It's hard to generalize because so much depends on weather (at that time
of the year) and traffic (July and August).

As to what airport to fly into, Jackson is by far the busiest airport in
Wyoming. Compared to much of the rest of the world, it still doesn't
have a huge number of flights in June, but at least there's a choice and
you may be able to get an airfare that's not completely unreasonable.

Another possibility from the north end of the park is Billings, Montana,
assuming the northeast entrance to Yellowstone is open. This is the
Beartooth Highway, a great road, but very high and subject to weather.
Also subject to stops to view scenery! If you can't get through the
northeast entrance, you either have to head through Cody, or through the
northwest entrance and up to I-90, and overall that makes Billings
farther away than the Jackson Hole airport.

JH airport is about an hour south of the south boundary of Yellowstone
NP. Since we usually make it from West Yellowstone home to Teton
Village through YNP in early June in four to five hours, I'm going to
say that's about right for driving from the Lamar Valley area to the
airport, since the airport is about 45 minutes from Teton Village. It
depends on what you mean by "top of the park". It will probably take
longer in late June, as traffic becomes more of an issue. And of course
if you get hit by a snow storm, all bets are off. Personally, I've
never had roads closed by snow in June, but I have had to drive through
snowstorms and I have discovered that, had I been traveling a day
earlier, a pass would have been closed and we'd have had to take the
long way around. So you really do have to take the possibility into
account.

If I were you, I'd look at Billings, West Yellowstone, and Cody for
flights as well as JH, but I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that
JH was your best bet. I'd plan on driving to near whatever airport the
day before the flight, since you can pretty much count on getting
through via a long route. If the weather is good, you'll have half a
day to spend in whatever area is near your airport or, if your
arrangements are flexible, you can delay the drive at the last minute.

Carol Harkness
Jackson Hole

gr wrote:
I am planning a trip to Yellowstone around June and was wondering what
the drive time was from the top of the park where I will end up (after
hiking various trails in the south, mid, then north) down to Jackson
Airport. Is it an all day drive?


Is Jackson the best airport to go into. From the map I looks like
everything out there is mighty far from everything else, so I don't
really want to drive more than a couple hours just to get to a fancier
airport.
thanks,
gr