Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Whenyouentertheparkyouaregivenasetofsterninstructionstellingyounottoapproach
theanimalsastheyarelikelytokillormaimyou,thoughIreadlaterthatmorepeoplehave
been killed in the park by other people than by animals. Even so, grizzlies are still a real
threat to campers, one or two of whom get carried off every year. If you camp in the park
you are instructed to change your clothes after eating or cooking and put them and all your
food in a bag suspended from a branch l0 feet above the ground 1o0 yards from your tent.
Stories abound of peckish campers who eat a bar of chocolate at bedtime and five minutes
lateragrizzlybearputshisheadinthetentandsays,“Hey,haveyouguysgotsomechocol-
ateinhere?”Accordingtotheparkliterature,thereisevenevidencethatsexualintercourse
and menstruation attract grizzlies. This seemed a bit rough to me.
Ipeeredthroughmydad'sbinocularsbutIdidn'tseeanybears,possiblybecausetheywere
stillhibernating,andpossiblybecausetherearen'tverymanyleftinthepark.Mostofthem
havebeendrivenoutbythecrushofvisitorsinthesummer,eventhoughlargetractsofYel-
lowstone have been closed to people to encourage the bears to stay. There were, however,
herds of buffalo everywhere. They are quite an extraordinary animal, with such big heads
and shoulders on tiny legs. It must have been something to see when herds numbering in
the millions filled the plains.
I drove on to Geyser Basin. This is the most volatile and unstable landscape in the world.
A few miles to the east the land is rising by almost an inch a year, suggesting that another
big blowout is on the way. Geyser Basin presented the most fantastic and eerie prospect, a
lunarlandscapeofsteamvents,hissinggeysersandshallowpoolsofthedeepestblueaqua-
marine. You can wander all over along wooden sidewalks built above the ground. If you
were to step off them, according to the signs, you would sink into the crusty soil and be
scalded to death by the water just below the surface. The whole place stank of sulfur.
I walked down to Steamboat Geyser, the biggest in the world. According to the sign, it
shoots water up to 400 feet into the air, though only at widely spaced intervals. The last
big eruption was three and a half years earlier, on September z6, 1984. As I was watching
it erupted-suddenly I understood the expression “to jump out of one's skin.” The steamy
mudpack before me made a flapping sound like a colossal palpitating sphincter (my own
sphincter, I can tell you, began to beat a modest counterpoint) and then with a whoosh like
a whale coming up for air shot out a great, steaming plume of white water. It went up only
about twenty or thirty feet, but it poured forth for many seconds. Then it died and came
again, and it repeated this four times, filling the cool air with blankets of steam, before it
wentdormant.Whenitfinished,Ishutmymouthwithmyhandandwalkedbacktothecar,
knowing that I had seen one of the more arresting sights of my life.
