“What is so rare as a day in June?”---James Russell Lowell
“Let me tell you about this park in Wyoming”---B.K.
The grandeur of Yosemite National Park is legendary, the raw beauty of Glacier unrivaled. Zion N.P. has its Narrows, Rocky Mountain its eye-popping skyline drive, Bryce Canyon its incomparable hoodoos. Cadillac Mountain in Acadia welcomes the U.S. sunrise first each day. And the Grand Canyon? Well, the Grand Canyon has been known to transport its admirers to another dimension. But there are more wonders in Yellowstone than this world dreams of.
Founded in 1872, Yellowstone is our first national park. At 3400 square miles, it is also the largest in the lower 48 states, almost triple the size of Yosemite. Yellowstone is home to black and grizzly bears, to thousands of elk, to roving wolfpacks and giant herds of bison. You might spot a lynx or a wolverine, with or without one of those wrinkled blue M caps. If you’re in the mood, you can visit Yellowstone Lake, 7732 feet above sea level and covering 136 square miles, with 110 miles of shoreline. You will never run out of places to see and things to do in this truly magic kingdom.
There are more than 900 miles of hiking trails in backcountry wilderness. There are thermal wonders, over 10,000 of them, like fumaroles (steam vents), mud pots, hot springs and geysers. Of the 1283 geysers which have erupted in Yellowstone at one time or another, 465 are active during an average year. There are Native American artifacts to discover, especially in the geothermal areas. There are mountains to climb, like Eagle Peak (11,371 feet), Electric Peak (10,968’), Mount Washburn (10,243’) and countless others. There is the spectacular Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River, replete with wowie waterfalls. There is the brilliant, mind-altering Grand Prismatic Spring, which takes you in and holds you in its spell. And, oh yes, there is one other thing you won’t find at Graceland or Disney World or anywhere else. It’s called Mammoth Hot Springs and it is even rarer than a day in June.
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| (1) Bison lover at a respectable distance, (2) Bison lovers at car-repair distance. |
Goodness Gracious, it’s Bodacious!
At Yellowstone each year, the rain and melted snow seeps into the earth. Cold to begin with, the water is quickly warmed by heat radiating from a partially molten magma chamber deep underground, the remnant of a cataclysmic volcano eruption which occurred 600,000 years ago. After moving throughout this underwater plumbing system, the now hot water rises up through a system of small fissures, interacting with hot gases charged with carbon dioxide rising up from the magma chamber. As some of the carbon dioxide is dissolved in the hot water, a weak, carbonic acid solution is formed.
In the Mammoth area, the hot, acidic solution dissolves large quantities of limestone on its way up through the rock layers to the hot springs on the surface. Above ground and exposed to the air, some of the carbon dioxide escapes from the solution. Without it, the dissolved limestone can’t remain in the solution, so it reforms into a solid mineral. This white chalky mineral is deposited as the travertine system that forms the famous terraces of Mammoth Hot Springs. Mammoth has two terrace boardwalks, the Upper and Lower, accessible from a nearby parking lot or the Grand Loop Road.
Mammoth Hot Springs is just south of the famous Roosevelt Arch, the northern entrance to the park at Gardiner, Montana. The area is accessible by car the year round, unlike much of Yellowstone. Nearby is the Boiling River, one of the few legal thermal soaking areas in the park. The Heritage and Research Center in Gardiner is a state-of-the-art facility that is home to Yellowstone’s museum collection, archives, research library and archeology lab. Tours are available twice a week from June to September, but make a reservation or suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Changing Times
Siobhan and Bill were here at Mammoth about fifteen years ago. At the time, water was flowing over the travertine surfaces from top to bottom. This time, however, we were concerned to find water only at the highest levels. The park rangers contend that the springs are not drying up and that the overall activity and volume of water remain relatively constant. Okay, if you say so, but it’s a big change.
We meandered around the boardwalks surrounding the springs, climbed to the top to get some pictures, then drove to the Roosevelt Arch near Gardiner. The town, still very small, had grown a smidge since we stayed there years ago. From many of the hotel balconies, it’s possible to see rafts jauntily bouncing down the nearby Yellowstone River.
When last we visited, we hiked to the summit of 9652-foot Sepulcher Mountain, an 11.2-mile lightly trafficked loop trail rated as difficult. The excursion took from 7:30 in the morning until about 3 p.m., ending in a light shower. The elevation gain is an impressive 3517 feet. These days, Siobhan has become wiser and now personally checks the mileage and degree of difficulty of our hikes. If the little guidebook says either “11.2 miles” or “difficult,” she makes an unpleasant face and puts a big line through it with her magic marker. We asked for an easier alternative from a lady at the ranger station. She recommended Bunsen Peak, just a few miles down the road. Said it was her favorite hike in Yellowstone. We’re very impressed by people in uniform who seem to know what they’re talking about, so we motored over to the tiny parking lot by the trail and nabbed the last of about a dozen spaces. As Peggy Lee famously said, “We’re on our way to somewhere….to somewhere I don’t know.”
Bunsen Peak
There was a time when a 1300 foot climb through forest and meadow to the peak of an 8564 mountain was a walk in the park for Bill and Siobhan. We’re here to tell you that time is over. Though the overall distance of the Bunsen Peak Trail was listed as anywhere from 4.1 to 4.8 miles, the first half often seemed to be going straight up. What happened to those compressed air cans we bought in Albuquerque?
If you’re scratching your head trying to remember who Bunsen was, think back to high school and your Bunsen Burner. German chemist Robert Bunsen invented the thing. He also spent a lot of time studying geysers. His trail and the area in general is grizzly bear country, but the bears have apparently learned that the meat derived from old people is not so tasty and they left us alone. We shared the trail with several ambitious hikers on the way up, none of them over 35. “Bear entrees,” I told Siobhan, smug in the knowledge we were at the bottom of the grizzly menu. “I don’t know,” she paused. “All of them can run faster than us.” To accent this sad truth, two 18-year old boys marched by like they were going downhill on a Matterhorn ski slope. It’s hell getting old.
I can walk all day at a reasonable 4 miles-per-hour as long as I’m on a level surface in an air-conditioned health facility. I can even jog about 7 mph for a short period. It took us two hours to negotiate the 2-plus miles of the Bunsen Peak ascent, and not because Siobhan was slowing me down. By the time we made it to the top, several other hikers had passed us, including the sprightly 18-year-olds. “We didn’t think you’d make it,” one of them admitted. “We only got here 5 minutes ago ourselves.” Tortoise and the hare, I thought. “Tortoise and the hare,” I said. They looked at me oddly, like I was speaking Russian. “It’s a bar in Liverpool,” I told them.
The boys took our pictures, good ones at that, and I went over to sign the registry of hikers who made it to the top. I read a couple of the names, stopped abruptly and looked at Siobhan. “You won’t believe this,” I said, registering great surprise, “but Shari Godano’s name is in here, just above mine.” We were astonished to meet our Ocala neighbor a couple of days earlier in another section of the park. “You’re kidding!” she protested. And I was, of course. “But what if I’d sniggled her name in the book, you’d never have guessed.”
She looked at me with her patented Siobhan Ellison Pout of Disapproval. “That’s egregious!” she sputtered. “It’s a hideous breach of the Hiker’s Code. I would have been forced to report you to the Happy Wanderer Foundation!” Apparently, extremism in the defense of honesty is no vice. Barry Goldwater said that. I think it was Barry.
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| (1) Beginning of the Bunsen Peak Trail, (2) Steep going for senior citizens, (3) Bill records the hike at 8564 verified feet. |
Next Week: Jackson Hole-iness
It’s a paltry 6.9 miles from the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park to the entrance of Grand Teton N.P. and a trip to one almost requires a visit to the other. Headquarters for a Teton visit, Jackson Hole, is a little further, about 57 miles, and a lot more expensive. Most Jackson hotels think room rates of anything less than $400 is scandalously cheap and living in a Motel 6 is considered homelessness. Bill and Siobhan meander down to take a look in our next semi-exciting episode.
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| Yellowstone Lake. It's BIG. |
Grass Roots Pandemonium
While lesser candidates fall by the wayside on a daily basis, the Bill Killeen For President campaign rumbles on. Our man Bill will surely be among the final six left standing when the dust has settled and the wheat has been separated from the chaff, whatever that is. Seen below showing the colors are Mary Ellison, a financial planner from Ann Arbor, Michigan and Kathleen Ellison, a dermatologist and campaign organizer from Washington, D.C. Kathleen likes to tell everyone she has skin in this game. Stop it, Kathleen.
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| Killeen supporters at future residence of President Bill. |
That’s all, folks….
