How much of Yellowstone can you explore in two and a half days? That depends on whether or not your husband has a serious case of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and how much your family allows you to squeeze into day light. Turns out, since our kids are AWESOME (and my husband has the biggest case of FOMO you could imagine), you can experience pretty darn close to all the Grand Loop features. Yellowstone became the world's first national park when Ulysses S. Grant signed a law setting the land aside for "the enjoyment of the people" in 1872. We've always known Yellowstone was special, but none of us were prepared for the geological wonderland that lay before our eyes. Fortunately, we had our trusty GyPSy Guide* to lead us through, explaining geologic features, the park's history, the struggles in bringing back bison and wolves, and, of course, all the best sights that were not to be missed. (We purchased this app for Grand Teton NP as well, and absolutely loved having a guide to the park. Not only do we highly recommend this app, we wouldn't dream of doing this park without it.)
Our first day at Yellowstone, we woke up before the sun, spent 14 hours experiencing the south loop, hiked 14.3 miles, and managed to "do" all the things recommended by our GyPSy guide. I'm still not sure how we managed, but it involved not stopping to eat and very few bathroom breaks! Monday we were on the road by 7 and got home at about 6:30, having an enjoyable day on the north loop. I don't have time to tell you everything we did, so I'll humor you with some fun facts, then share some of our favorite experiences. Fun Facts--There are over 500 geysers in Yellowstone; that's over half of the world's geysers. We've seen geysers in Iceland that erupt quickly and then the show is over, but many of Yellowstone's geysers erupt for a long period of time. Old Faithful usually erupts for 3-5 minutes, the Fountain Geyser erupts for about 20 minutes each time, and there are some geysers in the park that erupt continuously.
--Back in 2020, when we were all expecting the end of the world, I read an article about a super volcano at Yellowstone that could theoretically erupt and take out most of the United States. I never gave two thoughts about it until I saw this huge pink area (35 miles by 40 miles) on the Yellowstone map that read "approximate caldera boundary." Knowing that a caldera is a crater left by an erupting volcano, my curiosity was peaked. Turns out, there was a HUGE volcanic explosion 2.1 millions years ago, followed by two others that all make the 1980 Mt. St. Helens eruption seem like a blip on the seismic radar. In fact, Yellowstone is still considered an active volcano, given all the hydrothermal and seismic activity in the park. --Speaking of seismic activity, Yellowstone experiences mini-earthquakes every day. These work in two ways: 1. They shake mineral build-up out of vents, allowing geysers, fumaroles, and other features to keep working, or 2. they block vents, open new vents, or otherwise reroute vents so that the hydrothermal features are constantly changing. --Wildlife is abundant at Yellowstone. The park is famous for its rehabilitation of the wolf population. Before our understanding of complex ecosystems, wolves were often shot on sight. The wolf is an important predatory animal that's needed to help control other species' populations. For decades, there was no evidence of wolves in the greater Yellowstone area. The elk population expanded, and as they ate much of the willow and other grasses, other species populations, such as beaver, began to dwindle, creating an imbalance in the ecosystem. In 1995, wolf packs were reintroduced to Yellowstone and biologists have been surprised by new animal activity that hasn't been seen here for a long time. We didn't get to see any wolves, however, we were lucky to see several elk and quite a few bison along the side of the roads. And even though we were fully prepared with bear spray, we didn't see any of those either. This post is getting quite long. I hope you got yourself some good edumacation about Yellowstone in Part 1 of the two part series. Tune in later as we discuss our favorite experiences in Yellowstone.
Have you ever been to Yellowstone? What were your favorite experiences? *Contains affiliate link
1 Comment
9/2/2022 01:02:59 pm
Never been but geyshers awesome. A learning experience. Keep up the days trecks.Love it all.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
October 2022
Categories |