You will find them all over Yellowstone. Thousands are roaming the national park freely. 2000 pounds of muscles grunting and snorting. Yes, we are talking about the largest mammal in North America – the Bison.

Bison roaring directly at camera

I had seen bison before in Waterton National Park, but that is a small herd and they are confined within a smaller fenced area. When we arrived at Yellowstone the number of bison we saw just blew my mind!

Two bison looking at each other

The largest herds where in Lamar and Hayden Valley, but we literally saw bison everywhere. On the roads, which created a bit of a traffic jam. In the thermal areas, seems they didn’t care about the warning signs telling you not to walk outside of the wooden walkways. Well, to be honest there was numerous tourists ignoring those signs as well risking their life to get that perfect picture.

Bison crosses thermal feature

Bison blocking road in Yellowstone

The bison looks so calm while eating on the grasslands, but every year more people are hurt by bison than bears due to not keeping sufficient distance. These guys are big, but they can run at 30 mph. You are not going outrun them.

Bison with two birds on the back

Bison usually calf in early spring, so we didn’t have any hopes of seeing those adorable cute orange calves. They keep that reddish-orange colour for 10 weeks and we were visiting in September which should be well past that season. You could say we were very surprised and excited when we actually came across a herd that still had a younger one with the rusty orange colour.

Rust coloured baby bison and mama

Last rays of sun on mountains in Yellowstone

Aren’t these guys impressive? Have you had an exciting bison experience? Share it below, I’d love to hear about it!

Signature Inger

Reading suggestions for those traveling to Yellowstone National Park