Travel Programs

#13681  GHOST TOWNS OF MONTANA
June 15-22, 2008
Gold!  Silver!  Copper!  These words echoed from Montana to the outside world drawing countless souls like a magnet.  Prospectors, drifters, dreamers, ladies of the evening and road agents arrived in the Treasure State to make their fortunes.  While searching for the Mother Lode they built tent shelters and cabins.  Saloons, general stores, assay offices, laundries and banks were not far behind.  Venture onto Montana's backroads to secluded ghost towns.  Visit Boot Hill; hear of Vigilantes and frontier justice.  Explore a mercantile, newspaper office and livery stable.  Walk among well preserved wooden and stone structures, barely discernable foundations, cemeteries and ghosts of everyday lives.  Learn of powerful geologic forces that resulted in rich mineral deposits throughout the Rocky Mountains.  Discuss various prospecting, mining and extraction methods; pan for gold; dig for crystals.  Living history presentations offer insight and a hint of hardships endured for the sake of treasure.


#1648  YELLOWSTONE'S GRAND LOOP
June 22-28 and August 10-16, 2008
Early tales of a thundering, steaming land were met with disbelief and scorn; later adventurers sorted fable from fact and in 1872, President Grand signed a law declaring Yellowstone "a public park."  To provide easier visitor access to the Park's many wonders, the Army Corps of Engineers began a "Figure 8" wagon trail in 1883.  Retrace this "Grand Loop;" examine its history and recapture the atmosphere of days gone by.  Begin at Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel and Fort Yellowstone.  Journey into the Park's heart amidst geysers and hot springs to Old Faithful, then on to stately Lake Hotel for an evening beside Yellowstone Lake's quiet grandeur.  Imagine dining tents, horse drawn wagons, trailside picnics.  Hear camp tunes, study early travel diaries, enjoy a float and old time wagon ride.  Learn of early explorers in Yellowstone.  Discuss geologic processes that created the Great Caldera.  Like sightseers of yesterday, load up at the grand hotels for days amongst the splendor.

#2809  GREATER YELLOWSTONE:  HEART OF THE CONTINENT
June 8-16 and August 17-25, 2008

Indian legends, tales of mountain men and accounts of early explorers described a land unlike any other on earth - a region that has been called "the heart of the continent, where hidden pulses can be seen and felt to beat."  The core of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the largest intact temperate ecosystem on earth, is Yellowstone and Teton National Parks, preserving premier habitat and the wildlife heritage of the nation.  Focus on aspects of the parks that make them great - their history, geology, wildlife and thermal features.  Steep your senses in the Teton mountain scenery of alpine lakes, mountain streams and the mighty Snake River.  Learn how cataclysmic volcanic eruptions laid the foundation for the largest concentration of geysers, hot springs, mudpots and fumaroles in the world.  Observe bison, moose, bighorn sheep and grizzly bear in the last vestiges of wild America.  Visit the National Museum of Wildlife Art and Albright Visitor Center.

Road Scholar programs in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks