Laninga's Travel Blog

Yellowstone National Park is a national park located in the U.S. states of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. It was established March 1, 1872. Yellowstone was the first National Park in the U.S. and is also widely held to be the first national park in the world. The park is known for its wildlife and its many geothermal features, especially Old Faithful geyser, one of its most popular features.  Since we’ve seen Old Faithful several times, we focused more on other parts of the park.

Our friend Beth Horton is Park Archeologist, so we had some extra incentive to visit the many sights.  Native Americans have lived in the Yellowstone region for at least 11,000 years.  Organized exploration did not begin until the late 1860s. Researchers have examined more than 1,000 archaeological sites.

The Park spans an area of some 3,500 square miles, comprising lakes, canyons, rivers and mountain ranges. Yellowstone Lake is one of the largest high-elevation lakes in North America and is centered over the Yellowstone Caldera, the largest supervolcano on the continent. The caldera is considered an active volcano. It has erupted with tremendous force several times in the last two million years.  Half of the world’s geothermal features are in Yellowstone.   The park is the centerpiece of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the largest remaining nearly-intact ecosystem in the Earth’s northern temperate zone.