Winter Comes Early to Yellowstone

Dubois is a bit dead and alive but fine for a couple of days.  One thing that was good about the place was that all the various eating places were local.  There were no Denny’s, Dairy Queen, TacoBell, Wendy’s or any other quick and tacky fast food outlets that most of you Brits will have never heard of.  Not even a Starbucks, unlike Denver where there appeared to be a City Statute that a Starbucks had to be on every block.  There are a huge amount of deer antlers collected in these areas after the deer shed them and they’re made into chandeliers, arched gateways, various carvings and so on.  Winters are long here.  One shop here had a moose antler (which has a large flat surface) and with great skill someone had carved a semi-relief silhouette of horses running across a sagebrush strewn landscape.  Unfortunately the carver had over s’d the thing and had carved the title into it as Dessert Fire.   

As you would imagine the big wide open spaces of Wyoming have few towns and many ranches.  Along the highway the entrances often consist of a gate and big wooden arch with the name carved or burnt in and a track leading off into the distance to somewhere called The Lazy Sod Ranch or something similar.  We left Dubois early and cool but sunny and head westwards, crossing the Continental Divide before we reach the Tetons.  Rain falling east of the divide that doesn’t sink into the soil eventually drains into the Atlantic via the Gulf of Mexico while rain falling to the west ends up in the Pacific.  However, there’s a lake to the north of us that due to some freakish topography has a stream leaving at the east which drains into the Pacific and one to the west that drains into the Atlantic.   We’re planning to stay at Jackson and we’re collecting Bonnie and Newt from their flight at the very well hidden airport although we did manage to find it.  Flying up the east side of the Rockies was very windy and therefore very bumpy too for them and we learned that a number of people had enjoyed seeing their lunches for a second time.  It was really good to meet up again and we have about two weeks to enjoy with them.  In my last notes I’d mistakenly said that the accommodation that had to be re-booked because it had been burnt down was in Jackson but it was actually up in Yellowstone to the north of us.

Jackson certainly is a local hub, quite a fair size and with a local fair in the central square when we arrived selling lots of art and craft stuff that we did not fill our luggage with.  It was hot by now and I had to force down a Huckleberry ice-cream.  Newt had got us a very well placed hotel with views across a great expanse of reedbeds which freeze in winter and become a huge Elk refuge.  Elk are like giant deer, as big as horses and they have huge antlers just like horses don’t.

The Grand Tetons had been formed by a geological fault lifting on one side and dropping on the other so there are no foothills, just a plain and then jagged mountains rising to just under 14,000 feet to the west.  Very dramatic, topped with snow and at least one glacier still hanging on.  To the east is the Snake River cutting through the gravel and rocks left after a variety of glaciers had scoured out the valley.   We hadn’t planned to stay here long and the precipitous nature of the mountains meant that we didn’t get into them but drove along some of the few roads in the area.

Yellowstone was where we wanted to be but the road north was closed because of forest fires so we had to divert to the western side of the Tetons and travel north through Idaho.  Now all American states have various mottos, often seen on car number plates.  Things like “The Grand Canyon State” for Arizona, “The Granite State” for New Hampshire and “The Sunshine State” for Florida.  Good old Idaho is “The Potato State” (number plate “Great Potatoes”).  Makes you want to book a ticket straight away doesn’t it?  At the start of our detour we drove through the Grand Teton Pass but remembering the origin of the name I’m surprised it isn’t called the Grand Teton Cleavage.  So we get to the Yellowstone west gate after a three hour drive to be told that the road we wanted to take was now open.

Anyone who has read my notes from far flung places before and paid attention will know that I am wary of bear encounters because I prefer to be at the top of the food chain and not number two to a bear that could tear me open like a paper bag.   Here we have Black Bears and Grizzly Bears.  Yogi and Boo-boo might have lived in Jellystone but the real thing isn’t at all funny.  Actually, that’s rather like Yogi and Boo-boo if I remember correctly.   Number one tactic if you happen to get on the wrong side of a bear is DO NOT RUN and make sure you’re wearing your brown trousers.  It helps to know if you’re faced with a Black or a Grizzly because with one you can play dead and you might get away with a bit of a fanged nibble and a light mauling but with the other it just makes it more enraged.  I’m just not sure which is which.   So, how to tell the difference when a wardrobe sized bear is charging at you.  A Black Bear has slightly pointed ears and the rump is slightly higher than the shoulders while a Grizzly  has rather rounded ears and the shoulders may have a bit of a hump.  Just like you might have if your identification skills are a bit awry.  Oh and a Black Bear isn’t always black.   Bear Spray is available at $50 a can and bear attacks are very rare so is it a marketing gimmick but.. but...  My dilemma was solved when we were given a can.  Then on our first walk just about every other group had a can of bear spray within easy reach.  It’s some sort of pepper spray which if you are charged you spray in a Z shape when the bear is about 30 feet away.  Of course if the bear happens to be upwind you also get a faceful of pepper spray which would really take the shine off the day.  We ended up not even seeing a bear.

Yellowstone became the World’s first National Park in 1872, one of the USA’s best ideas.  At 3,472 square miles it’s more than three times the size of Dorset and lies at 6 to 7,000 feet above sea level (unless you go up the mountains).  The landscape is very different to the Tetons because the centre of Yellowstone is a huge caldera or volcanic crater and the most active area in the world for geysers, fumaroles (steam escapes from down below), bubbling mud, hot springs and geothermal activity generally.  The area has many small earthquakes, the collective noun for which appears to be ‘a swarm’ and ground movements mean that some vents stop fuming or appear suddenly and water which is warm one day can be boiling the next.  Some hot springs are extremely acidic, one runs at a ph of 1.2 which is a bit like sulphuric acid and would probably burn through your boots.  Scientists have calculated that the volcano itself blows every 600,000 years or so and it would make Mount St Helens look like a damp squib.  It last blew 650,000 years ago but we’ve come a long way so we take a chance and go in. 

Winter has indeed come early and it’s cold, there’s extensive but not deep snow not far in from the west entrance and the tops of the mountains in the distance glisten white.  It is really beautiful.  Elk and Bison are in evidence pretty soon and after 20 miles or so we begin to see wisps of steam and then more and more steam so that the land looks like the aftermath of a huge fire.  This is all coming from vents often no bigger than a rabbit hole boiling like a kettle.  In the sun, with snow, it looks a magical landscape and would be a shoo-in for Middle Earth, well Mordor.  The Geysers, pronounced Guy-zer, like the Icelanders who have the one actually called Geyser, are spouts of superheated steam blowing cooler water out of a vent at irregular times once enough pressure has built up below.  Reasonable, this is nature not Disney.  A number are fairly predictable like the famous Old Faithful which spouts about 8,000 gallons of water approximately 180 feet in the air every 90 minutes or so.  There’s a very impressive visitor centre where I heard a Park Ranger talking to a visitor who asked how high Old Faithful went “about 100 feet” she said” “ever any higher ?”,”oh yes, it’s nearly always higher than average”.  I left without bothering to ask my question.

The heavily laden mineralised water coming out of the ground is often multi-coloured and many micro-organisms tolerant of extremely high temperatures live in the outflow.  It’s exciting and very other-worldly but if you didn’t know any better it would look like an appalling industrial accident.  The stink of sulphur doesn’t help, causing as it does an occasional suspicious glance at a nearby stranger.

The ground here is often a thin crust over boiling water or boiling mud and if you go through you are a goner, boiled alive.  It is possible to see this at some of the hot water areas where you can look sideways into clear water and see an edge perhaps half an inch thick extending like a shelf over the water.  There are warnings everywhere.  However it is impossible to over-estimate some people’s stupidity.  We happened upon a lovely little geyser next to the road bubbling away throwing water 8 or 10 feet up,  This was a bit of serendipity because we found out later that it was a once a day appearance.  Anyway we saw our entrants for the 2016 Darwin Awards here.  Two people were running past the geyser and the warning signs to look into a steaming fumarole 30 or 40 yards from the road.  Bonnie asked them if they were carrying out some research or were visitors.  Oh it’s not dangerous they said, only near the big geysers.  Ho hum.