THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK
The Yellowstone National Park is situated in the extreme northwest corner of Wyoming, extending a few miles into Montana on the north and into Idaho and Montana on the west. The reservation, set apart by act of Congress in 1872, is 5,500 square miles.
From Salt Lake City or Ogden this park is reached by the Denver Rio Grande Railway or the Union Pacific in about 12 hours, but this trip, like so many others, can be arranged for you by whatever line you take.
The Northern Pacific Railway offers a splendidly arranged tour to and through the park by way of Livingston, the Gate of the Mountains, and the Upper Yellowstone River to Gardiner, the original entrance to the park, and only five miles from Mammoth Hot Springs, the official headquarters of the park.
The Yellowstone Park season is from June 15th to September 15th. It is not necessary to suggest what shall be seen here, for the trips are all arranged for one, and none should leave without making the complete tour. This park is unlike any other; it is unique in many ways. It contains geysers, mud volcanoes, mineral springs, and the most gloriously coloured pools. The Yellowstone Canyon can be compared with no other; here we have a riot of colour, said by many to rival the colours of the Grand Canyon, really so entirely different as to make comparison impossible. The walls of the Yellowstone Canyon are divided by a space of many miles at the top, which narrows down to three quarters of a mile at the base, where the foaming waters dash between them, and here the fragments of all the lost rainbows seem to have been collected.
There are many fine mountain peaks, the finest being Mount Washburn, which has an elevation of 10,346 feet, named for General Washburn, the head of the Washburn-Doane exploration party, who first climbed it in 1870. From here one gets the only view of the park as a whole. I have never forgotten a remark which I heard John Muir make about this spot; he said: “When you go to the Yellowstone Park do not leave it under any consideration until you have been taken up Mount Washburn, and when you reach the top of the mountain refuse to come down until you have passed a night on the summit; never mind about sleep; remember that there will come a time when you will take a long enough sleep to make up for all you can ever lose; this will be a sublime experience.”
Words cannot tell of the impressiveness of the geysers. One may sit comfortably on the veranda of Old Faithful Inn and watch one eruption after another, repeated endlessly. But with every change of light, early morning, noontide, at sunset, or by moonlight, they are seen with new interest, and on the moonless nights the visitors are called to see some of these great spouts with the rays of a powerful searchlight upon them.
Old Faithful, which is described as the most perfect illustration of geyseric phenomena and whose curious fascination and real beauty cannot be described, plays every 85 minutes to a height of 125 to 150 feet, the eruptions lasting about five minutes.
The Giant Geyser, generally conceded to be the finest in the park, throws its great volume of water to a height of 250 feet, playing irregularly about three times a month and lasting about 90 minutes.
The Castle Geyser, so named for its beautifully formed crater, plays only once every 26 or 27 hours, but lasts from 25 minutes to three quarters of an hour. This is truly an awe-inspiring sight.