GRANITE PEAK PUBLICATIONS: Accompanying travelers to the national park since 2002

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Beth Chapple at Artist Point

Editor Beth Chapple at Artist Point, one of the best views of Lower Falls, August 10, 2022.

News about YellowstoneTreasures.com

Sprucing up the website provokes wonderful memories. As I was working today to update the nuggets of content and the informative blog posts on YellowstoneTreasures.com for this year’s visitors, I discovered that the “Six Hikes Near Yellowstone Lake” nugget was written exactly ten years ago to the day. That’s almost half the time since the first edition of the guidebook came out in 2002!

Trip Report

Allow me to take a trip down memory lane. Ten years ago this month my husband Niklas and I got to take a trip to Yellowstone because I was attending the annual conference of the Ninety-Nines (international women pilots), held in Bozeman, MT. A highlight of the trip was flying over Yellowstone Park for the bird’s-eye view! We did an early morning pre-brief at friendly Summit Aviation at the Bozeman International Airport in Belgrade. And then Niklas and I got to ride as passengers on Lewie Wiese’s airplane. It’s the best way to see Grand Prismatic Spring. But the flight was over all too soon.

At Country Bookshelf in Bozeman I snapped a photo of their staff pick: Yellowstone Treasures! And here I am at Artist Point on August 10, 2013. The conference only included a one-day bus trip but that was still fun. By chance our guide was Orville Bach, Jr., former ranger extraordinaire and author of Exploring the Yellowstone Backcountry, among other books.

Book Review

Since I’m sure it’s too small for you to read, here is the text on the Staff Pick card.

“Yellowstone Treasures” by Janet Chapple. Absolutely the best guide to Yellowstone available today. Excellent maps of each road section. Good descriptions of sights and things to see. Lots of background information on history and national history. I live here and I carry it whenever I go to the Park. Excellent!!
Nick

ON THIS WEBSITE: Our website is really chock full of hike ideas and geyser descriptions. If you haven’t been here before, you might want to start by sifting through the Nuggets, short articles about park features, animals, geysers, and plants.

Copyright Beth Chapple. Photos by Beth Chapple and Niklas Dellby.

Highlights of our July trip

Categories: Geysers, Trip Reports
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Beth (left) and Janet Chapple posing with Lower Falls at Artist Point

After a lovely stay in the home of Yellowstone Treasures geologist Jo-Ann Sherwin in Idaho Falls, author Janet, our friend Mike, editor Beth, and her husband Niklas spent five nights in the park this year. We packed half a dozen different coolers and brought the food for all meals, with Jo-Ann and her friend Kathy’s help and company in cooking dinners such as chili and pad Thai. The only time we entered a store at Canyon, we found the crowds a bit nerve-racking. Here are some highlights of our visit.

On our first full day in the park we had the good fortune to witness Great Fountain Geyser. We realized from the prediction on the signboard we would need to drive around Firehole Lake Drive a second time, and then it worked out perfectly. The benches were full for Great Fountain’s thrilling show, and nearby White Dome erupted as well for us shortly afterward.

We went to several of Canyon’s beautifully expanded overlooks. Janet could use her walker on the nicely graded path to Lookout Point. Other members of our party took advantage of the half-mile walk from our cabin to Grand View as many as three times during our two-night stay! We found that early and late daylight hours were best for avoiding crowds.

On July 2, Niklas and I hiked from a Grand Loop Road turnout to see Black Sand Pool, Punch Bowl Spring, and Daisy Geyser, predicted for 4:30 pm plus or minus 20 minutes. It was breezy with nearby thunderstorms that happily did not come near. We were still approaching when Daisy started to erupt in its famous diagonal way at 4:09 pm. Only three other people witnessed the eruption with us. On the way back we sought out Demon’s Cave with its dangerous overhanging ledge, but it looks like people have thrown sticks in over the years.

We admired all the easily accessible waterfalls on our route. Besides Lower and Upper Falls of the Yellowstone at Canyon, that means Gibbon Falls, Kepler Cascades, Virginia Cascade, and Lewis Falls. At Lewis we walked along the bridge and also admired the downstream meadow and view of the mountains across the road to the south.

The morning we were moving from Old Faithful Inn to the Canyon Lodge cabins was our best chance to see Mammoth Hot Springs, we decided. The road closure this season between Tower and Canyon made us have to repeat a road segment instead of going around the upper loop road, but we stopped at different points, such as Gibbon Falls on the way north and Apollonaris Spring on the way south (more about that cold spring in a future blog post). At Mammoth the fun parts were walking the boardwalk stairs down from our parking at the Upper Terrace Drive to see Cupid and Canary Springs from various angles and then picnicking on the grass outside the chapel.

Explore all our guidebook editions

Categories: History, News
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Curious about how Yellowstone Treasures has changed over time? Of course, every edition has updates covering finished and ongoing park construction, geyser basin changes, and advances in science. And we always correct the text to reflect changes in the Park, even in the reprints. Here we go, from the most recent back to the very first edition.

Yellowstone Treasures cover

Sixth edition (May 15, 2020). ISBN: 9781733103206

Special features of the sixth edition:

  • Cover photo by Janet Jones of SnowMoon Ink, Cody, Wyoming
  • Extensive text and diagram updates by editor Beth Chapple and geologist Jo-Ann Sherwin
  • Descriptions of the new overlooks on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, the new trail to the Grand Prismatic Spring overlook, Steamboat Geyser’s resurgence in March 2018, and the surprise eruption of Ear Spring in September 2018
  • Map updates and one new map by Jennifer Johnston of Inspirit Cartographics.



Yellowstone Treasures 5th edition cover

Fifth edition (2017, reprinted 2018). ISBN: 9780985818272

Special to the fifth edition:

  • Cover designed by Vicky Vaughn Shea of Ponderosa Pine Design with a photo by Stephen Michael Gryc, composer and geyser gazer, chosen as part of our summer 2016 photo contest
  • Won Silver in Independent Book Publishing Association’s Benjamin Franklin Awards in 2018
  • 65 new photos, many resulting from our photo contest or from Suzanne and David Cane
  • Revisions to the glossary of geological and other scientific terms by Jo-Ann Sherwin



Yellowstone Treasures 4th edition cover

Fourth edition (2013, repr. 2015). ISBN: 9780970687388

Special to the fourth edition:

  • Cover photo of Old Faithful Geyser by geologist and family friend Don Forsyth, continuing the theme inspired by the old Haynes guides
  • Text updates by author Janet Chapple
  • A dozen new pictures
  • 37 maps fully revised by mapmaker extraordinaire Linton Brown
  • Thorough update of the geological information and a new glossary by geologist Jo-Ann Sherwin
  • Book expanded to 400 pages
  • Color tabs to indicate the six sections of the park



Yellowstone Treasures 3rd ed. cover

Third edition (2009, repr. 2011, 2012). ISBN: 9780970687333


Special to the third edition:

  • Cover focuses on Don Forsyth’s Old Faithful Geyser photo to evoke the covers of the old Haynes guides, published almost every year from 1890 to 1966
  • Won Silver in IBPA’s Benjamin Franklin Awards in 2010. One judge wrote: “The third edition is a charm. I can’t think of any way to improve this book; it is well-researched, easily accessible and shows great love of place.”



Yellowstone Treasures 2nd ed. cover

Second edition (2005, repr. 2007, 2008). ISBN: 0970687311

Special to the second edition:

  • Cover features the photo of Old Faithful Geyser by geologist and family friend Don Forsyth, along with insets of black bear cubs and Tower Falls
  • Author Janet Chapple updated campground information and geyser activity
  • Expanded section on wolves
  • Book expanded to 392 pages
  • Colors for each road log section added to the tops of pages to aid in navigation



Yellowstone Treasures first edition cover

First edition (2002). ISBN: 0970687303

Special features of the first edition:

  • Cover designed by Elizabeth Watson with photos of Old Faithful Geyser, fireweed, sandbar and lagoon near Yellowstone Lake, mule deer. Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River, bison, and Mammoth Hot Springs
  • Won Gold in Foreword Reviews’ Book of the Year Awards, 2002
  • Author Janet Chapple wrote the 384-page book, from recommendations on the best sights and organizing the six road logs to the chapters on natural and human history
  • Geologist and husband Dr. Bruno Giletti wrote the geology chapter and took most of the original photographs during their many years of trips to the Park
  • Family friend Linton Brown creates 37 maps
  • Informational sidebars are tinted according to their topic: geology and geography, human history, natural history, and park information

Picnics in the Park

Categories: Trip planning
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flying pelican over Yellowstone River

American white pelican spotted over the Yellowstone River on May 17, 2020

All entrance roads opened on June 1. So you may be thinking of a visit, but it’s best to do your homework. For the time being, perhaps the whole summer season, there is no sit-down dining anywhere within the park. Instead, you should stock up on supplies at one of the gateway towns (such as West Yellowstone or Gardiner, Montana, or Cody or Jackson, Wyoming). Check in advance; some stores, such as Gardiner Market, will even do curbside pickup. Or buy grab-and-go meals in Yellowstone National Park. Some facilities are already open at Mammoth and Old Faithful Villages. The general stores at Mammoth and Fishing Bridge open tomorrow, June 5. On June 19, the eatery at Canyon Village will open. See this helpful “Operating Hours and Seasons” page on the official NPS website for all the details to help you in planning. And we’d love to hear from you in the comments how these new meal solutions are working for you.

Where will you take the picnic you bring or purchase? Yellowstone Treasures contains descriptions of all the picnic areas in the park. Some of our favorites are those along the Madison River, at Bridge Bay Marina, and at Gibbon Falls. Just be sure to keep your distance from the other visitors. See more about picnics in “Anyone for a Picnic?” by author Janet Chapple.

By the way, spring is a great time to see baby animals and for bird watching. Some of the birds recently seen include the American white pelican, the bald eagle, the osprey, the kildeer, the yellow warbler, and the dusky grouse. Our nugget called “Yellowstone for Birders” tells you where to see these and more. In the picnic areas you are most likely to see ravens, Clark’s nutcrackers, and gray jays, also known as camp robbers!

Photo credit: NPS / Jacob W Frank, May 17, 2020

Crystal Falls on Cascade Creek

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Crystal Falls Yellowstone

Crystal Falls from Uncle Toms Overlook on the Canyon’s South Rim


While visiting Uncle Tom’s Overlook to see Upper Falls, I was also looking at how far the reconstruction projects have gotten. I noticed the improvements to the walls, the ongoing construction of the viewpoint at the Brink of Upper Falls, and the new paved trail to Sunset Point, which had a colony of marmots to watch when I visited. (See the Yellowstone trail reconstruction in 2018 post for more about the plans and a nice map.)

But the most exciting aspect for me on my late June 2019 visit was seeing this waterfall. The description from the 2018 edition of Yellowstone Treasures goes like this: “little Crystal Falls across the canyon, obscured by branches” (p. 180). Well, granted, I did have to use binoculars and my camera’s zoom function to appreciate it. See below for how the description can still be called accurate. There is a trail to see this waterfall on Cascade Creek that pours down into the Yellowstone River, but the easiest way to reach it is temporarily off limits as construction crews use the parking lot to work on the Brink of Upper Falls viewpoint.

Enjoy! —Editor Beth Chapple

Crystal Falls in the trees

Look to the right when you are at Uncle Tom’s Point to see this waterfall.

2017 national parks photo contest

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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.

The “Haynes Guides” and “Yellowstone Treasures”

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Reading about a recent Haynes Foundation Grant to Montana State University has inspired me to write the story of how the Haynes Guides came to father Yellowstone Treasures.

 First: the connection

 Back at the end of the last century the director at the Haynes Foundation generously allowed me to use any quotes I wanted from the Haynes Guides in my new guidebook. Now the foundation has given a generous grant to fund scholarships to undergraduate students at Montana State University.

 F. Jay Haynes was the official photographer of Yellowstone Park in its early years. He and his son Jack Haynes owned photo shops in the park. Jack was also a photographer and earned a degree in geology before he returned to work in Yellowstone. They made a good living creating and selling photographs and postcards as well as guidebooks—as the grant announcement tells us, they “opened the wonder of Yellowstone National Park to generations worldwide.” Near the end of Jack’s life, having lost their only daughter at a young age, he and his wife Isabel created the Haynes Foundation to help deserving Montana students at the university (then called a college) in Bozeman.

haynesguidepic

My family used the Haynes Guide (then titled Haynes New Guide: The Complete Handbook of Yellowstone National Park) while living in the park for four summers, 1939 through 1942, and also during visits we made to the park in later years.

Fast forward about a half century to 1995, when a friend of mine named Bob English casually suggested we get together and update the Haynes Guide—last published in 1966. Bob had recently retired from his law practice, was looking for something to occupy his time, and surprised me months after that first suggestion by sending me fifty pages of the guide laboriously typed out on his computer.

 About then I was also thinking of doing something different, having spent all my adult life up to that time as a performer and teacher of cello in Rhode Island. I began investigating whether the type of guide I had in mind existed. A year or so later Bob dropped out of the project. However, I was hooked and began visiting Yellowstone at least once every summer. My husband Bruno Giletti was my “field assistant” and photographer as well as geological expert.

What I Adapted from F. Jay and Jack Haynes

 Here are a few of the ideas I took from the Haynes Guides, in addition to using the text in order to check what was the same and what had changed since 1966. Bob had eventually typed out the complete text, and I owned my own copy of the Guide. Now I own ten different copies, ranging from the 1898 edition to the last.

  • Old Faithful Geyser is shown on the cover.
  • The descriptive text segments begin at the most popular West Entrance and proceed to the other five entrances counterclockwise.
  • Features are located throughout the park with mileage indications.
  • Many maps have animal pictures on them indicating where you may see a black bear, a wolf, or a herd of bison.
  • A thorough index is supplied: the 1966 Haynes Guide has 22 pages of index for a 170–page book.
  • The father and son team published their guide for 70 years.

While Granite Peak Publications is unlikely to duplicate that longevity, we are in fact a mother-daughter team.

Announcing our photo contest

Categories: Flora and Fauna, Geysers, News
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We are pleased to announce our 2016 Yellowstone National Park photo contest! Our Giant Geyser frontispiece since the third edition was obtained in a similar contest. For the fifth edition of the Yellowstone Treasures guidebook, to be published in 2017, we are looking for a new front cover photo and will consider additional photos for the back cover and the interior. Here are our ideas, but your photo may be considered if it is of a similar or nearby subject.

Possibilities for the cover, possibly with a rainbow

Beehive Geyser
Giant Geyser
Grand Geyser
Riverside Geyser
Unique shot of Old Faithful Geyser

Interior photos we would like

Geological

basalt lava flow near Calcite Springs
Canyon from Grand View
Clepsydra Geyser
Electric Peak
Emigrant Peak
Mount Moran (Grand Teton N. P.)
Norris Geyser Basin geyser or hot spring
Porcelain Basin overview
Rock Creek Valley or other Beartooth Range view
Twin Lakes

Living things

Harlequin Lake
Penstemon wildflower
Rosecrown or bitterroot flower

The deadline is coming very soon, August 19, 2016, so gather your recent, high-quality, high-resolution photos of Yellowstone (please, no more than five per entrant). Please read the further guidelines and rules here:
Yellowstone National Park Photo Contest. You are welcome to write to editor Beth Chapple at webmaster [at] yellowstonetreasures.com or author Janet Chapple at janet [at] yellowstonetreasures.com with questions about how to locate the pictures on our picture wish list.

We’re very much looking forward to seeing your photographs!

Here is a form you can use for entering. Put “Photo Contest Entry” in the subject line.
Photographer’s Name:
Residence:
E-mail address:
Twitter and/or Instagram handle:
Date of photo:
Photo subject:
Description:

—Editor Beth

Yellowstone News Unseen and Seen

Categories: News, On the Web, Through Early Yellowstone
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Exciting for Granite Peak Publications and me is to know that our shipment of several pallets of spanking new copies of Through Early Yellowstone arrives today at the Port of Seattle from China! That’s the unseen news.

The fun-to-see news appeared this morning in the Yellowstone Foundation newsletter. It’s the announcement of the winners in their Yellowstone Forever Photo Contest.View a slide show of the 100 top entries.Their 2016 contest will open in June.

Yellowstone Bison Get Room to Roam at Last

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Bison herd in winter
Bison herd in winter

The Livingston Enterprise recently reported a rare coming-together of often contentious parties. Federal, state, and tribal agencies that manage Yellowstone Park bison have agreed to let bison stay in parts of Montana year-round. The members of the Interagency Bison Management Plan have verbally agreed to Montana Governor Steve Bullock’s decision to allow the big animals to roam outside the park in search of food on an estimated 400 square miles north and west of the park.

Searching through my past blog posts for what I’ve written before about bison, I can only find rare mentions of the biggest and perhaps most charismatic of Yellowstone’s “charismatic megafauna.” And even in the thirty-five or more “Nuggets” of park information I’ve supplied, somehow I’ve managed to skip writing about bison. These days, when you go to the park, you may not see bears or wolves, and even elk are not so common as they were when I started writing about the park. But bison?—oh, yes, you’ll see herds of them!

Wild animals are not even mentioned in the 1872 act of Congress that set aside “a certain Tract of Land lying near the Head-waters of the Yellowstone River” in “the Territories of Montana and Wyoming.” Regulations were to be set up for the preservation of “timber, mineral deposits, natural curiosities, or wonders,” and “wanton destruction of the fish and game” was frowned upon. That animals were not mentioned in the Organic Act does not surprise me, since in the 1870s there were still millions of bison in the U.S. West, and other wild animals were everywhere, too. What need was there to preserve them?

The fate of the bison illustrates 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 last decades of the 19th century, but the slaughter was actually encouraged by the government to suppress the Native American Indians who depended upon them.

During the 20th century, different efforts to bring bison back to Yellowstone met with varying success, but now there are close to 5,000 of them in and near the park. This is really too many to be manageable in the parts of the park where they prefer to graze. In recent decades the question of whether they can transmit brucellosis to domestic cattle has greatly complicated the scene and caused major strife between the National Park Service and other interested agencies. Brucellosis is a disease that can cause a pregnant cow to abort her calf, understandably a concern for Montana ranchers. But no cases of the disease being transmitted from bison to cattle have ever been documented, and besides, elk can also carry brucellosis.

Since 2000, wandering bison have sometimes been hazed back into the park in wintertime. Some have been quarantined and others relocated to Indian reservations. With this spring’s new regulation, the iconic animal that appeared on the “buffalo nickel” for decades has a better chance to survive severe winters.

I must issue a word of warning, though: more people are injured in Yellowstone by bison than by any other animal. Lately visitors are being injured and even killed while taking so-called selfies. Bison look placid but are NOT tame and can run very fast. Stay at least 25 yards away—unless, while driving, you are caught in a “bison jam.” This happens especially in Hayden Valley, where the animals frequently cross the highway. In that case, stay in your car and wait patiently!