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

All posts tagged Yellowstone Institute

Two major non-profit organizations that give support to Yellowstone are merging. Governing boards for the Yellowstone Association and Yellowstone Park Foundation have recently voted to become one entity, merging philanthropic and educational programs into one umbrella organization.
YA_Screen Shot
YPF_Screen Shot

The merger will be complete by spring 2016 and fully in effect by February 2017, with a new name and website, creating a single non-profit with 50,000 supporters.

Back in 1933 supporters formed the Yellowstone Library and Museum Association to preserve the park’s history and provide educational services. Later simplifying their name to Yellowstone Association, the organization began in 1976 to offer instructional courses that “highlight the park’s amazing wildlife, geothermal areas, rich history and awe-inspiring wilderness.” It also provides funding to the research library and Yellowstone Science magazine. As a member of YA I have personally profited from over twenty of the extremely well-taught courses offered by the Yellowstone Institute, and I’ve found the library (open to all) indispensable for my research.

Some of the contributions of the Yellowstone Park Foundation, formed in 1996 to raise needed funds for the park include:
1996: Began ongoing funding for the Yellowstone Youth Conservation Corps.
2001: Acquired the remarkable Davis Collection of thousands of pieces of Yellowstone memorabilia and historic items.
2008: Funded the restoration of Artist Point overlooking the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River.
2010: Contributed to the new Old Faithful Visitor Education.
2013: Completed moving and restoring the historic Haynes Photo Shop near Old Faithful Geyser.

The press release for the merger states: “Our new organization will continue the tradition and contribution made by both YA and YPF by connecting people to Yellowstone through outstanding visitor experiences and educational programs, and translating those experiences into lifelong support and philanthropic investment that preserve and enhance the park for future generations. One organization with one mission will also help the public easily understand how to support Yellowstone.”

Granite Peak Publications is proud to be associated with these organizations and with Gateway Businesses for the Park, a project of YPF.Gateway-Businesses-for-the-Park

Super-creative battery use at Lamar Buffalo Ranch

Categories: News, Science
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Over the past couple of decades I’ve spent some delightful weeks at the Lamar Buffalo Ranch participating in over twenty Yellowstone Institute classes. Now I’ve learned—from The Guardian’s Sustainable Business section—that solar power collected at the field campus is being stored in used hybrid batteries recovered from Toyota dealers.

Kevin Butt, chief environmental officer for Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, had a vision for how old Prius batteries could be repurposed rather than recycled. In a pilot program at the Buffalo Ranch, the previously installed solar panels are now connected to a raft of batteries to supply all the power needed at the ranch.

I’m excited about this program and just wanted to share it with my blog readers!

This is the picture Toyota supplied of the project.
Toyota'sBuffaloRanch_project_ScreenShot

Go here to read the entire article.

Editor’s Note: To find out even more about the project and the Yellowstone Park Foundation’s projects to install an emission-free micro-hydro turbine and replace aging solar panels, see: “Off the Grid in the Lamar Valley.”

In a few days I’ll fly to Idaho Falls for a brief visit with a friend before I drive to the Lamar Buffalo Ranch in northeastern Yellowstone for my Yellowstone Institute class. This is a class called The Art of Wildflower Identification, taught by Meredith Campbell. I’ve taken the class twice before and simply loved it.

We start with the elementary botany of flowers, and since for me it’s always quite a few years between these classes, I can use all the review I can get. Meredith also shows us some techniques for drawing with our colored pencils. Then we’re off for three days in various outstanding fields of flowers that she’s found in advance.

Here is a forget-me-not, a sample of the wonderful flower drawings by Mary Vaux Walcott in the 1920s (from page 352 in Yellowstone Treasures):

Mary Vaux Walcott watercolor of flower

—and my best effort at drawing a clematis during the 2007 class:

Clematis by Janet, 2007

Clematis by Janet, 2007

You can see why I need more classes!

Understanding the science of Yellowstone

Categories: Science
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My first mission in recent years has been to create a guidebook to Yellowstone that will stimulate others to visit and stay longer, helping them see, enjoy, and begin to understand all the amazing treasures the park has to offer. But exploring Yellowstone science is my second mission.

We can only become interested in subjects or activities after something or someone stimulates our curiosity. Think of your own elementary and middle school teachers or family members who have taken you out fishing or on long walks in the countryside, where they pointed things out to you. Several such teachers stimulated my curiosity and then encouraged me and helped me look further into aspects of the natural world. I remember particularly a teacher who was also a family friend. She introduced me to the variety of trees in our town by picking up leaves with me and teaching me their names and then pressing them. One year around the second week of August, she also taught me about the Perseid meteor shower, which fell so brilliantly in our clear Montana skies.

Many years later—concentrating often on the geology of Yellowstone—I’ve taken numerous summer courses offered by the Yellowstone Institute. I highly recommend those courses (http://issuu.com/yellowstoneya/docs/ya_summer_2013_catalog). I also audited a couple of Brown University geology classes, listened to and picked the brains of geologists, and most recently took in some sessions of the 2012 annual conference of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. 

Resources

A readily available source of recent Yellowstone scientific information is the journal Yellowstone Science, now available online (http://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/yellsciweb.htm).

Any of the above are good ways to begin to understand some of the basics of Yellowstone’s science. And the new fourth edition of Yellowstone Treasures is a good source too, because we have brought the scientific information as up to date with recent research as we can make it without technical language.

Three books I’d like to recommend that deal in different ways with Yellowstone geology are Roadside Geology of Yellowstone Country by William J. Fritz and Robert C. Thomas, Geology Underfoot in Yellowstone Country by Marc S. Hendrix, and Windows into the Earth by Robert B. Smith and Lee J. Siegel.

I’m planning to blog this fall about two other geological subjects: Why geology is not taught in our high schools nearly as often as are chemistry, physics, and biology, and the very big subject of what mankind is doing to our earth.

National Parks moving to the forefront in energy saving

Categories: News, On the Web, Transportation
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If only I did not have a cello to carry around occasionally to chamber music sessions, I would certainly have a small hybrid or electric vehicle instead of a standard car. But I’m a firm believer in using as little energy as possible and am happy to know that the National Park Service is doing their part.

I’ve noticed the solar panels at Yellowstone’s Lamar Buffalo Ranch, where I’ve spent some delightful times staying while taking classes at the Yellowstone Institute. The panels have been sitting there in a nearby field for several years, but I just learned how they are used: NPS staffers based at the ranch use a low-speed battery electric utility vehicle and get power from that EV charging station, running entirely on the sun’s energy.

The Huffington Post article where I read about this [in 2012] also mentions that Great Smoky Mountains N. P. (North Carolina and Tennessee), which gets some three times as many visitors annually as does Yellowstone, has at least 24 recharge stations. Even better located for catching the sun’s energy are the solar panels at Zion N. P. in southern Utah. Way to go, NPS!

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/12/charging-stations-national-parks_n_2117545.html

Wolves in the spotlight

Categories: Wildlife
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If you happen to have a lot of time on your hands and are interested in the probable plight of the wolves in the U.S. Northwest now that Congress has stepped in and mandated delisting in Idaho and Montana, you may want to read this very long post on the Earth Island Journal website and the variously-themed responses to it.

As for me, I’m gearing up for my annual Yellowstone visit, and, like all lovers of the park, counting the days until I leave. With a little luck, I’ll visit the Lamar Valley early one morning and see some wolves. But most of my time will be taken up with Yellowstone Association Institute classes, geyser watching, short hikes, and enjoying all my favorite spots, like the upper Mammoth Terraces, the views around Yellowstone Lake, and those at Canyon.

If you plan to be at Old Faithful on July 3rd [2011], be sure to come into Old Faithful Inn’s lobby and say hello at my annual book signing (from 11:00 to 6:00)!

Corrected a link, Oct. 15, 2014