Yellowstone National Park

America Outdoors outfitters offer horseback riding, fishing, kayak touring and snow shoeing in the Yellowstone National Park.

Established in 1872, Yellowstone National Park is America's first national park. Located in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, it is home to a large variety of wildlife including grizzly bears, wolves, bison, and elk. Preserved within Yellowstone National Park are Old Faithful and a collection of the world's most extraordinary geysers and hot springs, and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

Yellowstone, the world’s first national park:

• preserves geologic wonders, including the world’s most extraordinary collection of geysers and hot springs and the underlying volcanic activity that sustains them;

• preserves abundant and diverse wildlife in one of the largest remaining intact wild ecosystems on Earth, supporting unparalleled biodiversity;

• preserves an 11,000-year-old continuum of human history, including the sites, structures, and events that reflect our shared heritage; and

• provides for the benefit, enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations.

Some other facts about Yellostone National Park:

•  Contains approximately half of the world’s hydrothermal features—more than 10,000—including the world’s largest concentration of geysers—more than 300.

• Home of the world’s tallest active geyser, Steamboat, which erupts to more than 300 feet.

• One of the few places in the world with active travertine terraces.

• Hydrothermal features are habitats for microbes that are providing links to primal life, origins of life, and astrobiology; plus they are proving useful in solving some of our most perplexing medical and environmental problems.

• With the restoration of the gray wolf in 1995, the park now contains all the large mammal species known to be present when European Americans first arrived.

• Protects the gray wolf and three threatened species—the grizzly bear, the bald eagle, and the lynx.

• Home to one of the largest concentrations of elk in the world.

• Only place in the U.S. where bison have existed in the wild since primitive times. The early legislation that protected these bison, the Lacey Act of 1894, was a precursor to the Endangered Species Act.

• Site of one of the largest volcanic eruptions in the world, which left behind one of the largest calderas.

• Site of the spectacular Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River.

• Location of largest lake above 7,000 feet in North America—Yellowstone Lake.

• Source of two great North American rivers: two of the three forks of the Missouri River, and the Snake, which is part of the Columbia River system. The Yellowstone River, which begins just south of the park, is the longest free-flowing river in the U.S.