The Original National Park

Head west from Sheridan, and the earth begins to buckle and heave skyward in a daunting display of tectonic fury. After an interminable journey across the Great Plains, the snow-capped peaks of the Rockies are a most welcome visual distraction. The arrow-straight freeway dwindles into a two-lane strip of blacktop that curls up and down these granite wonders, out of the arid flatlands and into dense evergreen forests. Highway 14, if you find yourself on it, will lead you into Yellowstone National Park.

Yellowstone was officially formed in 1872, when America was a brash adolescent just beginning to create an identity for itself. The West was still largely untamed, a land Indians and buffalo and uncharted territory. An expedition to this area in 1870 included an artist and photographer, and their accounts convinced Congress to set aside the area as untouchable land. It become the first national park in the world.

Old Faithful

Initially, Yellowstone was founded to protect the incredible geothermal features, including the highest concentrations of geysers in the world. The park lies over a caldera, which is a collapsed volcano, that produces a cataclysmic eruption every 600,000 years or so (it’s been 640,000 since the last one, so it could go at any time). Because the earth’s magma sits just under the crust here, water filtering through the bedrock become superheated. The result is a menagerie of bubbling hot springs, some sporting a rainbow of colors; steam vents that emit a sulfuric vapor; bubbling mud pots; and geysers, which periodically shoot streams of water skyward, sometimes hundreds of feet.

Vapor coming off a thermal hot spring that reminds me of a Mark Rothko painting. The different colors come from bacteria that thrive in super-heated water. The lighter the color, the hotter the water.

An interesting unintended effect of forming Yellowstone is that we now have a large, open habitat for many large mammals that have been mostly eradicated from the rest of the West. As ranchers and development moved in, there was less and less land for bison, moose, elk, antelope, deer, grizzly bears and other animals to live. Fortunately for them, Yellowstone’s more than 3,000 square miles offer some space to roam.

The Old Faithful Inn

Tourists have plenty of space to move, too, although most concentrate along main paths and lodges. I’m staying with my family at the Old Faithful Inn, which is a miraculous piling of local lodgepole pine trees and stone from nearby quarries. The Inn might be called an original “green” building, but those things weren’t on anybody’s mind when it was built over 100 years ago. Instead, the idea was to provide classy accommodations to well-heeled travelers at the foot of Old Faithful geyser, the park’s iconic centerpiece. Today, the Old Faithful Inn has become much more pedestrian (and accessible to the masses), and sportcoats are not required in the dining room. Indeed, there is no dress code, so sandals and shorts are more common than a coat and tie.

Yellowstone is a magical place, where a peaceful sensation pervades. I find tranquility at a river’s edge, watching the current tumble into tiny cascades. I feel peace when the earth trembles with a tremendous release of energy as a tiny hole in the ground shoots mineral-rich water a hundred meters into the air. I watch the bison forage in clearings, and feel a kinship with my fellow mammals. Yellowstone, to me, brings clarity and the chance to reflect, away from everyday life.