Picnic area · Yellowstone National Park
Six picnic tables make an easy lunch stop between Mammoth and Norris.
Overview
Map
Plan your stop
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Yellowstone Tour Guide
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Yellowstone National Park. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
See the Yellowstone audio tourRecorded for this area
Mount Holmes Trailhead“Mount Holmes Trailhead is coming up, for a strenuous full-day climb to a wide mountain panorama. Allow ten to twelve hours and about three thousand feet of climbing; I'd save this for a planned hiking day.”
Plays on the road 0.3 mi from Apollinaris Spring Picnic Area in the Parkwolf Yellowstone Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
“First time driving through a national park. We used the Yellowstone tour on grand loop Road and it’s just like having a tour guide in your car with you.”
Guide
Apollinaris Spring Picnic Area is a small picnic stop on Grand Loop Road between Mammoth Hot Springs and Norris. It has six picnic tables and a vault toilet, with shade trees beside a meadow where Obsidian Creek flows. It’s a useful place to stop for lunch and stretch your legs mid-drive. Keep food, trash, coolers, and cooking gear in bear-proof storage whenever they aren’t in immediate use; overnight camping isn’t allowed in picnic areas.
The historic spring that gives the picnic area its name is a separate feature across Grand Loop Road. The tables and toilet are here; the spring’s small stone landscape is across the road.
Travelers stopped at the cold mineral spring by the 1880s. Its half-acre designed landscape dates to 1925: an 89-foot walkway edged in white travertine leads to an oval flagstone terrace. At one end, a boulder wall called the “drip fall” was built with four concealed tubes above a recessed trough. The curved stone paths and wall give the spring stop a story beyond its mineral water.
Wildlife
713 sightingsGrizzly BearMost seen around 6 AMSighting map
743 sightingsWolfMost seen around 6 AMSighting map
5,273 sightingsBisonMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
3,258 sightingsElkMost seen around 7 PMSighting map
397 sightingsMooseMost seen around 7 PMSighting map
1,494 sightingsBlack BearMost seen around 7 PMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Yellowstone. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
Keep exploring
ChallengingMount Holmes Trail21.6 mi · 11.5 hr · 0.3 mi awayA full-day climb from Winter Creek meadows to a 10,336-foot summit.
ChallengingTrilobite Lake Trail15.6 mi · 8.5 hr · 0.3 mi awayA long climb to a quiet lake beneath Mount Holmes.
ModerateGrizzly Lake Trail4.2 mi · 3 hr · 3.1 mi awayA creek bridge, steep fire-scarred climb, and lake between ridges.
Sight · 1.3 mi awayObsidian CliffA brief roadside stop for 11,000 years of toolmaking history.
Picnic area · 2.2 mi awayBeaver Lake Picnic AreaNine tables make this a useful break between Norris and Mammoth.
Campground · 3.1 mi awayIndian Creek CampgroundA quieter camp with Electric Peak views and fewer services.
Sight · 3.4 mi awaySheepeater CliffWalk right up to a wall of six-sided basalt columns.
Sight · 4.3 mi awayRoaring MountainA quick pullout for Yellowstone's steam-vented chalky hillside.Parkwolf’s Yellowstone ranking
The audio tour guide for the drive, plus offline maps, trails, and wildlife heatmaps for when the signal drops.
