[Monday June 2, 2008] Yellowstone National Park’s Artists’ Paintpots area is temporarily closed after a Park visitor walking on a marked trail  broke through the earth’s crust and suffered burns to an ankle and lower leg. Jeannette Hogan was walking in the popular area north of Norris Junction when she stepped in a puddle of rainwater on the edge of …

Text by Sean Reichard; illustration by NH King Anyone who’s been to Yellowstone National Park has seen Old Faithful at least once. It may not be the tallest geyser — Steamboat Geyser is — or even the most impressive — our vote goes to Grand Geyser — but Old Faithful still has its charms and advantages. Though smaller than both Steamboat …

Standing at a pullout on the Grand Loop Road and looking across the Yellowstone River at a vast plume of smoke and cinder rising from the LeHardy fire, it’s easy to think of catastrophe – the fires of 1988. Only that would be wrong, on several counts. The fires of 1988 were bad, sure enough, from the human perspective. We …

By Sean Reichard John Bozeman isn’t someone who will be remembered as an important figure in Yellowstone National Park history, especially since he died before it was established. In fact, history doesn’t remember John fondly at all. He abandoned his wife and children in 1858 to make a fortune as a miner before deciding it would be a better business …

[Tuesday May 27, 2008] This year’s Memorial Day kickoff week, the traditional opening of the Yellowstone National Park tourist season, has been noted for cool, variable weather and the presence of significant winter snow remaining at relatively low elevations of the park. Here’s a compilation of reports (roads, fishing, animal spotting, hiking) on conditions in Yellowstone from the days around …

[Tuesday June 24, 2008]  Yellowstone can be high and dry, well not really that dry; it’s no desert. Still, when most people see Yellowstone in the middle of summer it can seem very hot and dry. But not this year. This is a year of the waterfall. Most people who come to Yellowstone are aware that it has a waterfall …

Roads and their status are the big news in Yellowstone National Park today, as avalanches force the temporary closure of the Beartooth Highway, while a compromise on winter access to the Park via Cody and the Sylvan Pass seems to please all parties involved. First, the news about the Beartooth, which is now closed for the second time in less …

[Friday May 23, 2008]  Traditionally Memorial Day is the big opening of the summer season in Yellowstone National Park, and this year should be no different. Park officials say all roads (including the (including the Beartooth Pass) are except for the Dunraven Pass — storms dumped even more snow  and Park officials decided not to rush plowing. The two roads …

[Tuesday May 13, 2008] A section of the Grand Loop Road collapsed Monday, forcing the road to be closed south of Canyon Junction. The issue is a little complicated: the road sunk (which was bad enough), but then it broke a water line underneath, causing more damage in the form of a washed-out road bed. Basically, the problem area is a …

[Thursday May 15, 2008] It’s a classic situation: During a very rough winter, almost 400 bison from Yellowstone National Park wandered over the park boundary north of West Yellowstone, lumbered across U.S. Highway 191 and onto Horse Butte peninsula that juts into Hebgen Lake – a clear case of the grass being greener on the other side of the road. Unfortunately for the bison, this may be …