Visit Yellowstone

Summer 2011 Park Newspaper

2011-06-09T16:34:00.000-07:00

The summer 2011 version of the park newspaper, Yellowstone Today is now available.

There's also two special supplements available. One is regarding the Wildlife of Yellowstone National Park and the other is for the Old Faithful Visitor Education Center.

Grizzly bear deaths near YNP rise in 2010

2010-12-30T08:53:00.000-08:00

Click here for an AP article discussing Grizzly Bear mortality near Yellowstone.

Autumn 2010 Park Newspaper

2010-09-16T15:01:00.000-07:00

The autumn 2010 version of the park newspaper, Yellowstone Today is now available.

There's also a special supplement for the Old Faithful Visitor Education Center that opened on August the 25th. Check it out.

2010 Yellowstone National Park Quarter

2010-06-04T22:50:00.000-07:00

The 2010 Yellowstone National Park Quarter is the second release of the new America the Beautiful Quarter series. Although Yellowstone is known as America's first National Park, it is featured second in the series since the site at Hot Springs was designated as a federal reserve at an earlier date.

The Yellowstone Quarter has an obverse design featuring a portrait of George Washington. This is a restored version of the original design by John Flanagan for the 1932 Washington Quarter. The reverse design features an image of Old Faithful, with buffalo in the foreground and background of the image. The reverse was designed and sculpted by Don Everhart.

The United States Mint and National Park Service launched this quarter near the Old Faithful geyser on June the 3rd. You can read about the event here.

For information on collecting this coin, contact the United States Mint.

Summer 2010 Park Newspaper

2010-06-04T22:37:00.000-07:00

The summer 2010 version of the park newspaper, Yellowstone Today is now available.

Of note are interesting articles on geysers, wildlife and greening Yellowstone as well as update to date information about road closures, attractions and camping.

Something new for the summer is an Old Faithful Visitor Education Center Special Supplement. Check it out.

2009 Record Visitation

2009-11-11T13:22:00.000-08:00

Yellowstone National Park visitation from January 2009 through October 2009 exceeded the previous annual record. The park recorded 3,267,683 so far in 2009 as compared to the previous record of 3,141,343 recorded for 2007 in its entirety. You can read about it here.

Flagg Ranch Area Grizzly Bear

2009-09-14T14:45:00.001-07:00

I caught this grizzly south and east of the Flagg Ranch Resort on August 15, 2009. Good looking bear!

Fall Season Road Closure

2009-09-14T11:43:00.001-07:00

If you're taking a fall trip to Yellowstone, please be aware that the road from Madison to Norris is closed for the duration of the season. The closure took effect on August 17th. Please click to read the full press release.

Autumn 2009 Park Newspaper

2009-09-14T11:31:00.000-07:00

The autumn 2009 version of the park newspaper, Yellowstone Today is now available.

There's interesting information on The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as it relates to Yellowstone, "Greening" Yellowstone, and the New Old Faithful Visitor Education Center.

Summer 2009 Park Newspaper

2009-06-10T10:32:00.001-07:00

The summer 2009 version of the park newspaper, Yellowstone Today is now available. This issue has an interesting article about the new walkways in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone area as well as an article about the challenges Yellowstone faces.

Grizzly Population Debate

2008-12-22T07:29:00.000-08:00

Here's an interesting article from the Casper Star-Tribune outlining grizzly bear population trends and mortality from this year.

Bear Encounter

2008-10-27T11:38:00.001-07:00

I loaded up the kids and headed to Yellowstone for Fall Break (aka UEA weekend). The hope was to spot some bears. I thought that we would have a great chance with the cooler temperatures and the reduced number of people in the park. For almost two days we were skunked until I pulled out the stops and headed to the Lamar Valley at dusk. Still we came up dry, until I decided to break down and stopped at a group of people with spotter scopes (actually this was my wife's idea, I must have been having one of those male ego things. If I was going to find a bear it was going to be on my own. But she had me pull over and then she ran up on the hill to ask what they were looking at). These were the most gracious people that I have encountered in a long time. They were people from all across the country and they all seemed to have a pretty good friendship with each other, though they may have only known each other for a few hours. They gladly let us look through their scopes. In fact they were all competing to have us look through their scopes.

They were watching a couple of wolves that were laying down not too far from a kill that they had brought down a day or so ago. I believe it was a buffalo carcass. These wolves were probably a half mile away and we could only see the tops of their heads amongst the sage brush. We would never have spotted them with the naked eye. We hung around for awhile watching these wolves doing nothing for a while until someone said, "I got a grizzly bear coming out of the woods." Sure enough there was a 500 lb-er, I'm guessing, walking towards the kill. The only problem was I don't think he initially saw the wolves. He was about 300 yards to start, out from the wolves (the wolves being in between him and the kill). The grizzly made good time as he was walking toward his intended dinner (boy they can cover a lot of ground in a short time) The whole time he was shaking his head back and forth sniffing the air. I am not quite sure who spotted whom first, the bear or the wolves, but eventually when the bear got within about 200 feet, the wolves all got on their feet. We then could see that there were at least 5 wolves. In the mean time, the bear just kept walking directly towards the wolves, taking the straightest path to the carcass. The wolves were all pacing around nervously until suddenly they and the bear all came to an abrupt halt staring at each other within spitting distance of one another. I might also mention that there was a group of elk that were off to the side several hundred feet away nervously watching the whole thing, just as we were with the spotter scopes. This was real live action. We were definitely far enough away that these animals were not being influenced by any humans. What was about to happen was only as nature intended. They all stood motionless, it seemed like, a minute or two, and then the bear took action...

Canyon Visitor Center

2008-09-26T11:30:00.000-07:00

If you are going to be in the canyon area, take the opportunity to visit the new Canyon Visitor Education Center. It takes about an hour to see all of the displays and view a movie. Included is a huge interactive 3D map of the entire park showing the limits of the caldera, known earthquake faults and other interesting features. The displays are heavy on the geology of the park and my kids absolutely loved it. Worth the time!!

September 2008 YNP Elk

2008-09-24T07:27:00.000-07:00