Yellowstone National Park celebrated its 150th birthday on March 1, and to commemorate the occasion the park is holding a very unusual fundraiser. In honor of Yellowstone’s sesquicentennial, a new annual pass is now available that is unlike any other. As you might expect, this annual pass grants unlimited access to the park for one full year. That alone isn’t particularly unusual, but in this case, the pass isn’t valid until the year 2172. It also happens to come with a $1500 price tag.
Dubbed the Yellowstone Inheritance Pass, this special edition entry ticket is part of a fundraising campaign from Yellowstone Forever—the park’s official nonprofit partner. The idea behind the Inheritance Pass is that anyone who donates $1500 or more to the organization will be helping to preserve the park for future generations. As a thank you, they’ll also receive an annual pass that will allow their future generations to visit the park in 150 years—just in time for its 300th anniversary.
Image Courtesy of Yellowstone Forever
Yellowstone Forever says that it will maintain a database of all Inheritance Pass owners to ensure the documents don’t get lost over the next century and a half. Should the physical copy of the pass—which resembles a high-quality, heirloom-worthy book—get misplaced along the way, a replacement version can be issued. Whoever owns the pass in 2172 will be given free access to Yellowstone throughout that year. All donors will also receive an annual pass good for the 2022/2023 travel season.
Established in 1872, Yellowstone wasn’t just America’s first national park; it was the first national park in the entire world. Since then, it has become an iconic destination for family vacations, adventure-seeking backpackers, wildlife photographers, RVers, and other travelers. The park is so popular that in 2021 it saw more than 4.5 million visitors pass through its gates.
For more information about the Inheritance Pass, visit the Yellowstone Forever website.
