Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park in northwestern Wyoming was established in 1872. It is the first national park in the world, famous for its geothermal landscape and geysers, including a strikingly punctual “old servant.”
Yellowstone National Park is a biosphere reserve and, due to its unique topography, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Most of the park is located in the state of Wyoming, extending into the neighboring states of Montana and Idaho. Mountain peaks range in elevation from 3,462 m – Eagle Peak, to 1,610 m – Reese Creek.
Video: Yellowstone
Contents- Highlights
- Tourists
- Yellowstone Geysers
What to See - Animal Watching
- The Road There and Back
- Heads and Tails: Yellowstone
- Facts
Highlights
Yellowstone Park has a distinct change of seasons: cold in the winter, pleasant in the spring, hot in the summer, cool in the fall.
.John Colter was the first white man to visit the area in 1807. At that time the only inhabitants here were the Tukadikas (also known as “sheep eaters”), Shoshone Indians, hunters of snow rams. Coulter’s reports of exploding geysers and boiling mud pots (at first his account was considered implausible) attracted the interest of explorers and tourists, stimulating active funding for railroad construction. The park was founded in 1872 (as the world’s first) to preserve Yellowstone’s incredible geography of geothermal phenomenon, fossil forests, and Yellowstone Lake.
.Tourists
Yellowstone National Park’s 8,992 km² is divided into five distinct areas (clockwise from the north): Mammoth (“Mammoth”), Roosevelt (“Roosevelt”), Canyon (“Canyon”), Lake (“Lake”) and Geyser Countries.
The sanctuary’s main office is located at Mammoth Hot Springs in northern Yellowstone. Visitors should arrive, when possible, through the north entrance near Gardiner, Montana (Gardiner; Montana Highway 89; open all year). The others, generally open May through October, can be accessed from the northeast (Cook City), east (Cody), south (Grand Teton National Park), and west (West Yellowstone). The park’s main road is the 230-kilometer scenic Grand Loop Rd. Upon entering the national park, you’ll receive a basic map and a park newspaper with detailed accounts by attendants about places to visit. All visitor centers have information desks whose staff can help you plan your outing according to your preferences, from great photo spots to observation points where there’s a good chance of seeing a bear. There is also a museum at the main office that tells you about the flora and fauna and geological phenomena in the area.
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Park entrance fees (hiker/vehicle $12/25) are valid for seven days to visit both Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton. The summer visitor centers are equidistant 32-48 km apart along Grand Loop Rd.
.Albright Visitor Center (Tel: 307-344-2263; www.nps.gov/yell; Mammoth; 8 a.m.-7 p.m. June-September, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. October-May) Operates as the park’s main office. The park’s website is a treasure trove of useful information.
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Yellowstone Geysers
They gurgle, bubble, and smoke: surprisingly, as much as 60% of all the natural hot springs known on Earth are located in Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park. There are more than 300 geysers here, and among them the most famous is the “Old Clerk”. This is not because it is the biggest – that title belongs to the nearby “Steamboat” – but it is definitely the most predictable. It is widely believed that it erupts at extremely regular intervals of 60 to 120 minutes, releasing from 1400 to 32000 liters of water into the air. It is an unforgettable sight.
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“Old Servant” boils and erupts in the center of Yellowstone Park’s Upper Geyser Basin. It was officially described in 1870 and was the first of all geysers to be honored with its own name. Since then, tens of thousands of tourists, not to mention an entire team of scientists, have never stopped scrutinizing the activity of the “Old Clerk.” It is thanks to this work that we know that since the discovery of the “Old Clerk” in the XIX century, there have already been more than a million eruptions. And all this time, the geyser has kept to its schedule as if it had a clockwork mechanism built into it. Nowadays, “Old Clerk” wakes up on average every 90 minutes to throw a high fountain of boiling water into the sky.
Old Maid isn’t the only geothermal wonder that has caught the attention of scientists. They’re monitoring all 300 of Yellowstone’s geysers. And any deviation of their activity from the usual rhythm, for example, associated with an earthquake, is immediately recorded and carefully analyzed..
What to see
One of Yellowstone’s stunning geologic phenomena can be seen at Mammoth Hot Springs: silvery limestone ledges rise daily – you can see it. The hot springs eject salt-rich water from beneath the limestone bedrock, depositing their contents in dams on the ledges themselves, from where nearly 2 tons of calcareous tuff is deposited daily.
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Driving 34 km south from Mammoth Hot Springs to the junction at Norris River and turning onto the 230 km long Grand Loop Road, you can see all the major attractions. The information desk at the junction will show you a shortcut (via bridges) through the smoking Norris Geyser Basin and detail the geysers and hot springs.
.If you’re lucky, you may even get to see the world’s largest geyser, called Steamboat, in action. But unlike the constancy of Old Servant, a little further down the road, it’s as unpredictable as a volcano. It spews water every couple days or once a year. But when it comes to life, it spews water, steam, rocks and mud to a height of 122 meters.
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To the south, at the headwaters of the Madison River, the county road meets the trail leading to the west entrance of Yellowstone, winding along a stream aptly named Firehole, meaning “Furnace Hole”. It is fed by hot springs, and in places the water there is warm compared to the ice streams of the plateau, where the temperature is less than 4 °C.
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The park’s most famous attraction, Old Clerk Geyser, is located 26 kilometers south of the junction at the headwaters of the Madison River. You can be sure it will spout about every 60-90 min. Each eruption takes 2.5-5 minutes, during which the geyser under enormous pressure throws upwards tens of thousands of liters of hot water. The powerful column of water reaches 30-55 meters in height, forming a water vapor cloud around itself, so that it can be seen from afar. There are bigger geysers here, but none of them works as reliably as “Old Servant”, which beats from under the ground more often than others. Another Information Center located nearby will explain the nature of this phenomenon with the help of audio-visual means. The three most active geyser basins in the park – Upper, Middle and Lower – are also located here. Beware of the eye-catching stinking mud puddles. These tubs of hot liquid clay are whisked upward by gaseous secretions called soufflare.
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To avoid the crowds gathering near the “Old Clerk,” ride the Loop east to West Thumb, named after the neighboring caldera where the Yellowstone Loop intersects with the John D. Rockefeller Memorial Highway. Rockefeller, which leads to the south entrance of the park on the shores of beautiful Yellowstone Lake. Here, you are allowed to fish for red-fin salmon, which have reached a length of 46 centimeters. Boat and tackle can be rented either at Grant Village on the southwest end of the lake or at Fishing Bridge on the north shore. Remember, you’re competing with otter, osprey, and grizzlies for fish, as well as coyotes scoping out what the others have dropped.
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Hidden Valley in the heart of Yellowstone between Yellowstone Lake and Canyon Village is the best option for comprehensive wildlife viewing. You’ll have a good chance of seeing wildlife if you arrive at the park at dawn or dusk, set up somewhere to the right of Grand Loop Rd, and set up an observation post. If you have patience and a pair of binoculars, you might get a grizzly in your viewfinder, or maybe you’ll spy mating games of deer or hear the long call of a lone elk before it dips its majestic head into the river to drink the water.
.The Lamar Valley in the north of the park is the epicenter of wolf sightings. It was here that the first reintroduction of a population of these majestic beasts took place. Check with park rangers to find out where packs are most likely to be seen, or take wolf (or other animal) watching tours recommended by the Yellowstone Institute (www.yellowstoneassociation.org). Hearing a wolf’s howl echoing throughout the valley during dusk is a magical experience that makes the hairs on your head stand up, and a reminder that there are still places so wild in the U.S.
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The Road There and Back
