Win a Free Tour to Celebrate Yellowstone’s Birthday

March 1, 2012  /  By: Allan, Zephyr Adventures Owner

Yellowstone National Park celebrates its 140th birthday on March 1st, 2012. To celebrate, we have partnered with the Montana Office of Tourism, distributor World Class Beer, All About Beer magazine, and Pintley.com to give away one free tour including airfare to our July 20-25 Yellowstone & Grand Tetons Beer Adventure. See below for details on how to enter.

Some people call the National Park System, “America’s Best Idea”. As usual, good ideas don’t always come easy. For years John Muir’s devote activism helped convince people the environment was something worth saving. His efforts eventually helped save the Yosemite Valley and resulted in California’s designation of Yosemite as state parkland in 1864. The first of its kind. Eight years later the federal government took California’s lead and focused its gaze on an equally wondrous tract of land in what would become Yellowstone National Park, the world’s first National Park. In 1890 Yosemite, too, became a national park.
 
The human history of the Yellowstone region goes back more than 11,000 years. From about 11,000 years ago to the very recent past, many groups of Native Americans used the park as their homes, hunting grounds, and transportation routes. These traditional uses of Yellowstone lands continued until a little over 200 years ago when John Colter, a member of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, made his impressive winter trek through the region. Many trappers and traders followed his tracks and soon after 11,000 years of tradition started to change.

Those early trappers were followed by army explorers, with Ferdinand Hayden surveying the region in 1871. Upon his return to the East, he mounted a campaign to promote, but also to protect, the natural wonders he had seen. His words and experiences were one thing but perhaps most convincing were the colors in expedition member and artist Thomas Moran’s illustrations (including the depiction above). This campaign eventually resulted in a decision by Congress on March 1, 1872, to pass into law the act creating Yellowstone as “a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.”

Today 3.5 million people per year visit Yellowstone National Park. However, only about a dozen or so visit on an active beer tour! On our Yellowstone & Grand Teton Beer Adventure we hike, bike, or raft each morning; visit six breweries in six days; and spend time in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. We hike on the rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, along the edge of the canyon you see in the painting above.

To enter to win a free Yellowstone tour, simply register on our Yellowstone Giveaway page. Deadline to register is March 31. Even better, sign up today to join us on the tour and we'll refund your deposit if you are the prize winner.

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Posted In: Beer / Biking / Blog / Hiking / Yellowstone