September 3-8, West Yellowstone, MT
.JPG)
We left Virginia City and headed south to West Yellowstone where we are staying at Rainbow Point Campground, a National Forest Campground North of West Yellowstone on Hebgen Lake. We had to wait alongside the road for a cattle drive to clear the road. We drove to Earthquake Lake a few miles North of Hebgen Lake and stopped at the Madison River Canyon Earthquake Area Visitor Center. On August 17, 1959 one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded on the North American continent struck the Madison River Canyon. The quake measured 7.5 and triggered a massive landslide sending over 80 million tons of rock down into the canyon totally blocking the Madison River. The water backed up behind the slide forming Earthquake Lake. Twenty-eight people were killed in this earthquake, mostly campers and individuals in resort cabins. The Army Corps of Engineers dug a spillway across the slide area so the Madison River could continue flowing and to keep the lakes from flooding more. We followed an ...