Our week in Yellowstone – by Cameron

Last week, we were in Yellowstone National Park, which is famous for being the first national park in the world. It was formed in 1872. There is a super-volcano underneath Yellowstone, and the Park contains 500 geysers, which is half of the total in the world! There are thousands of other hot springs and mud pools too.

Old Faithful

We started our visit at Old Faithful, which is the best known geyser in the world because it erupts so regularly. As we were waiting patiently for the eruption to start, water started gushing out of the top, only a few feet in the air to begin with. That was the sign that the eruption was about to start. The water then shot out the geyser about 60 feet in the air for around 3 minutes. It was really wicked.

Mother grizzly bear

Another day, we were driving along the side of the road when we saw a big crowd of people looking down at a mother and a baby grizzly bear running down the side of a hill and into some trees. It was really exciting because it was the first grizzly bear that we had seen in Yellowstone. We had also encountered a small black bear on the side of the road the previous night, and on our last day we saw a massive grizzly eating an elk carcass only 60 metres away from us. My dad didn’t want it any closer than that!!!!  We also saw a Coyote, herds of elk and bison and heard wolves howling.

Professional photo of Coyote taken by Cameron

Bison Herd in Lamar Valley

On our way to a new campsite late at night, we were driving around a windy road and came across a Rangers car with its blue lights flashing. There had been a rock fall onto the road, which my dad had to maneuver through before any more rocks fell.

The next day we were up on the hills hiking, and we found lots of animal bones. Dan was putting them together in different ways to create new species, and we called one of these “Scorpadragon”! Ollie also found 3 empty bullet shells lying on the ground, and then Dad and I found 8 more!

The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

“Scorpadragon”

Ollie and I enjoyed doing the Ranger Program that involves learning lots of things about the National Park to earn a Park Ranger badge. Yellowstone is fascinating because there is so much to see everywhere you look. There are geysers, mountains, waterfalls, a beautiful canyon and loads of cool wildlife. I would like to visit Yellowstone again and Ollie wants to become a Park Ranger!

My Ranger badge

Ollie’s Ranger badge