Date: 2009-06-02 16:40 Subject: A Grand Day in Yellowstone Security: Public Location: Jackson Lake Lodge, Grand Tetons National Park Mood: cheerful Music: Beethoven concertos

“I don’t know what you’re complaining about. God sent you a radio report, a rowboat, and a helicopter.” – Saint Peter

I’ve been rather pleased by how well Twitter is working out as far as recording my trip goes. Plans to journal it upon return never seem to work out, and dropping little messages as I go along seems much more in my capabilities. But yesterday…yesterday requires a lot more than 140 characters. Luckily, the hotel in Grand Teton provides free wifi in the main building, so I’ll be able to write something up in my comfy little cabin and then go there to post it. And so I go.

The favorite hike of rohantm from his last trip to Yellowstone was up to the petrified forest atop Specimen Ridge. At least, it seemed to make the greatest impression on him, and not just because he nearly got killed. It was always part of our plans for this trip to do it again, only without the ‘nearly getting killed’ part. We failed on multiple levels.

We didn’t get as early a start as we liked, but that worked out in our favor because while we were at the trailhead getting ready, a couple pulled up for a chat and happened to mentioned that they’d seen two bears in the area the day before. It is very, very unlikely that you’ll be attacked by a bear while visiting Yellowstone, but hiking in an area where bears have been sighted increases that chance to very unlikely. Had we been able to talk to a park ranger beforehand (we did try!) and heard that, we would certainly have backed off, but we were there, we were ready, and grizzly bears are known to move very fast so they’d be miles away by now.

The first part of the hike was across an open meadow populated by saucy prairie dogs, and was pleasant, if a bit steep. Our worries began to fade and our spirits rise, but then we found… a can of bear mace. This stuff is like mace for peoples, only designed to stop bears. Nasty stuff, and not cheap. Yet somehow it had been discarded here, unused, as if someone had fumbled and dropped it while fleeing a charging grizzly. Or so one might imagine had one been told there were bears in the area. Still, it looked like it had been there for at least a day, and now we had two cans of bear mace. We were even safer! No reason not to go forward.

We reached the treeline and began the difficult part of the hike. The trail was very steep, often more than a 45-degree incline, and hardly any switchbacks. It was worse than I’d imagined, and even with two knee braces, an ankle brace, hiking boots and two climbing poles, I struggled. But after an hour of hiking, we’d finally reached the summit. Well, not the real summit. This was the false summit, the highest point you can see while climbing so that you think you’re almost there, only to find once you reach it that you still have a long way to go. Still, it was the point where the hike would get a lot easier, and it had an actual petrified tree stump.

Most importantly, it was above the treeline, allowing Rohan to spot the grizzly bear off to the side. It was not charging us, it was not even anywhere near us, but nonetheless, it was easy to see how the bear might be able to get to us if it were so inclined. If we were going to encounter the bear, we decided we’d rather be closer to the road than way up on a ridge, and thus the hike turned around at that point. We never saw the bear again during our nervous return hike, but it had done enough damage. We had been thwarted.

Though disappointment was heavy, one bright consequence was that it left us more time to hike to the base of nearby Tower Falls. This was highly recommended by our guidebook and the scene was famously captured by painters and photographers for years. We drove through the northeast part of the park for a bit first. We saw many bison, and on our way back, many people stopped by the road watching our bear (we saw it first so that made it ours). Then up the road to Tower Falls… only to find that the trail to the falls had been washed out. We had been thwarted… again.

Eventually, we made our way back to the Upper Geyser Basin and the Old Faithful Inn. Though thunderstorms had never manifested, it had become a cold, wet, and windy day. Despite this, we ventured out again, partially so I could test out my wet weather gear, and partially so we could check on a pair of major geysers in the basin that we had not seen erupt. Castle Geyser is usually predictable, but was in an irregular phase, but Grand Geyser had a clearly-predicted window of 4:20 to 8:20 pm. As it was around 6:30, we were in that window and thought we’d wait for the show.

The way Grand works is that every 20 minutes, the geyser next to it, Turban, erupts. It shoots water about six feet for a couple of minutes and is nice, but most importantly its eruption also triggers Grand… eventually. So every twenty minutes, the gathered crowd hopes that this… this will be the one, only to be disappointed. There are signs that are supposed to indicate how close Grand is to going, but it’s too easy to distort them with hopeful eyes. Also, one sign that Grand won’t go is the nearby Rift Geyser erupting, and we believed that the night before only to have Grand erupt five minutes after we walked away.

So we sat there, waiting, as it got darker, and colder. The clothes I’d chosen had been warm enough when I’d gotten out there, but it was becoming too much. I was barely able to operate my iPhone with trembling fingers. Finally came the last Turban possible before the 8:20 deadline… and Grand did nothing. We resolved to wait one more cycle and we did… only to be disappointed once more. I could not wait any longer. I really was fearing for my health due to cold and had to head back to the hotel. We had been thwarted… AGAIN.

Nuts to that. I put on a fleece, a knit cap, and gloves, and went back out. There was no real need to hurry, as it was impossible to avoid missing a cycle of Turban while I was at the hotel, but I still couldn’t help but rush a bit on my way back to find that Grand… had not erupted. The pool was still full, and there was one German photographer who had remained when everyone else had quit. So we waited again, and after only a few minutes, the photographer pointed out that Castle was erupting across the field. Even at that distance, it was quite a show, but we only could watch for a minute before we heard Turban start to play. That recaptured our attention, and it’s a good thing it did, because before long Grand’s pool began to bubble and then the show really began. We both had to back off as Grand shot water a hundred feet in the air, drenching the seats downwind. Before long, another geyser in Grand’s basin joined in and for about ten minutes we watched Turban, Vent, and Grand put on an amazing show in the fading light.

Grand finally subsided and though it can have multiple eruptions, it had remained docile after a few minutes so we finally left, even though Vent and Turban were still going. It was approaching 9:30, when the inn’s restaurant closed, and though I didn’t need to go there for dinner I had a strong desire for a celebratory dessert (not to mention something hot, sweet, and alcoholic.) Heading back, I first noticed that Old Faithful was going off in the distance and more impressively, Castle was still erupting. It had stopped spraying water, but had entered its steam phase which is almost as impressive, shooting a huge plume of steam while roaring like a dragon. I watched this for a bit but had to keep going, and made it just in time for my Huckleberry Sundae and some hot chocolate spiked with Irish Crème. It had been a long day, but in the end, I was victorious.

To be fair, I’m being a bit dramatic. There were lots of cool moments during the day: watching Tower Creek surge into the Yellowstone River, seeing Mammoth Springs, visiting a much more accessible petrified tree, having traffic halted by both a coyote and a bison in the road, seeing some extraordinary geological features near Tower Falls, and spying a bald eagle. But for me, the day came down to watching Grand. After that, I was completely satisfied with my Yellowstone experience. What happened today didn’t really matter.