Yellowstone and I; A Love Story

I have had the privilege of visiting Yellowstone National Park now for over half my life. My first visit to Yellowstone wasn’t until 1991, three years after the infamous fires that burned so much of this iconic national playground. My entrance at the time was through the aforementioned Grand Teton entrance, and I saw the aftermath of the fires work. At the time I remember thinking how tragic it was that this beautiful place had burned so prolifically. What I did not know then is that fire is an important part of the nature of Yellowstone, and the park environs would not be what they are today without its historically important role.

My visit to Yellowstone that day was only a few hours in duration. A friend and myself were camping quite a distance away in Northern Utah and decided to make a spur of the moment trek to Yellowstone as part of our camping trip. We vastly underestimated the time it would take us to reach the park from our camp spot and as a result, cheated ourselves out of a longer visit; for by the time we reached the park itself there were only a few hours left of daylight. We rushed through Grand Teton, not taking the time to see any of its wonder and beauty, in a mad rush to get to Old Faithful. Like almost any first time visitors, our vision of the park was intertwined inextricably with the iconic geysers image, and so to us Old Faithful was Yellowstone. Ironically, by the time we reached the geyser, it had just erupted, and we would not be able to see the geysers next eruption properly because by that time darkness would have descended.

Instead, we spent the next hour or so literally running through the geyser and hot pool basins, snapping pictures as we went for later, and more leisurely, perusal. (As an aside, I DO NOT RECOMMEND RUNNING ON THE BOARDWALKS OR WALKWAYS NEAR GEYSERS OR HOT POOLS! In your own adventures to Yellowstone exercise extreme caution in the thermal areas of the park! What I did not know at the time was that the majority of the hot pools are so hot that they can, literally, boil the flesh from your bones in a matter of minutes, and even a short exposure to their intense heat is enough to seriously injure and often kill those exposed.) In another ironic twist, the pictures I snapped did not turn out, as I had not threaded the spool of film correctly in the old Kodachrome camera I was using at the time (this was long before digital came along, and I have since hardily embraced that format), and I was left with nothing but fleeting memories of wondrous hot pools and fleeting colors that were fading in the early twilight. We left off our whirlwind tour of the hot springs areas before we even hit Grand Prismatic spring, that so often photographed hot pool, known around the world for its rainbow hues and impressive size. I had seen enough to intrigue me greatly; enough so that I was plagued with the desire to see more of it. I had already begun to fall under the Yellowstone spell.

A 'Close Call' With The Fury of Nature

The first time I attempted to visit Yellowstone was during the infamous summer of 1988, when fire consumed over 300,000 acres of the park and surrounding National Forests. A friend and I were vacationing with family and friends in nearby Starr Valley, Wyoming, and after discussing the various things we might do we decided to make the drive up to Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. The air everywhere in the west seemed to be heavy with that ‘campfire’ smell and smoke tinged the sky, even as far as Salt Lake City. The air seemed to thicken as we neared Jackson Hole and the sun became darker, even though the day was edging towards noon. When we arrived at Jackson Hole, which at the time was a much smaller and sleepier town than it is today, the atmosphere and attitudes seemed subdued, even for Jackson. We stopped in at a local National Forest Ranger Station to see if they knew what the situation was inside the National Park.

The ranger at the station, which is on the way out of town on the highway leading to Teton and Yellowstone, warned us quite frankly to not go to Yellowstone. He was very persuasive and we chose to follow his advice, curtailing our trip and spending some time in Jackson Hole instead, which, while admittedly boring for a single twenty something, was very charming and interesting. So ended my first ‘trip’ to Yellowstone.

In retrospect, I can’t help but feel that I missed out on a piece of history. To see the fires for myself would have been something I could have told my kids and grand kids etc., and probably would have made for a good tale for this blog. It was Labor Day weekend, and on September 5th, Labor Day, we headed home without having seen Wonderland. If we had gone into the park, we had on our first agenda going to see Old Faithful, that stalwart and famous old geyser that is the top priority for most first time visitors to Yellowstone, and for good reason. Its regular eruptions have entertained visitors to the Park since the first white men entered and explored the area, and most likely Native American’s for countless generations before that, though we have no records of that.

Two days later, on September 7th, a firestorm came marching over the low hills near the Upper Geyser Basin, and the nation came near to losing one of it’s most iconic lodges, the Old Faithful Inn. The people still present at Old Faithful, mostly firefighters, faced 200 foot flames and 80 mph winds that threatened the lives of all who remained in the Old Faithful area. It was only blind luck that preserved the lives of those people as well as the lodge and other buildings. At the last minute, winds shifted and the fire moved away from the Upper Geyser Basin, sparing their lives.

It would have been interesting to been able to say I'd been there but days before.