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Main Program: July 19, 2024 – July 27, 2024
Post-Tour: July 27, 2024 – July 29, 2024

National Parks & Lodges of the Old West

Join us on an immersive adventure through the heart of America's most captivating landscapes, traversing the wildlife-rich terrain of Custer State Park, Yellowstone, and Grand Teton National Park. Each engaging day is its own journey, highlighted by exploration of iconic monuments, leisurely hikes, educational discussions, and authentic Old West charm.


NOTE: Tour information is current as of 4/24/2024.

Program Highlights

 

– Experience the diverse wonders of our national parks accompanied by an Orbridge Expedition Leader.

– Overnight in landmark lodges that are national treasures themselves.

– Enjoy a Jeep safari tour at Custer State Park—a wildlife reserve with scenic lakes, dramatic granite spires, and lush grasslands where bison herds roam.

– Visit the world’s largest mammoth site, where scientists are excavating remains of Columbian and woolly mammoths from 26,000 years ago.

– Marvel at the grandeur of Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse Memorial.

– See the dramatic effects of Yellowstone’s volcanically active caldera and visit otherworldly geothermal sites, including Old Faithful Geyser.

– Explore Grand Teton National Park—host to flora and fauna that date back to prehistoric times.

 

What's Included

  • 8 nights in unique accommodations and inspiring landmark lodges
  • 8 breakfasts, 2 lunches, and 7 dinners, including special welcome and farewell meals
  • Full guiding services of an Orbridge Expedition Leader as well as expert local guides
  • All activities as described in the 9-day itinerary
  • Admission and park fees
  • Private deluxe motor coach with air conditioning and comfortable seating
  • Luggage porterage (where available)
  • Gratuities to Orbridge Expedition Leader, local guides, drivers, porters, and wait staff for included meals
  • Airport transfers for guests arriving and departing during the suggested times

Itinerary

Day 1: Arrive in Rapid City, SD
Friday, July 19, 2024
Welcome to Rapid City—nicknamed "The City of Presidents" for the series of life-sized bronze statues of our nation’s past leaders situated throughout downtown. Transfer to the hotel to meet your fellow travel companions and Orbridge Expedition Leaders for a welcome dinner and briefing to kick off the exciting week ahead.
Overnight: Hotel Alex Johnson (D)

Day 2: Rapid City | Badlands National Park | Custer State Park
Saturday, July 20, 2024
This morning after breakfast, head to Badlands National Park, with more than 244,000 acres of mixed-grass prairie, featuring some of the most spectacular scenery and diverse wildlife in the region. Gaze in awe at the layered rock cliffs, towering spires, and narrow canyons that create this amazing landscape. Lunch is at leisure in Wall, South Dakota—a bustling community that exudes small-town charm.

Later, set out on a Jeep safari tour through Custer State Park. Embrace the magnificent vistas and spot for herds of bison, elk, bighorn sheep, and other wildlife that can be observed along the scenic roads. Beware of the "begging burros" that approach visitors looking for a handout! 

For the following two evenings, retire to Custer State Game Lodge, which offers a tranquil, nature-filled experience combined with stunning views and outstanding service. Built in 1921, this impressive stone and wood lodge surrounded by stately trees is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The charming lodge served as the "Summer White House" in 1927 for President Calvin Coolidge, who saw it as a quiet retreat from the heat, bugs, and crowds of Washington, DC. President Dwight D. Eisenhower also visited the lodge in 1953 while on a visit to the Black Hills area. 
Overnight: Custer State Game Lodge (B,D)

Day 3: Mammoth Site | Crazy Horse | Custer
Sunday, July 21, 2024
This morning, travel to Hot Springs to visit The Mammoth Site—where history of the late Ice Age comes to life. This paleontological site, research center, and museum contains the largest concentration of mammoth remains in the world and earns recognition worldwide for its interpretation and exhibits. Walk the edges of a sinkhole where Columbian and woolly mammoths, camels, wolves, and giant short-faced bears became trapped more than 26,000 years ago, leaving a treasure of fossils. For centuries the bones lay buried until discovered in 1974 during excavation for a housing development. After a short tour, stroll the boardwalk over the dig area and see the paleontology laboratory. 

Visit the base and museum of Crazy Horse Memorial and admire the world’s largest monument carving in progress. Under construction since 1948, crews are drilling, sculpting, and removing rock more than 70 years later. The work honors Crazy Horse, a member of the Oglala Lakota, and the values of Native Americans. Crazy Horse led his warriors to victory against Custer’s battalion at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. If completed as designed, the sculpture will be 563 feet high and 641 feet long.  

Experience an audio-visual program featuring artist Korczak Ziolkowski and his sculptures that illustrate the culture, tradition, and living heritage of Native Americans.

Afterwards, enjoy lunch and free time to explore on your own before joining the group for an evening meal in the main lodge—where the ambiance harkens back to the 1927 summer White House dinners. 
Overnight: Custer State Game Lodge (B,D)

Day 4: Custer | Mount Rushmore | Spearfish Canyon
Monday, July 22, 2024
Today visit one of the world's largest iconic stone monuments—Mount Rushmore. Begun in 1927, this remarkable granite sculpture was originally designed to portray the four Presidents—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt—from the waist up, but construction ended in 1941 due to budgetary constraints. The stone visages that remain, however, are inspiring in both their beauty and the enormous feat of engineering it took to create them. Carved under the direction of sculptor Gutzon Borglum, Mount Rushmore was a massive undertaking requiring 800 million pounds of stone to be removed by dynamite from the mountain face.

Pass through the Avenue of Flags walkway and peer up to capture sight of four influential presidential faces. Each face is approximately 60 feet in height, with noses longer than 20 feet. Their mouths are about 18 feet wide.

During free time, have lunch, perhaps explore the Visitor Center or Sculptor's Studio, or hike the 422-stair Presidential Trail that loops around the base of the monument. Wandering through gorgeous scenery, experience an up-close perspective of the sculpture and a chance to spot local wildlife.

Later today, retreat to your accommodations, deep in the heart of one of the most breathtakingly beautiful canyons in the world, nestled alongside lofty pines and spectacular cliffs. This property was built and decorated in the style of the old lodges of the West. Enjoy leisure time at the lodge for a walk or hike before rejoining the group for dinner.
Overnight: Spearfish Canyon Lodge (B,D)

Day 5: Spearfish Canyon | Cody, WY 
Tuesday, July 23, 2024
Enjoy wide-open spaces and western hospitality with a scenic travel day today. Relaxing aboard the motor coach en route to Cody, encounter vistas of historic and geologic significance among the rolling plains of the Old West, the towering peaks of the Bighorn Mountains, and refreshing opportunities to stop and stretch your legs. 

Delight in lunch and the beautiful scenery at The Ranch at UCross—an authentic Western ranch. The Ranch at UCross and the surrounding Buffalo, Wyoming, landscape are rich in the history of the American West. Many western writers, sculptors, artists, and craftsmen make this area home for exactly that reason.

American scout, bison hunter, and showman William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody founded Cody in 1896. He was drawn to the area’s rich soil, abundant fish and game, grand scenery, and proximity to Yellowstone National Park. The town now boasts a population of more than 10,000 residents who live and work in the surrounding area. 

With a late afternoon arrival in Cody, enjoy the evening and dinner on your own or maybe venture out for some real western entertainment at the nation's longest running successful professional rodeo.
Overnight: Holiday Inn Cody-At Buffalo Bill Village (B,L)

Day 6: Cody | Yellowstone National Park
Wednesday, July 24, 2024
Visit the Buffalo Bill Center of the West for a journey into the region's rich past with five museums, a research library, and special exhibitions. Learn about Western and Native American history, the life of “Buffalo Bill” Cody, Yellowstone, old firearms, and more. Experience the spirit of the American West through art by surveying the Whitney Museum’s collection of paintings, prints, and sculpture. 

Continuing on, pass through Shoshone National Forest to Yellowstone National Park. The Shoshone National Forest was set aside in 1891 as part of the Yellowstone Timberland Reserve, making it the first national forest in the United States. It consists of some 2.4 million acres of varied terrain, ranging from sagebrush flats to rugged mountains. With Yellowstone National Park on its western border, the Shoshone encompasses the area from the Montana state line south to Lander, Wyoming, and includes portions of the Absaroka, Wind River, and Beartooth Mountains. 

As the world’s first national park, Yellowstone has delighted visitors since 1872. Few places on the planet offer such scenic and scientific wonder in one area. Home to staggeringly beautiful and dramatic canyons, alpine rivers, lush forests, hot springs, gushing geysers, and hundreds of animal species, experiencing Yellowstone in person is a humbling, enthralling adventure.

Sitting atop a slumbering super volcano, Yellowstone has half of the world’s known geysers, including iconic Old Faithful. Watch with excited anticipation to witness the power of 3,700 gallons to 8,400 gallons of hot water (depending on the duration of the eruption) shooting high into the air at extreme force.
 
Additional geological spectacles include the Park's Upper and Lower Falls. Hear the roar of the Yellowstone River dumping as many as 60,000 gallons of water per second over the Lower Falls. Magnificent to behold, the Lower Falls towers over 300 feet, making it nearly twice as tall as Niagara Falls. 

Take time to spot for wildlife in Hayden Valley. In many ways—geographically, historically, and biologically—it is the heart of Yellowstone. Grizzly bears, bison, wolves, coyotes, elk, moose, and dozens of bird species live here. 
Overnight: Yellowstone Lodging (B,L,D)

Day 7: Yellowstone National Park
Thursday, July 25, 2024
Enjoy a full day exploring Yellowstone, including its active caldera.

Along Fountain Paint Pot Trail, see various hydrothermal features that are expressions of Yellowstone’s still active volcano. Within this geologic system, each type of thermal feature is represented. They can be grouped into two general categories—those with a great deal of water (hot springs and geysers) and those with limited water (mudpots and fumaroles). Despite their structural similarities, no two features are exactly alike. Learn interesting facts, such as the “recipe” for mudpots—a perfect mix of heat, gases, water, volcanic rock, minerals, acid, and even living microorganisms. Walk the half mile boardwalk nature trail to see it all.

At Mammoth Hot Springs, admire how the steamy terraces and hot springs overlook the visitor facilities. Limestone, a naturally white rock, underlies this area. Hot water dissolves the mineral calcium carbonate from the limestone, which is deposited at the surface to form travertine. Colors in the hot springs come from thermophiles, organisms adapted to live at high temperatures. This unique thermal feature has been described as looking like a cave turned inside out, creating a surreal landscape. Perhaps visit the Albright Visitor Center and Museum, with its interactive displays, great animal wildlife exhibits, orientation area, and educational ranger talks. Elk are often spotted close by. 
Overnight: Yellowstone Lodging (B,D)

Day 8: Yellowstone National Park | Grand Teton National Park | Jackson
Friday, July 26, 2024
With the remaining space on your camera’s memory cards, capture the “grand” of Grand Teton National Park. Head south through vast unspoiled wilderness to the park and take in its jagged mountain peaks that form postcard perfect backdrops behind lakes, such as Jenny and Jackson. The Tetons—the highest at more than 13,700 feet—are the youngest of the Rocky Mountains, but still inspire visitors from all over the world with their regal and imposing beauty. Standing nearly 7,000 feet above the valley floor, they make a bold and beautiful geological presence and are arguably North America’s most spectacular mountains. Savor this natural world as the wind blows through some 700 species of trees and higher plants, including cottonwoods, aspens, spruces, firs, and lodgepole pines. Here is a place where truly the buffalo roam and the deer play, along with bighorn sheep, black and grizzly bears, red-tailed hawks, moose, elk, pronghorn, bald eagles, wolves, mountain lions and other animals.  

Today we also plan on stopping for lunch at leisure at the Pioneer Grill at Jackson Lake Lodge. This eatery is said to be one of the oldest and longest continual counters at 200 ft. One counter winds through the room, creating a welcoming atmosphere where guests interact with travelers and employees from around the globe. Those with a sweet-tooth will enjoy indulging in the famous huckleberry milkshake. 

Celebrate the grand adventures of the past week at a farewell meal with the Orbridge Expedition Leaders and new found friends. 
Overnight: Rustic Inn at Jackson Hole Creekside Resort and Spa (B,D)

Day 9: Depart Jackson
Saturday, July 27, 2024
After breakfast, guests departing during the suggested times take a complimentary transfer to Jackson Hole Airport for flights home. (B)

B =  Breakfast, L = Lunch, D =  Dinner

(Itinerary subject to change.)

Activity Level

Moderate

The majority of the program’s activities will take place outdoors and a fair amount of walking on varying terrain is to be expected. Many of the parks have dirt trails, but they are usually fairly smooth for walking. Some do have paved pathways and boardwalks. It is our expectation that guests on this program are able to walk a mile at a moderate pace, get in and out of a motor coach, and walk up a flight of stairs without assistance. Also keep in mind that you will experience varying altitudes, rising up to 9,033 feet, to which you may not be accustomed.

Accommodations

Hotel Alex Johnson

July 19

Ideally located in downtown Rapid City—steps away from entertainment, shopping, and dining—this historic hotel features a casual Irish pub, fitness center, café, and rooftop bar overlooking town. Built in 1927, when Rapid City was a railroad town, many presidents and celebrities have stayed at the property over the years.

Room Amenities: Individual climate control, LCD flat-screen TV, complimentary Wi-Fi, phone, clock radio, coffee and tea maker, mini-fridge, microwave, iron and ironing board, and en suite bathroom with sundries and hair dryer.

Custer State Game Lodge

July 20 - July 21

Set in a beautiful mountain valley and surrounded by a ponderosa pine forest, this gracious stone and wood lodge served as the “Summer White House” for President Calvin Coolidge in 1927 and was visited by President Dwight D. Eisenhower for several days in 1953. Built in 1920, the lodge is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Inside, you’ll discover a blend of the past and the present, the elegant and the outdoors. Enjoy South Dakota specialties such as buffalo, pheasant, and trout in the historic lodge dining room.

Room Amenities: Individual climate control, TV, complimentary Wi-Fi, phone, mini-fridge, coffee maker, and en suite bathroom with sundries and hair dryer.

Note: Meals are served in the main lodge where a walk on an incline between the lodging and dining facilities is required. The lodge does not have any elevators.

Spearfish Canyon Lodge

July 22

Nestled alongside lofty pines and spectacular limestone cliffs, Spearfish Canyon Lodge was built and decorated in the style of the old lodges of the West with heavy log walls and a 40-foot stone fireplace. Experience the sights and sounds of nature firsthand by hiking trails that meander through the forest to a Black Hills waterfall or lead to the rim of the canyon.

Room Amenities: Individual climate control, TV, complimentary Wi-Fi, phone, mini-fridge, microwave, and en suite bathroom with sundries and hair dryer.

Note: The lodge does not have an elevator.

Holiday Inn Cody-At Buffalo Bill Village

July 23

Located near the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Old Trail Town, and other local attractions, this hotel offers well-appointed rooms with all the comforts of home. During leisure time, relax and recharge at the outdoor pool, by the bar/restaurant, or at the lounge. Laundry facilities are available for an additional fee.

Room Amenities: Individual climate control, TV, complimentary Wi-Fi, phone, mini-fridge, coffee and tea maker, and en suite bathroom with sundries and hair dryer.

Yellowstone National Park Lodging

July 24 - July 25

Confirmed by the National Park Service, you'll stay at one or two of the following Yellowstone properties: Old Faithful Inn, Old Faithful Snow Lodge, Canyon Lodge & Cabins, Grant Village, or Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel. Each offers comfortable lodging, but note there are no rollaway beds. To better foster a meaningful connection with nature, there are no TVs, swimming pools, or air conditioning. Internet service is available through a third-party provider at select locations for an additional fee.

Due to the historic nature of some National Park facilities, certain properties are not equipped with elevators or ramps and may not be accessible to individuals with mobility impairments. Facilities and activities may be unsuitable for people with disabilities. 

All lodging is non-smoking. A $250 per room, per day non-compliance fee will be assessed to any client for any room found in violation of the no smoking policy.

Rustic Inn at Jackson Hole Creekside Resort and Spa

July 26

This resort offers the finest Western accommodations amidst 12 lush acres and an outdoor pool. It is adjacent to the National Elk Refuge and in close proximity to Jackson's downtown scene.

Room Amenities: Individual climate control, TV, complimentary Wi-Fi, phone, mini-fridge, coffee and tea maker, and en suite bathroom with sundries and hair dryer. 

(Accommodations subject to change.)

Optional Post-Tour

Jackson Hole


Extend your adventures in the Old West with additional days in Jackson Hole. This charming town offers a sophisticated yet rustic atmosphere with upscale dining, art galleries and a variety of outdoor activities.

Itinerary

Day 9: Jackson
Saturday, July 27, 2024
Gather for a private, docent-guided tour of the National Museum of Wildlife Art. Situated on a cliff overlooking the National Elk Refuge, the museum's collection features 5,000 pieces from more than 550 artists. Dating from 2500 B.C. to the present, the exhibits chronicle the history of wildlife in art, focusing primarily on European and American painting and sculpture. The collection of American art from the 19th and 20th centuries is particularly strong, recording European exploration of the American West. Many of these works predate photography, making them vital representations of the frontier era in the history of the U.S. 
Overnight: Rustic Inn at Jackson Hole Creekside Resort and Spa

Day 10: Jackson
Sunday, July 28, 2024
After breakfast set out on a three-hour adventure beginning at Pritchard Creek, floating past nesting areas of bald eagles and ospreys. Early morning is watering time—and the best viewing time—for native fauna along the river, such as waterfowl, moose, deer and river otters. Have your camera handy to capture the beautiful scenery and active wildlife.

The remainder of the day is at leisure to explore downtown Jackson's boutiques and restaurants. Or take advantage of the various amenities at the Rustic Inn's resort and spa. 
Overnight: Rustic Inn at Jackson Hole Creekside Resort and Spa (B)

Day 11: Depart Jackson
Monday, July 29, 2024
After breakfast guests departing during the suggested times take a complimentary transfer to the Jackson airport for flights home. (B)

B = Breakfast

Post-tour space is limited. We recommend reserving early for best availability.

This post-tour is not escorted by an Orbridge Expedition Leader. Included sightseeing is accompanied by a local guide.

(Itinerary subject to change.)

Activity Level

Moderate

It's our expectation that guests on this program are able to walk a mile at a moderate pace, get in and out of a motor coach, and walk up a flight of stairs without assistance. Guests should also be able to board and sit in a scenic raft, and have proper fit into a life jacket.

Accommodations

Rustic Inn at Jackson Hole Creekside Resort and Spa

July 27 - July 28

This resort offers the finest Western accommodations amidst 12 lush acres and an outdoor pool. It is adjacent to the National Elk Refuge and in close proximity to Jackson's downtown scene.

Room Amenities: Individual climate control, TV, complimentary Wi-Fi, phone, mini-fridge, coffee and tea maker, and en suite bathroom with sundries and hair dryer. 

(Accommodations subject to change.)

What's Included

  • 2 nights accommodations at Rustic Inn at Jackson Hole Creekside Resort & Spa (or similar), including breakfast each morning
  • Admission to the National Museum of Wildlife Art, including a docent-led tour
  • A half-day scenic Snake River float trip
  • Transportation for included activities
  • Luggage porterage 
  • Airport transfers for guests departing during the suggested times

Terms and Conditions