Pack your bags and your party hats and head for Wyoming for our first national park’s big anniversary.
On March 1, 1872, Yellowstone became the country’s first national park, which means that this year, it’s celebrating a pretty big birthday: the big 1-5-0. So what better time to go? Head west and you’ll find it mostly in northwest Wyoming, and extending into Montana and Idaho, over a whopping 2,221,766 acres.
There’s a lot more to Yellowstone than its world-famous attention-stealing geyser. The many extraordinary features besides Old Faithful encompassed in the country’s oldest national park could fill their own book.
Home to half of the world’s geothermal features (about 10,000 at last count and hundreds of geysers) and the largest “supervolcano” on the continent, Yellowstone also contains its own Grand Canyon, about 1,500 archaeological sites, 1,000 miles of backcountry hiking trails, the largest alpine lake in North America, the finest megafauna habitat in the lower 48 (home to roaming grizzlies, elk herds, bison, bighorn sheep, and a successfully reintroduced gray wolf population), 290 waterfalls over 15 feet, one of the world’s largest petrified forests, and an equally staggering next-door neighbor (Grand Teton National Park). Of course, some come only to check off Old Faithful. Let’s keep the rest of this place our little secret, shall we?
Well, let’s share some other not-so-secret people-pleasers this iconic park offers. We’re talking about the Grant Village Dining Room, where favorites include bison meatloaf, smoked bison bratwurst, and wild Alaska fish & chips. Before or after dinner, you might want to hit the Seven Stool Saloon, which has — you guessed it — seven stools. And because there’s always room for ice cream, get a couple of scoops at the Canyon Lodge Ice Creamery, where the ice cream is from Montana’s own Big Dipper and the waffle cones are house-made.
Read all about the history of Yellowstone, including where the name comes from, and get the early scoop on the upcoming limited series Yellowstone: One-Fifty, hosted and narrated by Kevin Costner, in the July 2022 issue of Cowboys & Indians.
See Thomas Moran’s watercolor field sketches of Yellowstone from the 1870s and read about the exhibition Scenes of Transcendent Beauty: Thomas Moran’s Yellowstone here.
Photography: (All images) courtesy Wyoming Office of Tourism
