Hebgen Dam, the dam that held, straddles the upper end of Madison Canyon. The road from here along Hebgen Lake to the Duck Creek Y has been much improved over its pre-quake status.
The Quake Area is just as easily approachable from West Yellowstone by taking 191 north 10 miles to the Duck Creek Y, and then driving west along Hebgen Lake. Near the Y, the big fault runs close to the road, through the Culligan ranch, etc.
The magnificent Raynolds Pass road, which runs south from its junction with the Madison Canyon road three miles west of the slide, has become an important new route to the earthquake area. The morning after the slide, highway crews were at work on this alternate route, which for two years substituted for the blocked, flooded, and destroyed road through the Madison Canyon and along the north shore of Hebgen Lake while the regular route between Ennis and West Yellowstone remained blocked. With its exciting mountain backdrop, this new, improved road provides an enjoyable alternative which should be included in any circle tour of quake features.
In the spring of 1959, as he tells it, Lemuel Garrison, Superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, looked at some bids for new housing in the Park which included extra steel as a protection against the possibility of earthquakes.
“Heck,” he said, “We’re not in an earthquake area.”
Today, Yellowstone’s famous earthquake has become an important addition to its already fabulous attractions. The Park took the quake in its stride. By June 1, 1960, in spite of road damage of $2,600,000, and building damage of $1,700,000 resulting from the quake, Yellowstone Park, its roads, and other facilities were ready for its normal summer rush.
In clearing a slide which blocked the road near Firehole Falls, south of Madison Junction, the road crew discovered one near casualty—a bear. The bruin had evidently sought shelter in a hollow below the road shoulder, and became trapped when the slide closed his exit. It was several days after the quake when the crew heard the bear’s attempts to crawl out of his artificial cave. They lowered a tree trunk, still bearing branches, into the hole and retreated while the bear scrambled out.
Word of the quake plus the initial belief that the epicenters of seven of the eleven major shocks were located in the famous Firehole Basin caused widespread anxiety as to whether the tremendous forces loosed might have interfered with nature’s intricate underground plumbing which keeps the geysers, hot pools, and mud pots spouting, burbling and burping.
Studies by a horde of seismologists, geologists and other earth scientists who swarmed into the Firehole Basin in the months after the quake show that during the night of August 17 the hot spring activity in this area changed more than during the 87 years since a park was created out of the mysterious, steaming country which had been known as “Coulter’s Hell.” The scientists termed these changes as “profound and far reaching.” These changes in thermal features are, and will be, in years to come, tremendously interesting.