yellowstone

yellowstone was the very first national park. created by president grant in 1872, it is a giant rectangle in the northwest corner of wyoming, extending into montana and idano. it was known for a long time as the wonderland of america. when the isolated mountain men who lived there in the early 19th century reported about a place where mud boils and there are cerulean blue pools, where grizzlies, black bears, and numbers game, birds and fish all lived in the middle of the beautiful northern rockies--people didn't believe them. it is now the most famous national park, old faithful is the most famous geyser in the world, and just the name yellowstone has become synonymous with america at large.

i used to think that the park was over-rated: i mean, it can't really be that fantastic--it's just a park like so many other amazing american parks i have been to before. i've been to the grand canyon, big bend, badlands, great smoky np--which are al iconic in their own right. i was wrong. yellowstone deserves all the credit it gets--for preserving this one mostly pristine place, and for allowing all americans, and even non-americans to enjoy it.

we left livingston, about 50 miles north of the park, at 7 on friday morning. driving in two matching nissan armadas, all ten of us (we had lost jackie, sadly) headed south. approaching the park from the north, you drive through this beautiful place called paradise valley, passing in between countless mountains--it really deserves its name, and we hadn't even gotten to the park. we approached through the historic brick archway built in 1872, which declares the goal of the parks: 'for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.' and that was even before there was a park service or system at all.

we entered at mammoth hot springs, above, this beautiful and strange-looking cascading, scalding hot water, which just slowly drips from level to level. in the old days, before people had to walk only on the boardwalks, they would scrawl their names in the bottom of the pools using sticks. from there we headed to the upper falls, which pushes through a massive amount of water in this torrential rapid falls, and is on the right. definitely not something you want to fall in. (t's the yellowstone river, by the way). and then it was on to the upper falls, which are the ones on all of the postcards. we hiked for about a mile, maybe a little more, which was really great--the one downside of yellowstone is that there are a lot of people, and this hike allowed us to get away from most of them. we ended up in a place called artist point--aptly named, considering that it produced the picture at the top of this post. the picture at left is one me pretending to push patrick over the edge during our hike--that's the river gorge in the background.

after gazing awestruck at this massive river and its beautiful falls for a while, we headed south to west thumb and the beautiful yellowstone lake (they aren't very creative with their names, apparently). i don't think i have ever seen a lake like this one--an amazingly clear blue, with white-capped mountains on the other side. especially considering that i am a river person myself, i found this lake, and its vastness quite impressive.

from the lake we went to the most famous part--old faithful. luckily we got there not too long before its next eruption--they can guess the time down to plus or minus ten minutes. honestly, it was impressive--it was shooting water almost a hundred feet into the air for about 30 seconds. but is is real any cooler than the rest of the part? no. i thought all the people sitting around it in a big circle more interesting. but we saw it, and here's a picture. the area around the geyser has quite a few hotels, restaurants and gift shops, so we ate a very late lunch--it was already three--and bought stuff. i got some postcards, and mum bought me a really cute teddy bear--wearing the pince nez glasses, safari hat and all.

as we headed north and west out of the park, we stopped by the fountain paint pot. this was a fascinating stop--it had a wide array of thermal features. everything from bright turquoise pools to something they called a bacteria bed: things actually live in this scalding water! but apparently the thermophiles are what turned this area orange. there was also mud that was literally boiling, as well as another geyser that was just happily going off for about the whole half hour were in the area. some of the mud pots only appeared after an earthquake in the 50s, and its clear based on the stark landscape around the features still there that there used to be more. funny idea--apparently the buffalo will not only sit on the warm ground around the thermal features in winter, but will sometimes actually get in the boiling, sulfuric acid laden pools.after leaving through the west entrance to the park, we drove a few miles further west because will wanted to go to idaho. so we did, and we all took pictures with the idaho state sign. it was getting pretty late by this point, so we stopped in big sky at a place called the half moon for dinner. since it was still off-season, they had both a limited menu and staff, but the food was excellent--i got a baseball cut steak, as did a couple others--patrick and stacy, of course, go the full rack of ribs, even without jackie to keep up with. we ate out on the porch, which was beautiful as the sun went down, though we all had to go get fleeces and jackets after it was behind the mountains. from big sky it was back to bozeman, then livingston.

all in all, it was a great day. for the first time in a week in a half, we had fantastic weather. i was in a car with stacy, patrick, mum, and mary kathryn, and we had a blast driving around, counting the number of park rules that patrick broke along the way. thanks stacy for giving us a break from driving, and to will for planning our day. we got back about 10:30--i had a 16 hour day. needless to say, i slept pretty well that night.