The Yellowstone Park is about equal in area to Delaware and Rhode
Island combined. It has 3300 square miles. The average altitude is
7500 feet, while numerous peaks rise from 1000 to 3000 feet higher.
Forests cover 85 per cent of the area.
The largest parklike grassy space in this forested realm lies to the
northeast of Mount Washburn, along the valleys of the Yellowstone and
Lamar Rivers. This open space is about twenty-five miles long and from
five to ten miles wide. The second largest area of grassy country,
Hayden Valley, lies several miles to the north of Yellowstone Lake.
Among other open spaces are Swan Lake Flat, Gibbon Meadows, Pelican
Valley, and the small ragged areas around the Firehole Geyser Basin
and Shoshone and Lewis Lakes.
Among the trees are the quaking aspen, Douglas spruce, Engelmann
spruce, and subalpine fir. The overwhelming proportion of these
forests, however, consists of that interesting tree, the lodge-pole
pine. It bears seed every year, beginning while young and small. It
hoards its seeds by keeping its tightly closed cones. When fire sweeps
through a forest of lodge-pole pine, it kills the trees and melts the
sealing-wax of the cones, releasing the seeds. These seeds fall upon
shadeless, ash-covered ground, under conditions most favorable to
their germination and growth. The lodge-pole pine is Nature's selected
agent for reforestation.
The Yellowstone is a wild-flower garden. Wander where you will, you
have the ever-new charm, the finishing touch, the ever-refreshing
radiance of the wild flowers. Many are brilliantly colored. There are
species of gentians, lupines, and pyrolas. The columbine is there in
all its graceful beauty. The wild rose abounds. The Indian paintbrush
perhaps is most abundant. The pentstemon is common. There are two
species of orchids.
The Yellowstone is the greatest elk-range in the world. It has a
numerous grizzly-bear population. In fact the park has so large and
varied a population of birds and wild animals that in most respects it
is the greatest wild-life preserve in the world.