Yellowstone National Park / Wyoming
From the 50 State Visitor Guide (Wyoming):
Wyo. Stat. 2019 §§7-19-301 through 7-19-320
AWA Compliant
Registration Triggers and Deadlines:
3 business days for
initial registration and updates, including temporary trips and vacations.
“Temporary residence” includes hotels, motels, camping areas & parks. §7-19-301(xi)(C).
Visitors must register within 3 business days. §7-19-302(c)(iv).
Per Rolfe Survey, visiting registrants once
placed on state’s registry ARE NOT REMOVED.
Residency/Presence and Other Restrictions:
Residence
restriction: Adults “who are
required to register … pursuant to §7-19-302” may not reside within 1,000 ft. from
schools. §6-2-320.
Presence
restrictions: Adults “who are required to register …
pursuant to §7-19-302” may not enter school grounds if s/he “has
reason to believe children … are present and are involved in school activity or
when children are presents w/in 30 mins. before or after scheduled school
activity” and may not “knowingly loiter
on a public way within 1,000 feet from the property line of school grounds.” Various exceptions apply. §6-2-320.
Because §6-2-320 says these restrictions apply to adults “who
are required to register … pursuant to §7-19-302”, and visitors in state for less than 3
business days are not required to register, such visitors would, in theory, not
be subject to these restrictions. However,
this theory remains untested.
Duration & updates:
Lifetime; petitions
for removal available. §7-19-304. Updates: §7-19-302.
From the 50 state visitor guide (Montana):
Mont. Code Ann. 2019
§§46-23-504 through 46-23-520.
Registration Triggers and Deadlines:
3 business days for
initial registration and updates; transients shall register within 3 business
days of entering state.
Visitors: Must register within 3 business days of
entering the state for a temporary residence of 10 days or more, or for an
aggregate period of 30 days in calendar year. §§46-23-504,
46-23-505.
Residency/Presence and Other Restrictions:
None
Duration & updates:
Life. Petition to
remove – T1 - 10 yrs. T2 – 25 yrs.
Updates by mail: T1
– annual; T2 – 6 mo.; T3 –90 days. Transients in person - 30 days. §§46-23-504, 56-23-506.
From the 50 state visitor guide (Idaho):
Idaho Code 2019 §§18-8301 through 18-8414
I.D.A.P.A. §11.10.03.000
through 11.10.03.012.
Registration Triggers and Deadlines:
2 working days for
initial registration and updates.
Transient registrants must report location every 7 days. §§18-8307, 18-8308.
Visitors: Statutes do not address registration requirements for visitors. However, "Temporary lodging" means any place in which the offender is staying when away from his or her residence for seven (7) or more days. 18-8323 (1)(h). Added Aug. 2024.
Temporary
volunteers or employees: Must register if in state for more than ten
consecutive days, or for an aggregate period of 30 days in a calendar
year. If “employment involves
counseling, coaching, teaching, supervising or working with minors in any way,”
must register “regardless of the period of employment.” §18-8303(6).
Residency/Presence and Other Restrictions:
May not reside or
loiter within 500 ft. of school, and may not reside within more than one person
also required to register, with certain exceptions. §§18-8331, 18-8332.
Presence
restriction: Day cares, unless picking up or dropping off
one’s own children. §18-8327.
Duration & updates:
Life. Petition to remove – 10 yrs. Sexually Violent Persons must update every 3 months. All others update annually. §18-8307.
Four days in Yellowstone: July 2025
What? you say. How can I have spent four consecutive days at Yellowstone National Park when the third day in Wyoming triggers an obligation to register there?
The answer, of course, is that in Wyoming it’s business days. Therefore by entering the state early on Saturday and leaving late on Tuesday you can spend four full days at Yellowstone, which I can tell you is enough. Enough days to see everything even with a family, but just enough so you don’t get tired of it.
But if you want more time in Wyoming, which offers a lot more than Yellowstone, I’ll show you how to spend just Wednesday in Montana or Idaho before re-starting the clock for Thursday – Sunday.
First let’s compare the visitor requirements of each of these three states. Most important is Wyoming, where visitors must register within 3 business days. §7-19-302(c)(iv). NOTE: “Within 3 business days” means the third day will trigger your obligation to register, so you really only get two days; however, it’s business days, so if you include a weekend that stretches it to four days (five if you can throw in a holiday). Keep in mind that, as with many other states, partial days will count. Also, Wyoming law defines “temporary residence” to include hotels, motels, camping areas & parks. §7-19-301(xi)(C), so they’ve got you covered no matter where you spend the night.
However, Wyoming has no limitations on the number of return visits per month or year. This is an important consideration for registered visitors because it means that if you leave the state for at least two nights and one day (so that the intervening day can’t be counted against you as a “partial day”) you can return and restart the clock. By planning carefully you can have the time you need to really see Yellowstone. However, I advise against abusing this part of Wyoming law by coming back multiple times. I doubt any local sheriff’s department would take kindly to it.
If you need to spend a little time outside Wyoming, the obvious choice for registered visitors is Montana. That’s because unless you’re staying 10 or more days there (or 30 per calendar year) you don’t need to register. Also, Montana has no statewide residency or presence restrictions. So your Yellowstone trip can be split into two 4-5 day weekends with a mid-week side trip to Montana. How bad can that be?
Yellowstone’s northern entrance (via U.S. 89) and western entrance (via U.S. 20) both take you to Montana, although the western entrance also takes you in short order to Idaho. Both entrances have tourist towns with motels, resorts and campgrounds for you to choose from as you are staging yourself for your Yellowstone visit.
Speaking of Idaho, as I noted in my most recent blog entry about that state, calling the Idaho SOR office is useless because all you get is an outgoing message that says they only answer questions from attorneys. Therefore in discussing the number of days you can be in this state or what restrictions might apply to you while visiting I need to err on the side of caution.
Idaho statutes do not address registration requirements for visitors. However, "Temporary lodging" means any place in which the offender is staying when away from his or her residence for seven (7) or more days 18-8323 (1)(h) and establishing such would presumably require you to register.
Where to “reside” – Montana
For my July 2025 Yellowstone visit I decided the best strategy of all – which I now recommend to you – is to never spend the night in Wyoming, BUT still conform myself to Wyoming’s number of days rule for my daily trips to the park. That way neither state can possibly lay a hand on me. The truth is you can’t get a campground or lodge reservation inside Yellowstone anyway except by reserving at least a year in advance. No matter your accommodation, you’ll be staying somewhere outside the park and commuting in daily.
You may ask, how should you go about reporting this down at your local registry office? When you report travel you are required to include a “destination” in the form of an address or location where you will be “residing.” For my trip that was a campground in Montana, about 20 miles from the West Yellowstone entrance. Even for this I had to make advance reservations because it was peak season and a weekend, so I already had everything I needed to report travel.
But notice – that’s in Montana. Technically you could just report that address, never say anything about Yellowstone or Wyoming, and no one would ever notice. But for my trip I decided to cover all bases by asking the lady behind the bulletproof glass to include, down in the “Notes” section of my sheet, a list of the states I would be traveling through on my trip, and that of course included Wyoming.
I do this frequently on longer trips – in fact this registry lady knows me well enough that she even asked me if I wanted to do that. I do this because having it right there on your sheet answers all potential questions for any random cop that might stop me for some mundane reason. And yet, because Yellowstone was only in the Notes and not listed as a destination, my local registry office would be notifying only Montana of my arrival, not Wyoming.
One other consideration – Because I was coming from Iowa and needed to avoid spending any extra time in Wyoming, I needed to bypass WY and instead approach Yellowstone though Montana. That meant my Day 1 in Montana actually occurred one day before my Day 1 at Yellowstone.
To avoid crowds, get to the main attractions early in the morning (except Old Faithful)
Day 1: The road network in Yellowstone is laid out in a Figure 8 pattern. Nearly all of the main attractions – Old Faithful, Grand Prismatic Spring, Norris Geyser Basin, Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone Grand Canyon and Falls, West Thumb etc. etc. – are located along these main roads and don’t require strenuous hikes.
Yellowstone’s northeast entrance is its most remote and with the fewest staging services. It was peak season and Saturday morning and I was concerned about crowds so I got to the gate mad early (5:50 am). I was surprised by how few people were there and was greeted by a large herd of buffalo (hundreds!) lumbering across the entrance road on their way to get a morning drink from the Lamar River.
I didn’t know enough to follow my advice above on Day 1, but my first major stop was Yellowstone Grand Canyon and Falls, one of the places you should get to early, so that worked out fine. What did not work out was Norris Geyser Basin which I didn’t get to until afternoon. There was overflow parking available and they even have a separate path from there to the entrance – but it’s SO LONG and then you have miles of walking to do around the basin. I was so beat I had to bail out and then trapse all the way back to overflow parking. Uggh! But I learned my lesson.
PS – Feel free to skip Artists Paint Pots. It’s a long walk (2 miles round trip), some of the stuff is still bubbling, but the Artists Paint Pots are mostly dried up, much like Mammoth Hot Springs (see Day 3).
Day 2: Why do I say you don’t have to get to Old Faithful early in the day? Because the Parks Service has created an enormous complex for it with so much parking you’ll always find a space (just get ready to walk a ways). That’s especially good because in addition to Old Faithful there’s a whole basin full of bubbling geysers and lots of trails. Also food and services. You’ll be there for hours so it’s good to know you can make an afternoon of it.
The place nearby that you do want to get to early is Midway Geyser Basin, home of Grand Prismatic Spring. Everybody wants to see it and you should too, so just get there early.
West Thumb is not as big a deal as it looks on the map, and I didn’t have any trouble parking in the afternoon. Biscuit Basin is “closed due to thermal hazard”!
Day 3: Skip Mammoth Hot Springs – Unfortunately, Mammoth Hot Springs has
almost completely dried up in the past 10 years! Yes there are a few things bubbling here and
there but you don’t have to make this a focus of your attention or get there early. Instead, here are some other cool places that
get less attention:
Mud Volcano – Unlike Artists Paint Pots, this one is still going strong, you can
find parking in the afternoon, and includes several other sights, so set aside over
an hour.
Sheepeater Cliffs – Super cool, close to parking and there’s
an even bigger cliff down a short walk.
Forces of the North Range Nature Trail – Most national parks include easy nature
trails for us old geezers, they often feature something you wouldn’t expect at
that park, they’re better than you think they’re gonna be and this is no
exception.
Firehole Canyon Drive and Blacktail Plateau Drive – Scenic Drives with great views in Yellowstone. How bad can that be?
Day 4: I set aside Day 4 to get back to a few things I’d had to bail out on before, and to see a few things a second time. In the first category was Norris Geyser Basin Part 2 where I entered the parking lot at 8:30 am and easily found a great space. I was fresh, the weather was cool and this time I enjoyed a nice walk through the basin.
In the second category was of course Old Faithful. I arrived early afternoon, had no trouble finding parking, watched the geyser go off and had lunch at the grill.
On my way out of the park that last afternoon I stopped at a picnic area I had been passing along the Madison River and decided I had time to stop and enjoy it. When I did I looked across the river and saw a herd of about 15-20 elk, just grazing in the scenery. This was an apt bookend to the bison herd I’d seen on my first morning.
I stayed at my Montana campground that night before proceeding on to the Pacific Coast, so all together that was six days in Montana (including partial days) and four days in Wyoming (but only two business days). Only Montana would be notified of my travel plans and I was well within their nine day grace period (because the 10th day triggers a registry obligation). But I also conformed myself to Wyoming’s rules so I’d be covered no matter what.
Suppose you need more time in Wyoming?
As noted above, there’s a lot more to Wyoming than Yellowstone. Grand Tetons, Jackson Hole, Wind Canyon, Thermopolis, and oh – you may even have business in Wyoming that you need more time to complete.
Also as noted, if you leave the state late Tuesday and spend the next two nights and Wednesday (so that Wednesday can’t be counted against you as a “partial day”) you can return Thursday and restart the clock without penalty as long as you don’t abuse the privilege. That gives you until the following Sunday afternoon – nine days total of which eight were in Wyoming.
On your second pass through Wyoming I suggest going legit and “residing” right in Wyoming. It’s your last two business days in state so there’s no fear – plus the fact that you’ll be running out of grace days in Montana by this time, so unless you want to commute in from Idaho there isn’t much choice.
In September 2023 I was in Wyoming for parts of three consecutive days, Thursday – Saturday. You could say that trip was like the Part 2 trip I describe above because I stayed the two business day nights in Wyoming. Because that third day was a Saturday I was in compliance with state law no matter how harshly you interpret it. If you want to read about that see my Wyoming blog entry.
Epilogue: Earthquake Lake Geological Area
As I was commuting back and forth from my campground off US 287 west of Yellowstone I kept seeing display boards for something called the Earthquaake Lake Geological Area. Apparently in 1959 there was a huge 7.5 Richter Scale earthquake REALLY closeby. On my last afternoon I had enough time left to go tour this geological area – they even have a visitors center! – only to discover that this earthquake had split the ground apart and raised one side up about 15 feet, creating a huge scarp! See photo!
But the most unnerving thing was that this happened so close to my campground that I could easily see the scarp from my campsite! In fact the scarp is named after my campground, which got almost split in half by this fracture.
This made my last
night at Cabin Creek Campground a little creepy, but if you think about it,
every time you visit Yellowstone you’re walking on top of boiling magma that
could go at any minute. How much safer
is that?
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