GETTING OUT IN YELLOWSTONE

“Far away in Montana, hidden from view by clustering mountain peaks, lies an unmapped northwestern corner—the Crown of the Continent.” So wrote famed naturalist George Grinnell in 1901, describing the land that would become Glacier National Park. Thanks to the preservation efforts of Grinnell and countless others, Glacier Park remains a rare North American jewel.

Fun Facts: • The aptly named Triple Divide Peak, near Cut Bank, sends its waters to the Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic

Oceans. • Morning Eagle, the Lake Josephine tour boat, was hand-winched half a mile upstream on the creek between

Swiftcurrent Lake and Lake Jo-sephine over six days in 1975. It hasn’t been moved since. • Each year, Rotarians from Canada and the U.S. honor the legacy of the Waterton-Glacier International

Peace Park by pledging to main-tain the peace between the two nations as they shake hands across the border. Getting Out Yellowstone in

“Nestled among the forest-crowned hills which bounded our vision lay this inland sea, its crystal waves dancing and sparkling in the sunlight, as if laughing with joy for their wild freedom. . . and we felt glad to have looked upon it.” In 1870, Explorer C.W. Cook described the land that would become Yellowstone for Western Monthly magazine. 151 years later, Yellowstone is still an awe-inspiring place of wild freedom.

Fun Facts:

• At 3,742 square miles, Yellowstone is larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined. • In the late 1800s, souvenir sellers coated memorabilia in travertine by immersing the items in Mammoth Hot Springs for several days.

• Though we often link this national park with Theodore Roosevelt, who spent two weeks here in 1903, President Ulysses S. Grant actually signed the law that made Yellowstone the first national park in 1872.

Behold the Bison

Almost no one visits Yellowstone without experiencing a traffic snarl as a herd of shaggy, cudchewing bison meander obliviously in the road. Next time you’re bison blocked, though, take a moment to remember that this phenomenon is nothing short of a miracle: Yellowstone is the only place in the country where bison have lived continuously since prehistoric times. Even this herd nearly went extinct, hunted and poached down to two dozen animals, before park officials restored the population by introducing supplemental stock from private ranches. Around 5,500 bison now happily roam their ancestral home.

Save Your Feet, Ride a Horse

The wide-open wilderness of Yellowstone invites visitors to harken back to the park’s roots. For the first 11 years, Yellowstone had no roads; all its hardy initial visitors were on horseback or foot. After exploring the park from the 21st century comforts of your car, what better way to contemplate the original Yellowstone than by horse? A variety of outfitters in and around Yellowstone will help you embrace your inner cowboy with trips of all lengths and interests. From wolf watching to fishing, an hourlong ride to several days in the backcountry, it’s time to saddle up and smell the sagebrush.

Get a Good Look at Grand Prismatic Spring

From above, America’s largest hot spring looks like an enormous multicolored geode, sliced in half to reveal its incredible rings of color. At the middle of the Grand Prismatic Spring, water emerges from the earth at temperatures up to 189 degrees, keeping the center sterile and giving it a pristine blue hue. The water cools somewhat as it flows outward, providing habitats for different kinds of thermophiles, heatloving microbes that color the green, yellow, orange, and red rings of the spring. Visitors can see the spring up close from the boardwalk or get a bird’s eye view from the recently constructed overlook platform.

Hike to Lost Lake and Petrified Tree

This hike starts behind Roosevelt Lodge, built near the spot that President Theodore Roosevelt camped during his visit to the park in 1903. It climbs to Lost Lake with intermittent views over Pleasant Valley—and don’t miss the short spur to the 40-foot Lost Creek Falls. Continuing on past the lake takes you to Petrified Tree, a fossilized redwood from tens of millions of years ago. Thanks to a long history of volcanic activity, Yellowstone contains the largest concentration of petrified trees in the world, formed when eruptions quickly buried forests in mud and volcanic deposits.