Yellowstone National Park
The oldest of the american national Park was created in 1872, over three states: Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.
Volcanic plateau at an average altitude of 2400 m., it yakes place on the back bone of the Rocky Mountains.
640000 years ago, an apocalyptic explosion gave birth to a huge caldera : a 45 * 75 km long crater.
Covered by lava, it remains the theater of a permanent fire, resulting of boiling magma, 3350 meters below the surface of the earth.
This intense underground activity expresses itself through geysers, hot springs, fumaroles, mudpots, travertine terraces and petrified forests.
Once again the native indians ( the shoshone ) have been chased from there in 1776 and finaly parked in reserves in 1871.
Only the bisons were alowed to stay...
Like in every National park, free camping is forbidden. So we have booked 5 nights in one of the camping of the N. P. It gives us time to enjoy this fantastic show :
*The geysers and the fumaroles ; the most famous is the "old faithful" erupting every 90 minutes, but there are hundreds of others, erupting at inpredictable times.
*Everywhere, blue pools fed by hot underground springs and boiling mudpots make the show.
*In the Great Canyon (32km long, 1.2 km wide) runs the Yellowstone river, the longest wild river of the USA with its numerous falls.
*The Mammoth hot springs have about 60 hot acid hot springs running from the top of the cliff, creating magical chalk-white travertine.
The touristic loop surprises us at each curve, by the beauty of the landscapes and the variety of the wildlife.
Large bisons herds graze in postcard sceneries, while wolvesand deers attract the eye of the photographer.
The bears didn't show : too bad !
We've been lucky enough to go to bed and wake up with a bison in front of the door of the camper!
Most of travel agents advise 3 nights in the Park.
We stayed 6 days in Yellowstone, just enough time to appriciate the beauty of this park.
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