Tuesday, July 27, 2010





John Colter, the first white man known to see Yellowstone, was on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Before the Expedition returned to St. Louis, Colter asked to be released from duty to return to the wilderness. In 1807 he and former expedition member John Potts , trapping in Blackfeet country, were ambushed by Indians. Potts was killed, but Colter escaped by outrunning the Blackfeet who had stripped him naked; he ran 200 miles to safety. Later Colter supplied Clark with many new details from his travels into the Yellowstone(Lewis & Clark somehow missed it). In describing the geysers and other geothermal phenomena, Yellowstone Park became known as “Colter’s Hell.”

We saw people from all over the world visiting Yellowstone 200 years after these historic events. A family from Denmark visited with us after Old Faithful blew. We loved the restored Old Faithful Inn, and stayed 92 minutes to watch Old Faithful again from the Inn balcony.

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