The DrsC took our RV up to Yellowstone National Park over the past weekend to spend a few days "camping" with our nephew and his wife who brought their camper too. The weather was mixed - some good and some bad - but the experience was excellent.
Yellowstone is widely viewed as the world's first truly national park. It existed for decades before the National Park Service was set up to manage it and other parks. A U.S. Army cavalry unit ran the park for 30+ years, from their headquarters at Fort Yellowstone, located at Mammoth Hot Springs in the northern end of the park. Students of military history will find the horse soldiers' post worth seeing.
Yellowstone National Park is really four parks in one, let me explain. First, it is a large place of great natural beauty. There are canyons, waterfalls, rivers, lakes, peaks, meadows and forests. Throughout most of it, the only sign of the hand of man is the road on which you drive. And this year the crop of wildflowers has been exceptional - maybe the best we've seen in 35 years of coming here. We attribute this flowering to the extra rain we've gotten this summer.
Second, it is the site of Yellowstone Lake, the largest high altitude (7700 ft.) fresh water lake in North America and one of the largest in the world. The water is amazingly clear and cold, though not nearly as deep as Tahoe or Crater Lakes. Unlike Tahoe, this lake's shoreline is 95% undeveloped and natural. And yes, the fishing here in Yellowstone is legendary, although much of the river fishing is "catch and release" only.
Third, Yellowstone is an enormous wild animal park, with the animals not fenced or constrained in any way. In two days we saw many hundred bison, including those that walked right down the road holding up traffic. Seen up close, alongside your car window, a bull bison is huge and he doesn't smell nice. Bison behavior is mostly placid; they are after all North America's wild cattle and they act a lot like cattle. They can even interbreed with cattle. They can also be dangerous to overeager photographers seeking a closeup on foot.
We also saw elk in several locations, including one bull elk with a rack of antlers that spread 4-5 feet, still in velvet, grazing right along the highway not paying any attention to the cars stopping and the cameras snapping. We also saw several deer. On this short trip we saw no bear, although we met folks who had better luck in this regard. We also saw no moose or wolves, but that is because we limited our travel to the southern loop, where they are less prevalent.
Bird watching in Yellowstone is great too. It is a summer home to a large group of white pelicans; eagles, osprey and hawks are common too. One of the medium sized birds worth watching is the Clark's nutcracker, aka "the camp robber." These birds are what the Brits would call "cheeky;" they are known to steal food right off a picnic table with the diners sitting there. Animal watching is a major tourist activity in Yellowstone.
Fourth, Yellowstone is the home of the greatest collection of thermal features in the world: geysers, hot springs, mud pots, and steam vents. There are hundreds of each. These exist because Yellowstone contains the caldera of an enormous volcano, the magma of which is still very hot a couple of miles down. The caldera also forms much of Yellowstone Lake. The second largest grouping of such features is in Rotorua, New Zealand. If you've seen Yellowstone, don't bother with Rotorua; New Zealand has plenty of other great things to visit.
I guess my point out of this catalog of wonders is that the park would be great if it had only one of these things going for it. It has, however, four world-class natural features in one location for a single admission fee.
Postscript: Wouldn't it have been wonderful if Lake Tahoe and the surrounding basin had been made a national park? I suppose it is too late, we'd have to buy out thousands of vacation homes, not to mention casinos, restaurants, hotels and other businesses.
