Work Camping at Yellowstone

The new Old Faithful Visitors Center

This is our second season working here at Yellowstone, and to be more specific – at Old Faithful. This year we opened the new Visitor Education Center on August 25th. The building has a Gold Leeds certificate and what this means to all of us, is that it has the highest certification for energy and renewable resource compliance. The building is positioned over a thermally active area, so it is built above the ground, not into it. The roof is an energy compliant roof over a roof with an 18” air space, so the outer roof is a cold roof. Water use is monitored and only renewable resource wood was used for fixtures. There's also lots of natural lighting and ventilating. What does it all mean to you the visitor? A beautiful building with great exhibits!

The main hall with the floor to ceiling window overlooks Old Faithful, the peak is high enough to see the entire eruption. The Ranger Desk has the eruption predictions on a big display so you can easily jot down the times to plan your walk through the Geyser Basin. Rangers are extremely helpful with questions, whether they be wildlife or geological based.

Inside the Yellowstone Association Park Store

A new exhibit hall with many exhibits sponsored by the National Science Foundation has an appeal for all ages. Dioramas of the wildlife and geological features, a model of a geyser that actually erupts, plus easily understood explanations of things like the PH levels and what they relate to make this education experience accessible and fun. All this in a hall with a cork floor that is amazing to walk on!

The theater which can seat up to 200 visitors shows movies like Fire and Water, an award-winning film documenting how the geysers work. For instance, the water gushing out of Old Faithful and other geysers actually fell as rain and snow then was absorbed, filtered, and collected over 400 years ago!

One of the top features, at least in my mind – as this is where we work camp, is the Yellowstone Association Bookstore. I heard one visitor say it was like walking into a Barnes & Noble. The store is beautiful and has a superb assortment of books, ranging from children's books to Geological treatises. The mission is to educate and engage the visitor in a way that inspires them to help preserve the park.

Monitors give timely info for great viewing

Yellowstone Association is a non-profit and the proceeds are put back into the park in the form of grants for educational purposes. Last year, more than 1.6 million dollars went directly into the park. Check out www.yellowstoneassociation.org for more information.

The dedication of this new building had speakers from the Department of the Interior, the National Park Service director Jonathan Jarvis, Yellowstone Park Superintendant Suzanne Lewis and keynote speaker, Paul Schullery. An amazing coincidence of timing and serendipity, as Paul Schullery finished his speech, Old Faithful hit it’s prediction and erupted. What a fitting conclusion to a dynamic dedication!

Work camping is a great way to use your RV to see different places, to help programs such as this, and to have a lot of fun. Work camping in a place like Yellowstone National Park is an amazing and wonderful experience.