Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Another entertaining version of the story has birds sitting on “peetrified” branches, singing
peetrified songs.
In present-day Yellowstone, only one of the standing petrified trees is easy to
reach—the others require strenuous off-trail climbs. To see this specimen, take the short
side road west of Tower Junction, described at mile 16.7/1.4 in the road log “From Mam-
moth Junction to Tower Junction.”
Turnouts along the last 5 miles east of Tower-Roosevelt Junction provide access to many
ponds, including the Trumpeter Lakes some distance from the road, where trumpeter swans
have sometimes nested. Ducks and other aquatic birds, yellow-headed and red-winged black-
birds, as well as otters and muskrats sometimes make these ponds their home. However, the
water may dry up by midsummer, and the birds and animals then disperse throughout the
area.
26.7/1.9 Specimen Ridge Trailhead
on the south. This is not a trail where you'll find pet-
rified tree specimens, but rather a trail along the top of Specimen Ridge. You can get to the
same trail at mile 27.4/1.2.
An interpretive sign on the north side of the road explains the evidence left all around
by the glaciers.
Traces the Glaciers Left Here
In the 4 miles (6 km) between the Lamar River bridge and Junction Butte, you'll see a par-
ticularly rich collection of evidence that this valley was buried in ice not so very long ago
[GEO.14].
In fact, the ice was about a half mile thick (800 m), with its base at about the
level of the highway, so that even Specimen Ridge was covered.
You'll see numerous small ponds, called
kettle ponds
or kettle holes, mostly on the
north side of the road, and a great many large boulders, or
glacial erratics
that differ from
the local bedrock. These are all evidence of glaciers
[GEO.15].
See
page 312
in the Geolo-
gical History chapter for an explanation of these phenomena.
