“The Fossil Forests of the Yellowstone National Park cover an extensive area in the northern portion of the park, being especially abundant along the west side of Lamar River for about 20 miles above its junction with the Yellowstone. Here the land rises rather abruptly to a height of approximately 2,000 feet above the valley floor. It is known as Specimen Ridge, and forms an approach to Amethyst Mountain. There is also a small fossil forest containing a number of standing trunks near Tower Falls, and near the eastern border of the park along Lamar River in the vicinity of Cache, Calfee, and Miller creeks, there are many more or less isolated trunks and stumps of fossil trees, but so far as known none of these is equal in interest to the fossil forest on the slopes of Specimen Ridge.”
The fossil forests are easily reached over the wagon roads from the Mammoth Hot Springs, or from the Wylie Camp at Tower Falls.
Those who really wish to see these petrified trees must make a special point of it, or else they may be told, as I was, that the two small stumps seen in passing are all that are there.
In addition to a large redwood stump which stands 12 feet high, there are two trunks which stand 25 feet high and are two feet in diameter; another, three feet in diameter and 30 feet high, etc.
In addition to these standing trees many trunks lie prone upon the ground.
Ten species of trees have been found in the fossil forests of this park as well as some 150 fossil plants.
For further information on this, or any other of the national parks or monuments, apply to “The Department of the Interior,” Washington, D. C.
JACKSON LAKE
The Jackson Lake region is reached by automobile, from Old Faithful Inn, at which place arrangements can be made for the trip.
The lake lies just north of the very beautiful Teton Range, across the southern boundary of the park and about 70 miles from Old Faithful; this trip makes a most delightfully worth-while addition to a visit to the Yellowstone Park; the drive down is very fine, following the Yellowstone Lake for a time, crossing the Continental Divide, with views of the Absoroka Range to the east, where we see such great peaks as Mount Langford with an altitude of 10,600 feet; Mount Shurz, 10,600 feet; Colton Peak, 10,500 feet, and Table Mountain, 10,800 feet, standing, snow clad, in the distance.