Yellowstone
National Park
Picture a place where you can see smelly gray mud
bubbling up from the ground and steaming hot water shooting out of rocks. In
the distance, high waterfalls tumble through colorful canyons.
It may sound like make-believe, but you can
find all these things in Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone is in the
United States and it’s the oldest national park in the world.
WHAT’S A NATIONAL PARK?
A national park is land set aside by the government
in order to protect it. Yellowstone was made a national park in 1872. People
realized it was a very special place that should be preserved.
National parks are also created so people can enjoy
nature. In Yellowstone, you can do things such as camp, hike in the woods, ride
horses, and go fishing.
WHERE IS YELLOWSTONE?
Yellowstone sits in the Rocky Mountains. Most of
Yellowstone is in the northwest corner of Wyoming. But parts are in Idaho and
Montana, too.
WHAT MAKES YELLOWSTONE SO SPECIAL?
The ground beneath Yellowstone contains a large
amount of hot melted rock, called magma. The magma heats water in the ground.
The steaming water pushes to get to the surface, much like steam whistling from
a boiling teapot.
Sometimes the heated water forms a geyser. A geyser
is a place where hot water spouts up from underground. There are more than 300
geysers in Yellowstone, some big and some small. Other times the hot water
seeps from the ground as a hot spring. There are even more hot springs in
Yellowstone than geysers.
If you explore Yellowstone, you may also see steam
vents, which is where steam and other gases puff out of the ground. You can
even find “paint pots” in the park. Paint pots are holes full of bubbling mud
that is thick like paint. Sometimes the pots smell like rotten eggs or burnt
matches.
OLD FAITHFUL
The most famous geyser in the world is Old Faithful
and it’s in Yellowstone. It blows its top about every 30 to 90 minutes. It
shoots thousands of gallons of hot water high into the air. Visiting Old
Faithful is a highlight of any trip to Yellowstone.
OTHER NATURAL WONDERS
What else can you see in Yellowstone? How
about Yellowstone’s own Grand Canyon? It has two big waterfalls and high cliffs
of yellow, red, and orange rock.
There’s a forest of stone trees in Yellowstone
that is millions of years old. The trees were once buried by ash from a volcano
and were gradually turned to stone. There are also beautiful lakes, rivers, and
mountains to see and enjoy.
Yellowstone is rich with wildlife. Hundreds of
kinds of birds live in the park, including bald eagles, blue herons, and white
pelicans. Yellowstone is home to many large animals. Visitors may see black
bears, grizzly bears, moose, bighorn sheep, deer, cougars, herds of elk, and
bison (buffalo).
Protecting animals in the wild is one of the most
important tasks of the park. In fact, the creation of Yellowstone helped save
bison from being hunted to extinction in the late 1800s.
WELCOME BACK WOLVES
Yellowstone was once home to thousands of gray
wolves. But people thought they were dangerous and killed them off. The last
wolf in the park was killed in the 1930s.
In 1995 and 1996, biologists brought about 30
wolves from Canada and released them inside Yellowstone. Wolf packs soon formed.
New pups are born in the park every year. There are now more than 200 wolves in
and around the park! Today, seeing a wolf is one of Yellowstone’s big
attractions.
Tags
United States
