Vol 2, # 126

   Friday, December 11, 1998

YELLOWSTONE
WEATHER
Highs 30s, Lows 10s
Snow Showers
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Road Conditions

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YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. (YNET) -- Yellowstone's backcountry can be experienced via day hikes or overnight backcountry trips.   Some of the best views and experiences in Yellowstone's backcountry can be found just a few miles off the roadways.  One such popular day hike is Bunsen Peak, which is just south of Mammoth on the east side of the roadway as one emerges from a narrow canyon into the Swan Flats. 

Approaching from the north, Bunsen looks like an imposing peak to ascend.  Indeed, as far as mountain scenery goes, Bunsen Peak is one of the best short hikes in Yellowstone. The climb is fairly steep, climbing some 1300 feet in the two mile ascent. The peak itself is an ancient volcano's core. The two miles of trail winds through both forest and meadow, with a number of scenic points (including some impressive views of Mammoth Village) along the way. Attempting to hike this trail before mid-June will oftentimes involve wading through one to two feet of snow near the top.

The view from the top is spectacular, as the peak juts out into the Yellowstone Valley some 3000 feet below and gives the observer an almost 360 degree view of the surrounding mountains and valleys, including the Gallatin, Madison and Absaroka ranges. If you intend on taking pictures, bring along a panoramic camera! The peak is named after Robert Bunsen, who did early research on geysers.

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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. Bob Bara
   

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. (NPS) -- The Yellowstone Master Archives Inventory is now online.  The YNP Archives contains the unpublished records of Yellowstone National Park, 1872-1998, as far as they have been inventoried. It contains records created or received by the federal government in the course of managing Yellowstone National Park. This includes many records of the private concessioners of Yellowstone which have been donated to the collection by those private companies.

This new inventory is a large document: 1,419 pages. On the park's website, it is divided into twenty "clicksites," so researchers should be careful to search all twenty sites. This Master Inventory is a Microsoft-Word Document which is searchable using a key word or words.

This finding aid contains a great deal more material than previously. Included are newly inventoried boxes for the Walter Kittams papers, the Rick Hutchinson papers, the Don Despain papers, and the Norm Bishop papers, as well as many "new" (actually old) park (green) logbooks (including those for Norris and Upper Geyser Basins). There is a great deal of geyser and hot spring material in the "N" and "K" boxes (searching using GEYSER or SPRING would find most of this), material on wolf reintroduction in the "N" boxes, trails material in the "W" boxes, and material in the "H" boxes from the papers Aubrey Haines kept while he was historian here (1960-69). There is newly added material on the Union Pacific Railroad and its relationship to Yellowstone National Park, and of course the "Y" boxes contain the nearly-complete records of the 1988 fires of Yellowstone. The park's videotape collection is included for the first time (the audiotape/oral history collection was previously included).

Click here to access the archives.

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YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK (YNET) -- Even if you don't live in the Yellowstone region, you can keep up with current weather conditions and receive daily weather forecasts each morning via email.

The daily email Yellowstone weather report is a service of Weather By Email and is free.  Click here to find out how to subscribe.

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YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK (YNET) -- Yellowstone is home to some 10,000 thermal features, thanks to the fact that the Park sits on an ancient volcanic crater, a caldera.  Magma is closer to the earth's surface in Yellowstone than in most places, and the heat from the magma is the engine that drives Yellowstone's thermal features.

Scientists continue to unravel geological and geophysical mysteries of the Yellowstone region, including the presence of underwater craters in Yellowstone, as an article from the Billings Gazette notes.

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