03/01/2014 11:18 AM EST
142 years ago today, Yellowstone became America’s first national park – an idea that would spread worldwide. Old Faithful and the majority of the world’s geysers are preserved here. A mountain wild land, home to grizzly bears, wolves, and herds of bison and elk, the park is the core of one of the last, nearly intact, natural ecosystems in the Earth’s temperate zone.
Photo: Jeremy Stevens (www.sharetheexperience.org)