re: We are trying to decide between Yellowstone and North Cascades the 2nd week of July

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Does this apply to the whole park or will there be areas that will be less crowded to just get out and do some light exploring/sightseeing?

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In my experience, the problem is how crowded the roads get. It's basically a loop and it can take hours to get from one major area to another, even if particular sights might not be actually crowded.

My favorite spot in the entire world - Artist Point - is likely to be crowded, but you can always get lucky.

The road between Artist Point and the lake - I've seen that one be backed up bumper to bumper for hours at a time. Admittedly, that might be because there are bison blocking the road, so there is actually something to see, but still.

I think the very northeastern quadrant - the road to Cody where the wolves supposedly spend most of their time - is likely to be less crowded. But there's also less to do there.

In a perfect, uncrowded world, you just drive the loop at your own pace and see every single stop. It's worth it. In the less perfect world, that could take 3 days, often sitting in traffic, to do in a fulsome fashion.

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Does this apply to the whole park or will there be areas that will be less crowded to just get out and do some light exploring/sightseeing?

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The advice here on Yellowstone is dead on. It's amazing and a bucket list experience everybody should do.

Booking this late for July is gonna be tough, but you might as well look and see what is out there. In park lodging makes things much easier.

Crowds will absolutely be heavy in July too. I went in September, 2022 and at that time of year, it was pretty tolerable, but still occasionally irritating

If you go to Yellowstone at some point, which you should because it's a must see, I would recommend getting on trails and away from the tourist spots. It's beautiful wilderness and as soon as you get a mile from the road, the crowds vanish. The worst crowds are at the set up tourist areas.

This is probably much easier for you to do Cascades this year, then set Yellowstone up for another trip when you have more pre-planning time and can look more at offseason (if you can).