Fires of 1988

Yellowstone
The Fires
of 1988

While there are some remaining attractions in Yellowstone, the fires of 1988 have been devastating. Unfortunately, this scene is all too typical. It has been ten years since the fires, yet on this mountainside there has been no regeneration.

Entering Yellowstone from the south, the devastation is total and absolute. It looks as if a bomb went off just yesterday. Even where there has been some regeneration of trees, they are now, ten years later, only three to five feet high, due to the short growing season of the northern climate. The glory that was Yellowstone belongs to the past and perhaps future generations, but for us, is lost.

Some stands of trees have survived, and some portions of the park survived better than others. (A "fire impact map" is available from the Park Service of National Forest Service.) The grasslands have recovered faster than the trees. Here, a herd of buffalo graze some ten miles northwest of Old Faithful.

Contrasted to the recovery of the grasslands, a lone eagle sits atop a branch in the remnants of the Yellowstone forest. Sites such as these and as pictured previously, along with the total destruction of south Yellowstone, caused us to limit our Yellowstone stay to one night. The next day, we returned to Jackson Hole via Idaho.

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