Vol 3, # 53

   Wednesday, May 19, 1999

YELLOWSTONE
WEATHER
Highs 60s, Lows 30s
Partly Sunny
More Weather
Road Conditions

Yellowstone Net Home Page
Vacation Reservations

ROAD REPORT
All entrances
except the NE
entrance are
now open.

BILLINGS, Mont. -- The Yellowstone Net website, now two years old, has quickly become the most popular Yellowstone site on the internet.  One of the main reason's for Yellowstone Net's success is photographer Russ Finley.  Russ is recognized as one of the leading national park photographers and cinematographers in the world.  Everyone who has visited Yellowstone and browsed the video racks in the gift stores over the past ten years or so has seen his work  This summer, Russ' newest video, Russ Finley's Winter in Yellowstone, is playing on the video monitors in the Park's gift stores.

Russ has taken his extensive collection of Yellowstone and other national park photos and video footage and incorporated them into the Yellowstone Net website.  His work is seen on the homepage and throughout the site.  No other national park website can match the quality and quantity of photos and videos that Russ has assembled.

As the internet moves ever closer towards a convergence with television, Russ' offering of online video footage continues to grow.  His latest creation is the National Parks Online Tour, which features video footage of twenty-two different national parks.  This new section of the Yellowstone Net website has, in just a few days, already become very popular with surfers.

In addition to the hundreds of photos and video clips which Russ has made available online, he also offers free Windows wallpaper and clip art.  To view all that Russ offers online, go to his homepage.

And be certain to take the National Parks Online Tour!

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CONTRIBUTING WRITERS AND COLUMNISTS

Ralph Maughan
Kim Steinbacher
Kevin Sanders
Steve Brashear
Clint Wilkes
Tim Gourley
Hon. Bob Gammage
Ruth Colter-Frick
Lee Whittlesey
Tom Mazzarisi
Russ Finley
David Monteith
Denise Elmer
Dr. Robert Bara

BELGRADE, Mont. (YNET) -- So Bruce calls me when we first start this business and leaves me a message that says, "Clint, do you know who Russ Finley is? We have a meeting with him in two weeks." Now, that was kinda like asking a baseball fan if they knew who Ken Griffey was or a ballet fan if they knew who Barishnokof was! Of course I knew, but Bruce and I had only recently met and he and I both had yet to realize how much either of us knew about Yellowstone ... which was a lot!

Now two years later Bruce and I play what we call our Yellowstone "question game" and try to stump each other with really obscure park questions. He usually wins but its a way we pass time when we are on the road. (I wrote "I usually win," since he is editor he may have changed it to "Bruce usually wins".)

The best part of this story is here we are two years later and now Russ is also a friend of both Bruce and I plus I would be remiss if I did not point out the great contribution Russ had made to the success of this site.  (Be sure to read about Russ' latest creation, his National Parks Online Tour, in the story above.)

THANKS RUSS!!

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YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK (YNET) -- In the early days of Yellowstone National Park, travel by train was a popular means of getting to the Park.  The Northern Pacific Railway had its Gardiner Station near the Theodore  Roosevelt Arch.  The Northern Pacific Railway, founded in 1870 in Minnesota, began laying track from Livingston, Montana to Gardiner in 1882.  By the end of the summer of 1883, the track reached the outpost of Cinnabar, about three miles from Gardiner.  In order to get to Cinnabar, the Northern Pacific had to buy out Yankee Jim (James George), a frontiersman who had built toll roads through the only navigable pass in the region.  It was not until 1902, however, that the Northern Pacific railroad actually reached Gardiner, thus becoming the first railroad to reach a National Park entrance.

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A U.S. Geological Survey of fish in Yellowstone has revealed that some cutthroat trout in the Yellowstone River at the outlet of Yellowstone Lake.  Tens of thousands of pounds of DDT were sprayed in and around Yellowstone during the 1950s in an effort to control spruce budworm.   Thousands of fish were found dead after the sprayings, and trace amounts (far below a level considered dangerous to the fish) are still present in the fish population today.   DDT was banned in the United States in 1972 are studies indicated that it caused environmental damage.

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