Yellowstone
Yellowstone…Even the name has power-quickening the pulse, firing the imagination. A place that defies description. For every adjective offered, Yellowstone provides an antonym: scarred, yet beautiful; ancient, but modern; settled, yet wild. A wildness that beckons the spirit…
Yellowstone Facts:
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- World’s first national park.
- International symbol of natural preservation.
- A Biosphere Reserve and a World Heritage Site.
- Contains approximately half of the world’s hydrothermal features-more than 10,000 including the world’s largest concentration of geysers-more than 30
- Home of the world’s tallest active geyser, Steamboat, which erupts to more than 300 ft.
- One of the few places in the world with active travertine terraces.
- Hydrothermal features support microbes that are providing links to primal life, origins of life and astrobiology; plus they are providing useful in solving some of our most perplexing medical and environmental problems.
- With the restoration of the gray wolf in 1995, the park now contains all the large mammal species known to be present when European Americans first arrived.
- Protects to federally listed endangered species, the gray wolf and the whooping crane; and three threatened species; the grizzly bear, the bald eagle and the lynx.
- Home of the largest concentration of elk in the world.
Only place in the US where bison have existed in the wild since primitive times.
- Core of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem-one of the largest intact temperate zone ecosystem remaining on the planet.
- Site of the largest volcanic eruptions in the world, which left behind one of the largest calderas.
- Site of the spectacular Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River.
- Location of the largest lake above 7000 feet in North America - Yellowstone Lake
- Source of many great North American rivers; two of the three forks of the Missouri; headwaters of the Snake, which flows into the Columbia and eventually the Pacific. The Yellowstone River, which begins just south of the Park, is the longest free-flowing river in the US.
- Yellowstone is also a refuge for the human soul. People have come here to recreate and rest for centuries.
Mike and Erin Thompson
Winter Ranch Contact: (701)523-4907
Summer Ranch Contact: (406)848-9953
email: packtrips@aol.com