On the Web | Yellowstone Treasures

Dec

Wintering away from Wonderland

Categories: On the Web, Through Early Yellowstone, Trip planning, Winter

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Janet Chapple, Lake Merritt, Oakland, December 6, 2020 (photo by Karen Chapple)

Beth Chapple at Flaming Geyser State Park, Washington, November 15, 2020

Let us tell you how our team and our books are doing. The Yellowstone Treasures team is spending the winter close to home, outside Yellowstone, this year. Of course, with the global pandemic perhaps that is no surprise! We are doing fine but living and working from home. Editor Beth is in the Seattle area, author Janet is in Oakland, and geologist Jo-Ann is in Idaho Falls. But Yellowstone is beautiful in the winter. In January 2012, Janet made a particularly wonderful trip, commemorated in the two-part Winter in Yellowstone nugget.

Are you dreaming of Yellowstone and interested in holiday shopping? Independent Publishers Group is offering an amazing 40 percent off sale only through December 13. (Act fast!) They do recommend you order by Thursday the 10th to get delivery by Christmas. Both of these books make great gifts! Be sure to enter the promotional code IPGHOLIDAY40 to get the prices shown.

Yellowstone Treasures, Updated Sixth Edition (2020)

Plan your trip for just $14.97.
Buy now from IPG!
The photo-rich guidebook with 38 revised maps helps you plan and become the tour guide for your group. The paperback won Silver at the IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards in both 2010 and 2018.

Through Early Yellowstone (2016)

Get inspired for just $17.97.
Buy now from IPG!
Enjoy adventure travel accounts from 1871 to 1916, with 19th-century art and maps both historic and modern. 2016 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award Honorable Mention in Travel.

Happy holidays, everyone!

Apr

Keep calm and read on with IPG’s book sale

Categories: News, On the Web, Trip planning

Tags: e-book, guidebooks, Yellowstone

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Update May 15, 2020: Today is the official print publication date of the Yellowstone Treasures, updated sixth edition! Because IPG has extended this sale I announced in April through the end of May, you can get the 30% discount off a brand-new book! Enjoy.

We sympathize with what you’re going through, whether you’re sheltering in place or working at an essential job in these risky times. So we’re happy to report that our distributor, Independent Publishers Group, has a 30% off sale on all orders via their website through April 2020. Use the code KEEPCALMANDREADON to get the discount on any of our books on IPG’s store as well as their wide selection, from children’s activities to cookbooks to escapist fiction. IPG supplies you with print or e-books, whichever you prefer.

Our books [link to IPG’s store] work as escapist armchair travel, but with a practical bent, since you can apply what you learn to a future trip. Become the tour guide for your family or other group! As Janet Jones, the cover photographer for the new edition of Yellowstone Treasures wrote me recently:

“Yellowstone Treasures is a great way to virtually visit the place Yellowstone fans love.”

Jan

Park visitation levels off

Categories: On the Web

Tags: national parks, visitors

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Yellowstone Treasures editor, author, and granddaughter visit Hot Lake on Firehole Lake Drive, Yellowstone, June 22, 2013.

According to the Big Sky news website, www.explorebigsky.com, visitation to the park has leveled off since its peak in 2016. Here are the figures the Montana website presents.

Yellowstone Visits by Year

2019 – 4,020,287
2018 – 4,114,999
2017 – 4,116,525
2016 – 4,257,177
2015 – 4,097,710
2014 – 3,513,486

Explore Big Sky does not hazard a guess as to why visiting Yellowstone National Park has stopped increasing. Certainly summer will still bring crowds. Do you have an answer or even a reasonable speculation about this pattern of visitors? Are you planning a trip in 2020? Please write and let us know!

Jul

Yellowstone’s Fire Lookouts

Categories: News, On the Web

Tags: fire, history, mountains, rangers

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Today I spontaneously decided to check into the status of the fire lookout towers inside Yellowstone National Park, since the guidebook points out the ones on top of Mount Sheridan and Mount Washburn. Well, I was saddened to learn that the Mount Holmes fire lookout burned to the ground on Tuesday, July 16, 2019. The tower was built in 1931 and had historic value. A fire observer working in the Mount Washburn lookout tower spotted the lightning-caused fire. This first Yellowstone fire of 2019 means that the Mount Holmes Trail is closed until public safety can be assured. The Billings Gazette had one good story about the event, and National Parks Traveler had another.

If you’d like to learn more about the job of being a fire lookout in the park, I recommend this short Inside Yellowstone video on the National Park Service website.

—Editor and Publisher Beth Chapple

Feb

Supervolcano answers

Categories: On the Web, Science, Thermal features

Tags: eruptions, geologists, supervolcano

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Cliff Geyser on Iron Spring Creek

One topic that frequently comes up in the articles and blog posts on YellowstoneTreasures.com is the fact that Yellowstone is on a hot spot, which is the reason for all the wonderful hydrothermal features: geysers, hot springs, mudpots, and fumaroles. You can find lots of our interesting posts and pages about the supervolcano here: Search Results for “supervolcano.”

Recently we happened upon this 2015 Q&A on Quora.com that busts several myths at once, in a friendly and concise way.

Q. Does it look like Yellowstone is going to erupt soon?
A. There are no signs that we know of that point to an eruption any time soon. However, since we have never seen a volcano like Yellowstone erupt, we can’t be sure what the warning signs of an eruption would be. Some sensationalist sources take every little twitch from the volcano, and even events unrelated to geologic activity, as signs of an impending eruption. Don’t take them seriously.
In better news, at least one study has suggested that the magma chamber beneath Yellowstone is partially solidified to the point that it currently cannot erupt unless it gets a fresh batch of hot magma from the mantle.
One little misconception that should be covered here: Yellowstone is not “overdue” for an eruption. The little factoid that Yellowstone erupts regularly every 600,000 years is untrue. So-called super eruptions occurred 2.1 million, 1.3 million, and 640,000 years ago, which gives intervals between eruptions of 800,000 and 660,000 years, though three eruptions are not enough to establish a reliable recurrence interval.

Credit: This answer on Quora was written by Nicholas Schiff, B.S. Geology, Mercyhurst University, Erie, PA.

In the guidebook: There’s much more in Yellowstone Treasures about the Yellowstone hot spot and supervolcano, especially in the Geological History chapter, pages 303 to 318.

Jul

Is Yellowstone about to blow?

Categories: News, On the Web

Tags: mountains, national parks, supervolcano

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Gibbon Falls is near the edge of the Yellowstone Caldera. A good place to see the caldera rim is between there and Madison Junction.

Frequently I hear the question “Is Yellowstone about to blow?” as I run into acquaintances here at Lake Park Retirement Center. My best answer is usually “Not on my watch” or maybe “I’m going there again soon, and I definitely don’t worry about that.” We have treated the supervolcano issue in several posts on this website in recent years. Here also is a recent reassuring statement I found thanks to the Yellowstone Insider website. The news was about a 100-foot-long fissure found near Hidden Falls in Grand Teton National Park.

Yellowstone’s magma chamber, most geologists agree, currently does not contain the volume of magma needed for such a large-scale eruption, and the process of replenishing that chamber occurs on slow timescales. The USGS considers the risk of a caldera-forming apocalypse at Yellowstone in the next couple of thousand years to be “exceedingly low.”
In short, if a volcanic super-eruption at Yellowstone Park were imminent, the signs would be much clearer than a 100-foot crack in a rock wall. (Source: https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/07/18/fissure-opens-near-yellowstone-causing-park-closures-irresponsible-headlines)

Photo credit: Leslie Kilduff, 1996. The photo has been reproduced in Yellowstone Treasures from the first edition to the current fifth edition, where you can find it on page 290.

Apr

Why is Yellowstone National Park important?

Categories: History, Janet Chapple's Other Writing, On the Web

Tags: history, national parks

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This question came up on Quora today, and I decided to answer it. Here’s what I submitted:

The superficial answer might be simply: It is important because it was the first place called a national park ever set aside by any country.

In answering this question one would have to ask two others: Important to whom? and Important in what way or ways?

Important to whom? Well, to anyone who cares about preserving remarkable landscapes from commercialism or from being despoiled. In 1872, when Congress passed the act setting aside the park and President Ulysses S. Grant signed it, the Yellowstone area was compared to Niagara Falls, because that phenomenon had not been preserved officially nor were businesses forbidden from setting up to sell whatever they wanted to the tourists who flocked there.

How was it important? Although no one in Congress had seen this remote western area, the men who had gone there were able to show photographs and paintings and tell them stories of what they had seen—phenomenal geysers and hot springs, lakes and waterfalls, mountains and valleys teeming with wildlife.

Not only Americans but people from all over the world are now able to visit and experience a place like no other, where only the necessary concessions are permitted and noone is trying to sell you anything outside of the few souvenir shops you may enter if you wish.

Oct

Proposed fee changes for national parks

Categories: News, On the Web

Tags: national parks, visitors

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The National Park Service has announced a proposal to charge larger fees for seventeen of its most popular parks, beginning next spring. I learned about this through the excellent KQED California Bay Area radio program, “Forum,” and considered registering a comment with the NPS.

Considering the dire condition that many of our parks are now in due to underfunding by the federal government, it probably makes sense to raise entrance fees for people who are actually using these parks, especially during the busiest seasons (May through September for Yellowstone).

A caller to the program brought up the subject of charging more for people from other countries than for U.S. citizens—a thought that had also crossed my mind while I was listening. After all, when Congress passed the 1872 act setting aside Yellowstone, the very first national park in the world, they stipulated that it was “for the benefit and enjoyment of the people,” and chances are they were thinking of American people. Whether or not charging more for foreign visitors is a good idea (and I’m not sure it is), that is not a consideration included in the present proposed fee change.

Decide for yourself whether this fee hike would be a wise move by going to: [link] the NPS website.

Sep

2017 national parks photo contest

Categories: News, On the Web

Tags: national parks, photos

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Artemisia Geyser near Biscuit Basin

Happy National Public Lands Day! Did you know that admission to all U.S. national parks is free today? National Public Lands Day is always on a Saturday in late September, and some parks hold special events.

To celebrate, we would like to be sure you know about the Official Federal Recreation Lands Photo Contest, “Share the Experience.” This contest is sponsored by the National Park Foundation and FindYourPark.com/EncuentraTuParque.com. Through December 31, 2017, amateur photographers are invited to submit photos that highlight the best of America’s federal lands, national parks, and historical sites in various categories. The grand prize includes getting your image on the Annual Federal Recreational Lands Pass (2019), which is distributed to over 300,000 people annually, plus $10,000 and a bunch of camera gear. Wouldn’t it be cool to see an image from Yellowstone National park on the pass? The 2nd and 3rd prizes also include money and camera gear. You can see the winning photos from 2016 as well as more recent photos in the gallery at the Share the Experience website. That is also the place to learn about the contest rules and guidelines.

—Enjoy! Beth Chapple, Editor and Publisher

Photo Credit: Janet Chapple, June 2015. You can reach Artemisia Geyser’s beautiful pool and formation in one of two ways. One is by walking beyond Riverside Geyser about half a mile up what used to be the main road and is now a rather rough trail past Morning Glory Pool (page 95 in Yellowstone Treasures) or by parking at Biscuit Basin and crossing the road to reach the other end of the trail from Morning Glory Pool.

Aug

Bison in town? Oh my!

Categories: Flora and Fauna, On the Web, Wildlife

Tags: bison

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Toward the end of a remarkable Montana Public Radio series we see and hear from high school students in Gardiner, Montana, who have learned how to get along with bison on their football field. Now I know how they get rid of the bison patties I’ve often seen there, especially in winter and early spring. Students with detention get to pick them up and put them in buckets.

Bison in north central Montana from MPR podcast, Episode 1

I first mentioned the seven-part podcast titled Threshold from MPR in my May 17th blog post. Since then, I’ve made it a point to listen to all the parts. It’s well worth the half hour each one takes. Amy Martin and her team are doing a superb job giving us a balanced and often moving report on what is being done to bring large numbers of bison back to northern Montana’s plains. Until the end of the nineteenth century, an estimated sixty million of them roamed the Great Plains and were essential to the natives’ way of life.

In the Yellowstone Treasures section on Living Things, I explain that the bison “symbolizes the wide open spaces of the West. Ironically, the bison is also probably the most grievous case of man’s wanton destruction of a natural resource in America’s history. Not only did hunters nearly eradicate the bison during the late 1800s, but the slaughter was actually encouraged by the government to suppress the Native American Indians who depended upon them.”

Listen to the MPR podcast to learn what Montana’s tribes and other interested people are doing to help restore bison to the plains.

All posts in On the Web

Yellowstone Treasures, Updated Sixth Edition (2020)

Through Early Yellowstone (2016)

Yellowstone Visits by Year