking trails that wind through the park’s 2.2 million acres of spectacular and mostly untouched terrain. Led by a naturalist, explore pathways that thread through Yellowstone’s matchless landscape of diverse flora, thermal features, landforms, canyons, cascades and waterways.
Activity Level
Outdoor: Choose Your Pace
Choose Your Pace: Each day, choose from 3 hiking options based on your desired level of challenge and pace, ranging from 3-7 miles (2-6 hours) on primarily dirt/rocky trails with uneven terrain; some walking/hiking on boardwalks with stairs and paved trails. 2-4 hours each day in SUVs traveling to trailheads. Elevations of 5,800-10,243.
Small Group
Small Group
Love to learn and explore in a small-group setting? These adventures offer small, personal experiences with groups of 13 to 24 participants.

Best of all, you’ll…

  • Absorb a spectacular and mostly untouched landscape while hiking a fragment of Yellowstone's 1,200 miles of backpacking, hiking and walking trails.
  • Enjoy tantalizing glimpses of the Great Caldera’s infinite wonders.
  • Discover an instructor’s interpretation as those observations enhance your hiking field trips and provide an intimate portrait of the park’s wildlife, habitats and geology.

General Notes

Maximum of 12 participants in a hiking group. Participants are generally divided into three groups to hike.
Featured Expert
All Experts
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Leslie Stoltz
Raised and educated in the Finger Lakes region of New York, Leslie Stoltz now lives in Big Sky, Montana, surrounded by the wild places that she loves. Her decade of work for the National Park Service in Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks in the areas of research and education provided a wonderful foundation for her career as a teacher and park expert. Since the early 1990s, Leslie has worked for a variety of companies and non-profit organizations, teaching classes and leading trips in national parks and wild areas throughout the American West. Farther afield, she has led educational trips to Nepal, Bhutan, Tanzania, Botswana, Ecuador, and Mexico. Leslie also runs a non-profit with a mission to keep kids connected to the outdoors though scholarship opportunities for outdoor learning experiences.

Please note: This expert may not be available for every date of this program.

Profile Image of Leslie Stoltz
Leslie Stoltz View biography
Raised and educated in the Finger Lakes region of New York, Leslie Stoltz now lives in Big Sky, Montana, surrounded by the wild places that she loves. Her decade of work for the National Park Service in Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks in the areas of research and education provided a wonderful foundation for her career as a teacher and park expert. Since the early 1990s, Leslie has worked for a variety of companies and non-profit organizations, teaching classes and leading trips in national parks and wild areas throughout the American West. Farther afield, she has led educational trips to Nepal, Bhutan, Tanzania, Botswana, Ecuador, and Mexico. Leslie also runs a non-profit with a mission to keep kids connected to the outdoors though scholarship opportunities for outdoor learning experiences.
Profile Image of Denise Wade
Denise Wade View biography
The love of the outdoors and wild places brought Denise Wade to Montana in 1984. For the past 11 years, Denise has worked as a naturalist and Nordic leader for Lone Mountain Ranch. She has an avid interest in ecosystem management and has taken many trips to Alaska, Mexico, Costa Rica, Europe, and within the continental U.S. following species habitat management patterns. Denise can be found regularly hiking or cross-country skiing around Southwest Montana and Yellowstone National Park.
Profile Image of Cathy Raven
Cathy Raven View biography
Catherine Raven, a Road Scholar instructor since 1999, has a botany/zoology degree from The University of Montana and a PhD in biology from Montana State University. She is the author of “Fox and I: An Uncommon Friendship” that was a New York Times bestseller, winner of the PEN/EO Wilson Award for Literary Science Writing and the Nautilus Gold Award for animals/nature writing. A former park ranger at Glacier, Yellowstone, Mount Rainier, Voyageurs, and North Cascades National Parks, Cathy currently teaches undergraduates at South University.
Profile Image of Charlie Pyle
Charlie Pyle View biography
Charlie Pyle grew up on a family farm in Oklahoma, and he became enthralled with the Rocky Mountains and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem on family trips to Montana in the 1950’s. In Charlie’s long and distinguished career, he’s led trips to Alaska and Yellowstone National Park as a Girl Scout leader and served as a program assistant at the Lamar Buffalo Ranch and in Gardiner for the Yellowstone Association Institute, a volunteer park host at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge, and a Wilderness First Responder.
Profile Image of Andrea Saari
Andrea Saari View biography
Andrea completed her bachelor’s in Ecology and went on to work as a bird field biologist in the summers and a ski-bum in the winters. She has been in Big Sky since 2003 working as a ski and snowboard instructor, as well as a naturalist guide in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. These days she can be found on the trails within the Gallatin National Forest and Yellowstone National Park, interpreting how everything in the ecosystem works together and the important role humans play as stewards.
Profile Image of Ruth Hauri
Ruth Hauri View biography
Ruth Hauri was born and raised in central Switzerland. Many years ago she had an apprenticeship as a medical assistant, allowing her the opportunity to travel and explore the world. While in Mexico she met a man from Kentucky who became her husband. Ruth’s husband was a semi driver, so together they explored the United States. Ruth is excited to work as a coordinator for the University of Montana Western Road Scholar programs and have the opportunity to meet people from different fields and interests.
Profile Image of Kathy Lichtendahl
Kathy Lichtendahl View biography
As a resident of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem for more than 25 years, Kathy Lichtendahl has spent much of that time hiking, backpacking and skiing the area. Kathy was a member of Park County Search and Rescue for a dozen years and now works as a professional conservation photographer covering the wildlife and landscapes of the western United States. Kathy is a certified interpretive group leader through the National Association for Interpretation.
Profile Image of Louis Spencer
Louis Spencer View biography
Louis Spencer spent more than 35 years in the Middle East as a student, teacher, traveler, and group leader. He studied in Beirut in the 1960s, traveled extensively in the region, then worked in Algeria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia for three decades. During that time, he led groups with an international travel agency to East Africa, Middle Eastern countries, and Asia. He also volunteered with Yellowstone Association for nine years before joining up with Road Scholar.
Profile Image of Zack Baker
Zack Baker View biography
Zack Baker attended high school in Livingston, Montana, 52 miles north of Yellowstone. His love for the park started while snowshoeing and observing wildlife. At Montana State University in Bozeman, he earned a B.S. in plant science, but it was Yellowstone’s mammals that grabbed his interest. He led private wildlife watching, hiking, and photography trips, and drove snowcoaches in the winter. He joined up with Road Scholar in 2017 and is now the Program Director for Road Scholar at the University of Montana Western.
Profile Image of Shauna Baron
Shauna Baron View biography
Shauna Baron holds a B.S. in Biology and a M.S. in Science Education. She has more than 25 years of experience as an outdoor educator, studying large and small carnivores throughout the U.S., including wolves, bears, fishers, and bobcats. Shauna saw her first wild wolf while volunteering for the Yellowstone Wolf Project in 1996 and has since worked as a naturalist in Yellowstone National Park, developing outdoor educational classes for the Yellowstone Institute. She specializes in programs for disabled veterans, inner-city youth, and autistic groups.
Profile Image of Virginia Shoup
Virginia Shoup View biography
Virginia Shoup comes to Yellowstone with a long history in outdoor education and the Girl Scouts. She first worked in the park in 2012, thinking it would be a fun summer job. After falling in love with the animals, thermals, and even the lodgepole pines, she never left. Over her years as a Yellowstone naturalist, Virginia has worked with families, teachers, school groups, and everyone in between. She uses her degree in theater to make the natural world come alive for students of all ages.
Visit the Road Scholar Bookshop
You can find many of the books we recommend at the Road Scholar store on bookshop.org, a website that supports local bookstores.
Restoring a Presence: American Indians and Yellowstone National Park
by Peter Nabokov and Lawrence Loendorf
This first comprehensive account of Indians in and around Yellowstone corrects more than a century of ignorance. Detailed here is Yellowstone's native peoples and their story of a long engagement with a remarkable landscape.
Searching for Yellowstone: Ecology and Wonder in the Last Wilderness
by Paul Schullery
Eloquent, elegant, truthful and practical - an environmental history of America's best idea, Yellowstone.
Yellowstone Place Names, 2nd edition
by Lee Whittlesey
Yellowstone National Park Historian's well-researched and entertaining reference source for information on many of Yellowstone's place names and their origins.
To Save the Wild Bison: Life on the Edge in Yellowstone
by Mary Ann Franke
The author brings clarity and revelation to one of Yellowstone's most complex struggles by tracing the history of bison and humans into the 19th century and further into the national parks era. Here's discussion of bison management and park policy - the battle over brucellosis, snowmobiles and groomed winter roads, desires of Native Americans, bison and predators.
Rough Trip Through Yellowstone, The Epic Winter Expedition of Emerson Hough, F. Jay Haynes and Billy Hofer
by Emerson Hough (Author) and Scott Herring (Editor)
Forest and Stream magazine sent one of its most talented writers, Emerson Hough, to Yellowstone in 1894 to document the decline in bison numbers. Hough, legendary guide Billy Hofer, pioneering photographer F. Jay Haynes and other incredibly tough individuals set out on a 200-mile expedition into Yellowstone's frigid, snow-blanketed landscape. Aboard cumbersome, 12-foot-long wooden skies, these tough men scoured Yellowstone's winter terrain to put together a thorough census of the park's bison and elk. Hough wrote up the expedition in a series of 14 articles which resulted in Congress ultimately passing the anti-poaching Lacey Act and helped turn public opinion against a proposed railroad through the park. His witty and entertaining articles are a wonderful description of winter travel in the park in 1894, immensely entertaining and historically significant. Includes nine historic Yellowstone National Park photos by F. Jay Haynes
Decade of the Wolf, revised and updated edition: Returning the Wild to Yellowstone
by Douglas W. Smith and Gary Ferguson
Research and storytelling meld to document wolf recovery in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Wolf biologist, Smith, and nature writer, Ferguson, provide an inside look at the Yellowstone Wolf Recovery Project ten years after the controversial decision was made by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services to reintroduce wolves into the park. Smith, wolf project leader who has worked with the Yellowstone Wolf Project since its inception, has studied wolves for 25 years. Ferguson, whose writing largely arises from intimate experiences, followed through the seasons, the first 14 wolves released into Yellowstone National Park. Their collaboration offers hard facts and 'impressionistic portraits of individual wolves that reveal their epic lives full of struggle and conquest.' Here is the history of the return of the top predator to Yellowstone.
After the Fires: The Ecology of Change in Yellowstone National Park
by Linda Wallace, Editor
The ravaging fires of 1988 caused many scientists to predict long-term devastation which did not come to pass. This scientific summary by wildlife biologists, ecosystem and forest scientists and landscape ecologists discusses the many things that changed and did not change in the Yellowstone area. Realize the role of fire in the ecosystem and the resiliency of nature.
Roadside Geology of Yellowstone Country
by William Fritz & Robert Thomas
Updated, classic roadside geology book for the Yellowstone Region explains current geological theories.





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