Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
water as the controversial church had planned to do could have serious consequences for
Mammoth Hot Springs.
The church's 12,000-acre (49 sq km) Royal Teton Ranch shared 5 miles (8 km) of bor-
der with the park. Potential harm to Yellowstone was averted when CUT agreed to cap its
well. The U.S. Geological Survey studied the relationship between La Duke Hot Spring and
those in Yellowstone, and all water use just north of the park is being closely monitored.
In 1999, the Forest Service purchased about 7,800 acres (32 sq km) of the ranch, ac-
quiring its geothermal rights and adding to the lands now available for winter grazing by
elk, bison, bighorn sheep, mule deer, and pronghorn.
On the main road, less than 2 miles (3 km) south of Corwin Springs, the La Duke Spring
National Forest picnic area is an excellent place to get a good look at Devil's Slide on Cin-
nabar Mountain. The slide is not a landslide but is composed of tilted layers of sandstone and
shale that have been stained with iron oxide. Early prospectors mistakenly thought the slide's
red color was due to cinnabar, or mercuric sulfide.
To the left of the slide itself, what looks like a free-standing wall is an erosion-resistant sill
of basalt, a layer of igneous rock squeezed while molten between layers of sedimentary rock
and then cooled while below the surface. All of these layers formed horizontally but were
turned up to their present positions by the same forces that caused the Beartooth uplift to the
east.
Devil's Slide
South of the picnic area small La Duke Hot Spring boils out at the roadside edge of the
Yellowstone River. Not far south of the spring the Yellowstone Park boundary now runs along
the west bank of the Yellowstone River to the original, perfectly straight, northern boundary
 
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