The Amazing Wonders of Yellowstone! (Discussion thread)

[Lunica]

Just fantastic pictures!

[zorgon]

Here is one more picture... to put the PRETTY into PERSPECTIVE

[Lunica]

Its always the damn perspective...

Better not puncture the soil there... 

[burntheships]

OUTSTANDING!

[A51Watcher]

Just fantastic pictures!

Yes aren't they though! 


I've just added some more to the other thread with all the pictures -

http://www.thelivingmoon.com/forum/index.php?topic=5124.0

[A51Watcher]

Here is one more picture... to put the PRETTY into PERSPECTIVE

Oh relax chicken little. 

The sky is not falling today or anytime soon at Yellowstone.

The Geysers have been changing and forming there for ages as well as providing venting.


If ya sneak in and out for a quick vacation I'm guessing you'll survive (as people have for ages) the ordeal.   

[A51Watcher]

OUTSTANDING!

Glad you enjoy, I just put some more in the picture thread for ya.

Being a Ranger there SURE is tempting!! 

[sky otter]

sadly fires are burning there now



much longer article at link

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/23/rim-fire-yosemite-wildfire_n_3801983.html


In Yellowstone National Park, five wildfires have been burned about 18 square miles of mostly remote areas on the 25th anniversary of the infamous 1988 fires that burned more than 1,200 square miles inside Yellowstone, or more than a third of the park.

The vast areas that burned that year remain obvious to anybody who drives through. The trees in the burn areas are a lot shorter.

This summer's fires haven't been anywhere near that disruptive. The biggest fire in Yellowstone, one that has burned about 12 square miles in the Hayden Valley area, for a time Tuesday closed the road that follows the Yellowstone River between Fishing Bridge and Canyon Village.

Anybody who needed to travel between Fishing Bridge and Canyon Village faced a detour through the Old Faithful area that added 64 miles to the 16-mile drive.

By Wednesday, the road had reopened. Later that day, half an inch of rain fell on the fire.

Park officials had been making preliminary plans to evacuate Lake Village, an area five miles south of the fire with a hotel, lodge, gas station and hospital. Any threat to that area appeared less likely now.

A few trails and parking areas along the Yellowstone River remained closed in case the fire flares up again and the area needs to be evacuated, park officials said.

Smoke from the fires has been blowing into Cody, a city of about 10,000 people 50 miles east of Yellowstone, for the past couple weeks.

If anything, though, visitors have been more curious about this year's fires than threatened, said Scott Balyo, executive director of the Cody Country Chamber of Commerce.

"People from the East Coast or the Midwest where this isn't common are very interested, certainly, in the way the fires look, the way the smell," he said. "There's a lot of educational opportunities along with it."

This year's Yellowstone fires are being allowed to burn to help renew and improve the ecosystem.

A lightning-sparked fire in a remote area of Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park burned more than 615 acres in June but had no impact on tourists – other than backcountry trail closures – or tourism-dependent towns adjacent to the park.

Crews allowed the Big Meadows Fire to burn beetle-killed spruce before containing the blaze. The fire was overshadowed by wildfires that destroyed nearly 500 homes near Colorado Springs and a 170-square-mile complex of fires on national forest land in Colorado's southwestern mountains.

___

[zorgon]

Oh relax chicken little. 

Drilling Holes at Yellowstone

Bad Idea

Drilling Yellowstone

Scientists to drill hole at Yellowstone

Okay so maybe ya beat me to the pretty pictures

[zorgon]

Old Faithful Geyser Live Cam!

Yellowstone Webcams

[A51Watcher]

sadly fires are burning there now



much longer article at link

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/23/rim-fire-yosemite-wildfire_n_3801983.html


In Yellowstone National Park, five wildfires have been burned about 18 square miles of mostly remote areas on the 25th anniversary of the infamous 1988 fires that burned more than 1,200 square miles inside Yellowstone, or more than a third of the park.

The vast areas that burned that year remain obvious to anybody who drives through. The trees in the burn areas are a lot shorter.

This summer's fires haven't been anywhere near that disruptive. The biggest fire in Yellowstone, one that has burned about 12 square miles in the Hayden Valley area, for a time Tuesday closed the road that follows the Yellowstone River between Fishing Bridge and Canyon Village.

Anybody who needed to travel between Fishing Bridge and Canyon Village faced a detour through the Old Faithful area that added 64 miles to the 16-mile drive.

By Wednesday, the road had reopened. Later that day, half an inch of rain fell on the fire.

Park officials had been making preliminary plans to evacuate Lake Village, an area five miles south of the fire with a hotel, lodge, gas station and hospital. Any threat to that area appeared less likely now.

A few trails and parking areas along the Yellowstone River remained closed in case the fire flares up again and the area needs to be evacuated, park officials said.

Smoke from the fires has been blowing into Cody, a city of about 10,000 people 50 miles east of Yellowstone, for the past couple weeks.

If anything, though, visitors have been more curious about this year's fires than threatened, said Scott Balyo, executive director of the Cody Country Chamber of Commerce.

"People from the East Coast or the Midwest where this isn't common are very interested, certainly, in the way the fires look, the way the smell," he said. "There's a lot of educational opportunities along with it."

This year's Yellowstone fires are being allowed to burn to help renew and improve the ecosystem.

A lightning-sparked fire in a remote area of Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park burned more than 615 acres in June but had no impact on tourists – other than backcountry trail closures – or tourism-dependent towns adjacent to the park.

Crews allowed the Big Meadows Fire to burn beetle-killed spruce before containing the blaze. The fire was overshadowed by wildfires that destroyed nearly 500 homes near Colorado Springs and a 170-square-mile complex of fires on national forest land in Colorado's southwestern mountains.

___

sky - little fires are ok.

from wiki -



The Smokey Bear campaign has been criticized by wildfire policy experts in cases where decades of fire suppression and the indigenous fire ecology was not taken into consideration, helping create forests unnaturally dense with fuel.[33]

Periodic low-intensity wildfires are an integral component of certain ecosystems that evolved to depend on 'natural fires' for vitality, rejuvenation, and regeneration.

Examples are chaparral and closed-cone pine forest habitats, which need fire for seeds and cones to sprout.

Wildfires also play a role in the preservation of pine barrens, which are well adapted to small ground fires and rely on periodic fires to remove competing species.


When a brushland, woodland, or forested area is not impacted by fire for a long period of time, large quantities of flammable leaves, branches and other organic matter tend to accumulate on the forest floor and above in brush thickets.


When a forest fire eventually does occur in such an area where a natural cycle period has been suppressed, the increased amount of fuel present creates a crown fire, which destroys all vegetation and affects surface soil chemistry.


Frequent small 'natural' ground fires prevent the accumulation of fuel and allow large, slow-growing vegetation (e.g. trees) to survive.



There is increasing use of controlled burns directed by skilled firefighters, and allowing wildland fires not causing human harm or threat to burn out.

The goal and theme of the Smokey Bear campaign was adjusted in the last decade, from "Only you can prevent forest fires" to "Only you can prevent wildfires".

The purpose is to respond to the criticism, and to distinguish 'bad' intentional or accidental wildfires from the needs of sustainable forests via natural 'good' fire ecology.[33]