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Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Steamboat Geyser Erupts!

Unpredictable Steamboat Geyser erupts in Yellowstone

By The Associated Press Tuesday, May 24, 2005


YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. (AP) -- The unpredictable Steamboat Geyser erupted for the first time in nearly two years, spewing about 11,500 gallons of mineral-rich water for nearly 20 minutes, the National Park Service said Tuesday.

Beartooth Highway Closed Indefinitely

Slides shut Beartooth Highway

By Mike Stark
The Billings Gazette
May 24, 2005


RED LODGE — In the back of his mind, Jim Lynch held out hope that the mudslides that spilled onto Beartooth Highway last week might not have damaged the scenic road too badly.

But a few minutes into an hourlong inspection flight over the highway Monday, the director of the Montana Department of Transportation knew different.

Twelve slides that followed heavy rains and snow heaped mounds of mud, rocks — and in some places, green trees — onto Highway 212, which snakes to the top of 10,947-foot Beartooth Pass and down, connecting Red Lodge with Cooke City and Yellowstone National Park.

Friday, May 20, 2005

Yellowstone park opening new research/history center

Yellowstone park opening new research/history center


By Associated Press
A new center housing Yellowstone National Park's 5.3 million-piece collection of artifacts and archives is set to open this week in Gardiner, Mont., near the park's northern entrance. It will give the public one-stop access to items previously scattered in the park. The Yellowstone Heritage and Research Center plans an open house Wednesday, with tours of the $6.4 million building and glimpses into the extensive archives, rare book room, library and museum collection storage. Some pieces, such as Thomas Moran watercolors, will be pulled for view from storage, but exhibits aren't expected to go up until August, when a more formal opening is planned, said Colleen Curry, supervisory museum curator.

Thursday, May 12, 2005

NPR asks: 'Is Yellowstone Ripe for a Crime Spree?'

Audio from May 10, 2005 All Things Considered:


There is the potential for lawlessness in a remote western Idaho corner of the Yellowstone National Park, according Brian C. Kalt, an associate professor at the Michigan State University College of Law. Kalt talks with Robert Siegel about his article "The Perfect Crime," to be published in the Georgetown Law Journal.

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Here Comes Mickey Moose?!?

Mickey Moose and the West’s newest frontier (From Writers on the Range - subscription required)


The Walt Disney Company is coming to Yellowstone National Park, and already the "Mickey Moose" jokes have started. What’s not funny is the way this venture by a multinational corporation marks a new frontier for the West.

In a quiet announcement last month, Disney said it intended to test-launch a "Quest for the West" weeklong vacation tour of Yellowstone, Grand Teton and the Jackson Hole area. Wyoming and Hawaii are the first two destinations for "Adventures by Disney," a vacation concept marketed to people who already take Disney vacations such as cruises.

Disney thus enters the eco-tourism market — one of the West’s latest ways of selling itself. Eco-tourism, defined as nature-oriented tourism that seeks to minimize environmental impacts, is a frontier because it’s a new, unorganized market, much like the Internet a decade ago.

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Where lawlessness may roam?

Yellowstone: The "Prefect Crime" Zone?

By RICHARD MORIN
Washington Post Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Congress goofed in 1890 when it made Wyoming the 44th state, says an associate law professor at Michigan State University.

By leaving a 50-square-mile sliver of Yellowstone National Park in eastern Idaho, Congress might have produced a lawless oasis smack in the heart of God's Country -- a place where people could get away with crimes because of a quirk of the law, Brian Kalt contends.

Saturday, May 07, 2005

Yellowstone Rated High for Eruption Threat

According the the US Geolological Survey, Yellowstone Caldera is Rated a High Threat for Volcanic Eruption.

Sunday, May 01, 2005

Springtime Adventures in Yellowstone

Here's a link to my first syndicated Travels with Lonely Planet column.


What if the exotic menagerie of captive creatures at the San Diego Zoo's famous Wild Animal Park were actually wild? This fantasy struck me recently while stuck in a traffic jam caused by a herd of prehistoric-looking bison. They were moseying across Yellowstone's West Entrance Road with their newborn calves in tow. I was rubbernecking. Early childhood memories of giraffes licking the windshield of our family station wagon at a drive-through safari flashed into mind.