Yellowstone National Park, a region once rumored to be "the place where hell bubbles up", is one of the Earth's greatest natural wonders, a mountainous land parked atop one of the world's largest active volcanoes. Yellowstone is best known for its bubbling calderas and other geothermal wonders, peculiarly framed by thickly forested mountains and high alpine lakes. These spectacular features have amazed visitors from the beginning, including Native Americans, explorers, and trappers, and helped lead to Yellowstone's designation as the world's first national park. In 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed a law declaring that Yellowstone would forever be "dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people."
Yellowstone is a raw and unpredictable land full of wildlife, remote thermal areas, turbulent streams, and rugged mountains and visitors will be amazed by the brute natural force displayed by its numerous calderas and thrilling geysers. Yellowstone National Park encompasses over 2.2 million acres and is one of America's premier wilderness areas. Most of the park is classified as backcountry and managed as wilderness. Yellowstone has over 1,100 miles of trails that access its every corner that are very popular with hikers, backpackers and horsepackers alike. Yellowstone has excellent wildlife viewing opportunity with a variety of large game and land mammals, such as elk, moose, the ever popular bison, deer, grizzly and black Bear, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, wolves and is a migratory home to a great number of bird species.
