Happy 150th Birthday To Yellowstone National Park!

Happy 150th Birthday to Yellowstone National Park, the world’s first national park! From originally believing the amazing wonders in this park were just a figment of mountainmen’s imaginations (remember my post about “Colter’s Hell”), to a place that approached a record of almost 5 million visitors in 2021, this 2,221,766-acre national park (nicknamed the “American Serengeti”) has a little bit of something for everybody, from amazing geology to 92 trailheads to 15 miles of boardwalks to mountains and valleys and wildlife. Five percent of the park is covered in water, 15% in grasslands, and 80% in forests. Of that 80% of forests, 80% are lodgepole pines. How’s that for your #TriviaTuesday ?

This image was captured just around sunrise on one recent freezing winter morning. Old Faithful was in the final throes of erupting and I was the only one out there in that spot. There were maybe 7 other people waaaay down at the other end near the Old Faithful Lodge and Cabins.

Speaking of Yellowstone, all through this month, I’ll have articles published in the National Parks Traveler about this park: a Traveler Checklist for winter in Yellowstone, a quiz and trivia piece dedicated to Yellowstone, and winter photography in Yellowstone. So, stay tuned and I’ll let you know when those articles have been published.