Saturday, July 19, 2008

20th Anniversary of Yellowstone Fire


This year marks the 20th Anniversary to the fires that burned throughout Yellowstone National Park. Fires in Yellowstone are natures way of rejuvenating the park.

Did You Know?

The 1988 fires affected 793,880 acres or 36 percent of the park. Five fires burned into the park that year from adjacent public lands. The largest, the North Fork Fire, started from a discarded cigarette. It burned more than 410,000 acres.

I have always enjoyed going to Yellowstone, and had many frequent trips their with my family. Todd and I went with our friends Melodie and Jeff in July 1991 (not long after our February wedding). We decided it was time to return and take our kids for our family vacation. It was neat to share with our children this beautiful and wonderous park.

Yellowstone established in 1872, is America's first national park. Located in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, it is home to a large variety of wildlife including grizzly bears, wolves, bison, and elk. Preserved within Yellowstone National Park are Old Faithful and a collection of the world's most extraordinary geysers and hot springs, and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

We enjoyed our camping trip June 23-June 27. Monday night we arrived to the enterance of Yellowstone about 11:30pm so we stayed at Stage Coach Inn. Tuesday morning we entered the park and after setting up our trailer and camp at Grant Village we started visiting all the sites within Yellowstone.

It was a fun and memorable trip with our kids. Everyone got along great. We camped with a grizzly and her cubs, but we were never able to see her. We saw plenty of bison, elk, and different species of birds, but no bears. After leaving Yellowstone we stopped at Yellowstone Bear World so the kids could see some bears.

1 comments:

This is Us! said...

It's crazy, I remember being a kid and the fires were all over the news. It was a huge deal... and like you said, fire is the natural way of things, and it's grown back beautifully I hear!

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