UIAD GOES TO WYOMING AGAIN in 2019

Jackson Hole  is a valley between the Teton Mountain Range  and the Gros Ventre Range  in Wyoming . The term "hole" was used by early trappers or mountain men , who primarily entered the valley from the north and east and had to descend along relatively  steep slopes , giving the sensation of entering a hole. These  low-lying  valleys surrounded by mountains and containing rivers and streams are good habitat for  beaver  and other  fur-bearing  animals. Jackson Hole Airport  is the largest and busiest commercial airport in Wyoming.  Click to make it bigger. Jackson Hole, what a pity, no time to go skiing.  But it's a good time to give  a little ski vocabulary  to my Grenoble skiers! -- ski resort   =  Be careful, it's NOT "ski station"! -- aerial lift  = A cable transport in which cabins, cars, gondolas the seating compartment in a ski lift) or open chairs are pulled abo...

Before leaving The Grand Tetons, let me make two film suggestions. --First, do you know the 1953 film Shane ?  A classic Western with Alan Ladd.  Take a look at the trailer here and if you can find the film and if you like Westerns, you might like watching it. --The second film is another classic that takes you to an episode in the history of Wyoming.  The Johnson County War. Did you know that sometimes you can find Simple English Wikipedia? Look here:   https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_County_War The  Johnson County War , also known as the  War on Powder River  and the  Wyoming Range War , was a conflict over farmland that took place in Johnson County , Wyoming  between 1889 and 1893. The film:   Heaven's Gate.  La Porte du Paradis .  Director Michael Cimino.  Extraordinary. Long. 3 hours and 38 minutes!  (1980)  And you'll see Isabelle Huppert in one of her first films.  S...

"Mountains of the Imagination Rising above a scene rich with  extraordinary wildlife,  pristine  lakes, and alpine terrain , the Teton Range  stands monument  to the people who fought to protect it. These are mountains of the imagination. Mountains that led to the  creation of Grand Teton National Park (1929)  where you can explore over two hundred miles of trails, float the  Snake River  or enjoy the serenity of this remarkable place."              ( The U.S. National Parks Service brochure) The  naming  of the mountains  is attributed to early 19th-century French -speaking trappers— les trois tétons   (the three teats) was later anglicized and shortened to  Tetons . Grand Teton National Park is one of the ten most visited national parks in the U.S.,  with an annual average of 2.75 million visitors in the period from 2007 to 2016, with 3.27 million visitin...

Take a look at this map of Yellowstone. #1 Old Faithful Geyser/Upper Basin #2 Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone #3 Hayden Valley #4 Mammoth Hot Springs #5 Yellowstone Lake #6 Norris Geyser Basin #7 Lamar Valley #8 Tower Fall #9 Lower Geyser Basin #10 West Thumb Geyser Basin Today a map...and two videos you can watch.  Remember that you can click the icon at the bottom of the screen, in the righthand corner to have the subtitles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eV-RQHPQu2Y    National Geographic Yellowstone: World's First National Park   2 minutes and 5' seconds  with subtitles   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1axwgUCbpNQ   VOA Yellowstone film   3 minutes and 31 seconds My best, Jane PS  MORE IS MORE!  If you would like a little summer reading and listening exercises, here's VOA English for you: https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/yellowstone-americas-first-national-park/3482437.html https:/...

1. The  continental divide  of North America runs diagonally through the park on its southwestern corner. 2. The park is home to one of  the largest high altitude lakes in North America - the Yellowstone Lake. 3.  Old Faithful is not the park’s largest geyser That distinction belongs to  Steamboat Geyser,   which can shoot water as high as 300 feet (91m), more than 100 feet (30m) higher than Old Faithful. Steamboat Geyser’s eruptions are unpredictable, though. Since 1991,  it had erupted only eight times,  and the amount of time between eruptions has varied from 30 days to nine years.  BUT now there is new news!   Be curious and take a look here: https://geysertimes.org/geyser.php?id=Steamboat https://youtu.be/vlFsEr1qmGk Maybe Steamboat will erupt while we are there! Steamboat Geyser 4. The  Grand Prismic Spring  in Yellowstone National Park is the largest hot spring in the United States and the third larg...

1.  Yellowstone is the largest active geyser field in the world.  Old Faithful ,  a geyser ,  erupts about every 65-95 minutes.   Old Faithful  shoots a column of water 100-130 feet (30 - 40 meters) into the air. WOW!  5 minutes and 49 seconds.  Take the time to watch this. https://www.nps.gov/media/video/view.htm?id=DBA52FFD-155D-451F-67C4471D28BA5344 Old Faithful Geyser 2.  In Yellowstone, there are  15 miles of   boardwalk,  92  trailheads  that access approximately  1000 miles of  trails.    Yellowstone is about  5% covered by water, 15% by grassland and 80% by forests. 3.   Yellowstone has  1000 to 3000 earthquakes annually, virtually all of which are undetectable to people.   4.   Allow me to return to the buffalo again.  Yellowstone Park herd was estimated in 2015  to be 4,900 bison.   I read that even though the s...

Life in Yellowstone: (With a BBC 6-minute English as an option.) 1.  There are  67 species of mammals  ( elk , moose, mule deer, white-tailed deer, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, cougar, to name a few).  There are   2 species of bears , the black bear and the grizzly bear.   There are  two  threatened  species , the Canadian lynx and the grizzly bear.  The  Yellowstone Park bison   is the largest public herd of American bison in the United States. 2.  There are  285 species of birds,   16 species of fish, 5 species of amphibians and 6 species of reptiles .  3.Starting  in 1914 , in an effort to protect the elk populations, the U.S. Congress gave money to be used for the purposes of " destroying wolves , prairie dogs and other animals injurious to agriculture and  animal husbandry " on public lands.  After the wolves were  extirpated  from Yellowstone, the coyote became the park'...

Four more things to learn about Yellowstone National Park: 1.  We read in the text on Day 45 that 3 million tourists visit Yellowstone annually. That number comes from an outdated book!   In  2018, Yellowstone had   4,114,999 visits.   Look at the chart below. 2.   The  highest point in the park is 11,358 feet (3462 m)  at Eagle Peak and the  lowest point in the park is 5,282 feet (1610 m ) at Reese Creek. 3.  There are more than  500 active  geysers   in the park (more than half of the world's geysers). 4.  There are more than  290 waterfalls. My best, Jane __________________________________________ -- How do you pronounce "geyser"?  Listen and choose! http://dictionary.cambridge.org/fr/prononciation/anglais/geyser Yellowstone National Park Visitor Statistics by Year Since 2000 Year Visitors Year Visitors Year Visitors 2000 2,838,233 2011 3,394,327 2022 2001 2,758,526 2012 3,4...

Yellowstone: Where to begin?  What to write about?  How to organise so much information?  How to keep my blog posts short? My decision:   Less is More. We'll be spending just two and a half days in Yellowstone National Park.  What a pity.  There is so much to see and discover. As a solution for my job on this blog, I've come to the conclusion that less is more.  It's impossible to cover everything, so I'll just present  four bits of information about Yellowstone for today and for the the next four days .  Does that sound reasonable? 1.   Where does the name Yellowstone come from ?  I read that near the end of the  18th century French trappers  named the river there  Roche Jaune , which is probably a translation of an  Indian name  Mi tai a-da-zi meaning "Rock Yellow River.  Later, American trappers rendered the French name  in English as "Yellow Stone." 2.  We saw the...

A few years ago I had some classes at a B1 level and we were using   a  New Headway Pre-Intermediate book .  It was the  second to last   ( avant dernière )  lesson in the book  " What if .. .(Et si) "   where my students learned the second conditional.  Now what does all this have to do with Yellowstone, you may ask!   Just as a reminder,  the second conditional is used to express an unreal or improbable condition and its results .  The past forms are used to show this is different from reality.  The condition is unreal because it is different from the facts that we know.   How about if   (Et si)  I share the text with you? Supervolcano! If this volcano  erupted , the world  would freeze .. . Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, USA.  A hot July day, and some of the  3 million visitors  who come to the park  every year  are watching ...