CHAPTER XXIII
ON NATIONAL PARKS AND GUIDES
NOTHING fit to print can be said of the Yellowstone Trail, advertised by various and sundry people as a “good road all the way,” with the freedom people take with other people’s axles. Here and there are smooth patches, but they failed to atone for the viciousness of the greater part of the route from Salt Lake City to the Park. Some of it was merely annoying, but there were places where we had to keep our wits about us every moment, and had we met another car, so narrow and tortuous and hilly were the last few miles, we should have come to an eternal deadlock. We had for consolation a view of some lovely lakes grown about with great pines, and in the open stretches, a long view of the great saw-toothed Tetons sheltering Jackson’s Hole, that region beloved of Jesse James before he encountered the “dirty little coward who shot Mr. Howard.” All the sinister Robin Hoods of the West once knew the supreme advantage of Jackson’s Hole as a place of temporary withdrawal from the world when it became too much with them. Now it is infested only by the “dude” sportsman, who has discovered its loveliness without as yet spoiling it. A tempting sign-post pointed an entrance to this paradise of mountains and lakes, but we had been warned that the road there was far worse than the one we came over, which was impossible, so we gritted our teeth, and went on to the Park.
I shall not attempt a description of Yellowstone Park, for the same reason that I dodged the Grand Canyon, and because its bears, mudholes, geysers, sulphur basins, lakes, Wiley camps, falls and dam, its famous parti-colored canyon, its busses and Old Faithful were well known to thousands long before I was born.
Yellowstone used to be known less attractively among the Indians by the name of Stinking Waters. The park is still circled by a roundabout trail, made by superstitious tribes, who refused to approach this haunt of devils. Nobody who has stood on the seething ground of Norris Basin, and watched its manifold evil spirits, hardly tethered, burst forth and sullenly subside can fail to sympathize with the untutored savage’s reaction. If we had not been taught a smattering of chemistry and geology, we should undoubtedly feel as he did, and even in spite of scientific explanations, the place seemed too personally malevolent to be comfortable. Think of a God-fearing and devil-respecting mind to whom science was unknown, looking on the terrors, the inexplicable manifestations this Park contains for the first time!
I for one, who rap on wood and walk around ladders, would have ridden a long way to avoid those powerful spirits. Yet some Indians boldly hunted and trapped in what was once a most happy hunting ground. The overland course of the buffalo lay through this Park, and wherever the buffalo was, the Indian was sure to follow. Yellowstone was the refuge of Chief Joseph, of the Nez Perces, in his resistance against Howard and United States troops.
Everyone ought to see Yellowstone at least once. Nowhere else are so many extraordinary freaks in so convenient and beautiful a setting. The freaks leave you as bewildered as the Whatisit’s used to, in the sideshows of your youth. Before the last paint pot and boiling spring are investigated, the average tourist is in a state of bewildered resentment at Nature for putting it over on him so frequently. Besides, his feet ache, and he is stiff from climbing in and out that yellow bus.
Everyone ought to see Yellowstone at least twice. The second time he will forget the freaks and geysers and busses running on schedule, and go if possible in his own car, with his own horse, or on his own feet. He will take his time on the Cody Trail, now I believe, a part of the Park but until recently outside its limits. Here he will see what is perhaps the most glorious natural scenery in Yellowstone, great pointed needles rising from gigantic cliffs, deep ravines, and endless forests, pretty little intervales and ideal camping and fishing nooks. Or further in, beyond Mt. Washburn and the Tower Falls where comparatively few go, he will find deep groves and gorgeous mountain scenery. Beyond Yellowstone Lake he can penetrate to the benign Tetons walling the Park to the southeast. He can take his own “grub” and horses, and lose sight of hotels and schedules for a month, if he likes. He is not required, as at Glacier, to hire a guide if he wishes to camp. Yellowstone’s chief charm to me is not so much its beauty nor its wonders as that it is, pre-eminently, the People’s Park. Founded the earliest of any national park, when outdoor life was more of a novelty than it is today, and far less organized a sport, it follows a laisser aller course. And the people appreciate and make use of it. Whole families camp from one end to the other of the Park, using its open-air ovens to cook the fish which they catch in its lakes and streams. They know far more of its charm than the tourists who buy their five-day excursions from the railroads, and don’t move a hand to feed or convey themselves from the time they enter at Gardiner to the time they leave at Cody.
CAMPING NEAR YELLOWSTONE PARK.