Yellowstone

Tuesday 8/19: Yellowstone

Our day in Yellowstone equaled two days of experience! New visitors should plan a least 2 or 3 days here. We've been here before, of course, so it was scheduled as a quick visit on this long trek. We had our agenda: favorite places we wanted to see again. But Yellowstone had its own agenda for us, and it was a humdinger!

We were with people from all over the world. When you think about it, this is a geological site that is unparalleled throughout the world. Crowds of people were the norm, and we just had to overlook them. You can't begrudge anyone this excellent experience. It is quite a place for people-watching! (I often think of the Glamour Dos and Dont's. What a place for them to canvas—both men and women!!)

I think this day proved to be our best experience in Yellowstone. First, it was a clear sunny day. Our previous visits had been cloudy. On a sunny day, everything shimmers with light and color! The pallid pools of color we remembered were exchanged for sights of great color and beauty. I know that I carry away a different feeling for and appreciation of Yellowstone than I've ever had. I know I have a new level of respect for the place and its inhabitants.

Yellowstone is a place of wildness. Life and death are on display in every direction: Beautiful forests contrasted with groves of dead and dying trees. Spectacular color in water, surrounded by the white chemical layering of death. Living microscopic creatures in pools that would quickly kill any animal or person with their heat and acidity. Large areas marked as unstable for walking, contrasted with a huge buffalo lying placidly beside one of the poisonous basins. And within areas you wouldn't want to touch, buffalo tracks and spoor.

I hadn't known that nearly all of the national park is actually within the caldera of the world's largest volcano. And the caldera is far from dead. Geysers, hot springs of water laced with acids and chemicals, fumaroles that roar with hot gasses, bubbling pots of water and of mud—all speak to the activity of the area. Boardwalks are everywhere, and you are told (needlessly in my case!) not to step off of them! And Don tells me that, with 3 data points, the volcano has errupted every 600,000 years—and it's due again any time! Even better, there are domes that are growing measurably and Yellowstone Lake is tilting!   I remarked that geologists may know that, but I wouldn't stake my life on it—and then realized that by being there I was staking my life on it not happening! Knowing what might happen—sometime—is quite different from thinking it will happen—to me. Kind of like the end of the world.

Intellectually we know that the center of the earth is hot, explosive, moving and changing. But we don't really know it; can hardly think of our earth in that way. Here, you come face to face with the inhospitable power of the earth that lurks under the nurturing surfaces we call home. And you can't escape the fact that we have no ability to control this power. And God, who created it all, is more powerful yet.   "He is good, but not tame. (Lewis)

There are such highlights: Emerald Pool, Grand Prismatic Springs, the Dragon's Mouth, and the mud pit that I've always thought of as the gate to Hell. How bizarre to drive along the road and see steam rising from the grass—or a mud pot boiling away. Then there was the parking spot next to a metal drain—smoke seeping out of it…(Don chose another parking place!). It's all beyond imagination—it is other-worldly. It is too awesome to actually describe, but it is a visual experience everyone should have.

Then, there were the animals. As we entered the park last night, a small herd of elk—does and fawns—were settling into the green meadow by one of the hotels. They were watchful, but largely ignoring the many people (including me!) taking pictures.

Buffalo were to be our major animal experience. Driving down a less-prominent road, we realized that the few cars ahead of us had stopped. Why? Well a great bull buffalo was calmly walking down the middle of the road between the stopped cars! He was huge. You could hear the clops of his feet on the pavement like they were iron-shod! He was calmly looking back and forth at the cars and people. He came to our car—his head right beside mine (window down of course) and looked me straight in the eye. I was momentarily transfixed. As he passed, I regretted not taking a close-up of his giant head, but later I realized what a rare experience it was—looking into the eye of a buffalo and living to tell the tale! What a moment.

That buffalo was, on some level, engaged with the folks he was looking over. We joked that he was on the park payroll! But our other experiences with his kith and kin were quite different. We were fortunate enough to be caught in 2 "Buffalo Jams." We are rather blasé about bear jams, you know. A person sights a bear, stops his car, other cars stop, everyone takes pictures of the bear, who is wandering off up the mountain. You know the drill.

A buffalo jam is qualitatively different. First, these animals are about as large as most cars. In any contest between buffalo and a vehicle, the buffalo would be the (possibly dead) victor over the wrecked car! So when these guys decide to cross the road, or lie down upon the road and rest, everyone has no real option but to stop—and wait—and wait. They are simply going about their lives, totally ignoring the cars and picture-taking. They live here, and grazers though they be, they are pretty much at the top of the food chain. (This is "free range grazing" at its highest level!) As they finally wandered off the road, we all slowly started driving by, windows down, cameras clicking. They are not silent beasts. I could hear great gruntings and snortings and deep breathing. This was a neat way to observe the life of the buffalo: eat, chew cud, roll in dirt, bellow a bit, feed the calves, observe weird people looking at us again!

We saw deer. We passed a lake thick with geese, pelicans, and many kinds of duck. At our picnic, two beautiful little gray birds inspected us and our lunch. There were a number of ravens that kept watch over the tourists. We didn't see moose or grizzlies on this trip.

But at the end of the day, there was another wonderful animal sighting. It was a buck elk—his rack must have been 6 feet across—grazing, not too far from the road. I (who had been too tired to walk another step) quickly exited the car and followed others down onto the field. He was simply beautiful, and so large you would never mistake him for a deer. Amazing to see another large animal, simply grazing in the cool of the evening, absolutely unconcerned about the people (no one got very close at all). He was the most beautiful stag I'd ever dreamed of seeing—truly the king of the forest.

It was a most wonderful day!