A TOUR OF THE PARK.
Preliminary.
In the following description there will be mentioned in succinct outline all the notable features of interest in the Yellowstone National Park. For more detailed information, the reader is referred to the list of names in "[Appendix A]."
The necessary limit of space forbids any thing like extended description, even if the inherent difficulties of such a task would permit. Captain Ludlow has well stated the nature of these difficulties:
“The Park scenery, as a whole,” he says, “is too grand, its scope too immense, its details too varied and minute, to admit of adequate description, save by some great writer, who, with mind and pen equally trained, can seize upon the salient points, and, with just discrimination, throw into proper relief the varied features of mingled grandeur, wonder, and beauty.”
Of the many who have attempted, with pen or pencil, to reproduce the wonders of the Yellowstone, no one has yet completely satisfied these important requirements. The writer, for his part, will modestly decline any such undertaking, and, like that pioneer explorer, Folsom, will confine his descriptions “to the bare facts.” He will, however, occasionally call to aid those who have seen and written of these wonders. To the early explorers, in particular, who entered this region before it became generally known, its strange phenomena appealed with an imaginative force which the guide-book tourist of to-day can hardly realize. This may account for the fact that some of these explorers, who have never, before or since, put pen to paper with any literary purpose in view, have left in their narratives strokes of word painting which the most gifted writer would find it difficult to excel.
The season selected for the tour will be the early days of July. The rain and snow and chilly air, not uncommon in June, are gone. The drought and smoke of August and September are still remote. Even mosquitoes, so amazingly plentiful at certain seasons (Langford found them on the very summit of the Grand Teton), have not yet made their appearance. It is late enough, however, to call forth in their richest glory the magnificent profusion of flowers which every-where abound in the Park. The air is at its best, full of life and energy, and so clear that it confounds distances and gives to objects, though far away, a distinctness quite unknown in lower altitudes. The skies, as they appear at this season, surpass the sunny skies of Italy, and the tourist will find in their empyreal depths a beauty and fascination forever lacking in the dingy air of civilization. In short, the open air stage trips through that rich mountain atmosphere will form one of the most attractive and invigorating features of the tour.
Without further preliminary, the rôle of guide will now be assumed, and the tourist will be conducted through the wonders of this celebrated country, following, over most of the distance, the present general route.