Wyomingites treat Yellowstone National Park like it belongs to them. And since most of this great place lies within the borders of the Cowboy State, such a feeling of ownership is appropriate.
That is my attitude. Most folks know about my long-term love affair with the park.
And as much as it is fun experiencing it for myself, I love sharing my stories with others.
We recently spent some time in Allen, Texas, which is a suburb of Dallas. Some Rotary Club friends there asked me to speak about Yellowstone.
You bet!
Just three members of that club had been to the great park. This was going to be virgin territory. They had all heard about it and it was on most of their bucket lists.
They were eager to learn more.
Armed with a long speech, unfortunately, it was important to pare it down to 20 minutes. How do you tell a story about this amazing place with a time limit of one-third of an hour? It is impossible but I soldiered on.
Our family has been there every year for 54 years. Cowboy State Daily recently did a story calling me one of Yellowstone’s No. 1 fans in Wyoming.
I started out with some headlines about the park:
• The park is SPECTACULAR.
• The Park is OLD.
• The park is BIG.
• The park is COLD.
• Traffic can be BUSY.
• It is a WILDLIFE PARADISE.
• It can be EXPENSIVE.
• It can be OVERBOOKED
• It is a LONG way from Texas.
My Most Recent Trip
My last trip was in October. We live 100 miles south of the park, so were able to make a one-day trip that covered 493 miles and took exactly 12 hours.
We went through Fort Washakie, Wind River Indian Reservation, Dubois, Jackson Hole, Moran Junction and then visited Yellowstone Lake, the great Lake Hotel, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and the Fishing Bridge area before exiting toward Cody through the famous Wapiti Valley.
Then we headed to Thermopolis, home of the world’s largest hot springs, then Shoshoni, then Riverton and then to Hudson.
Then we hit a deer.
Although the car was damaged with $6,500 in dents, we were able to limp back to Lander. Whew, what a great trip!
While in Yellowstone, we did some interviews and took a lot of photos.
One of my favorites was interviewing a couple from Texas at Yellowstone Canyon. They were riding motorcycles from Texas to Canada. They said their names were “Mr. and Mrs. Iron Butt.”
Yellowstone is exactly 1,300 miles from Allen, Texas. You can even hop on U.S. Highway 287, which is the main street of Fort Worth, and take it all the way to the great park.
That highway is also the main street for Fort Collins, Laramie, Jeffrey City, Lander, Dubois, Moran and, of course, the park.
Why Is Yellowstone Important?
It is the world’s first national park, created in March 1872 with a law signed by President U.S. Grant.
This vast area of magic places covers 2.2 million acres and features sites and sights unlike anywhere else in the world.
The thermal areas are vast, featuring Old Faithful, which has erupted every 88 minutes for the past 175 years, at least.
Plus, the Norris Geyser Basin is the hottest spot of its type on earth. Mammoth Hot Springs is one of the most unique hot places anywhere.
The Yellowstone Canyon, featuring the immense Lower and Upper Waterfalls, is unique, as are other canyons.
Yellowstone Lake is gigantic and very, very deep. Other lakes like Shoshone are spectacular, too.
The wildlife featuring bison, elk, grizzly bears, wolves and a plethora of other critters makes it America’s Serengeti.
The unique hotels featuring Old Faithful Inn and the Lake Hotel are historic wonders.
Three Historical Events
In the 1970s, park leaders closed the open dumps and ended the activity of tourists feeding the bears.
This was the No. 1 tourist attraction until it ended.
Later, the grizzly bear population was expanded to provide an apex predator to kill bison and elk, which had overgrown their populations in the park.
In 1988, most of the park burned down. Those horrendous fires were just terrible, but the lasting impact appears to be positive. For decades, much of the park was a burned-out scar, though.
In 1995, wolves were introduced as a second apex predator.
Critics worry that too many young moose, elk, bison and deer have been killed, but overall, the project seems to have worked.
Through all this, the park saw visitation grow from less than 1 million to almost 5 million visitors a year.
Most of the tourist season, the park is running at full capacity. Visitors need to plan ahead in order to get rooms and avoid crowds.
That Pesky Supervolcano
Those Texans wanted to know more about the supervolcano sitting underneath Yellowstone, which is responsible for its existence.
It blows its top about every 660,000 years and it is probably overdue by a millennium or two. Volcanologists feel such an eruption is unlikely in the near future.
The effects of such an eruption would pretty much bury the country in ash. Desert expert John Vase of Rock Springs says that Adobe Town, about 400 miles south of Yellowstone in the Red Desert, was covered by 1,000 feet of ash during the last explosion.
Ya’all Come Now, Ya Hear?
Hopefully my little talk whetted their appetites to come see this wonder of all creation.
It was sure fun talking to some newbies about my all-time favorite place.
