It might have been worse

As Joaquin Miller said of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, “Is any fifty miles of Mother Earth as fearful, or any part as fearful, as full of glory, as full of God?” That is the Yellowstone National Park!

So much has been written of its wonder and beauty that it is “carrying coals to Newcastle” for me to add any description. It beggars description! None of us had visited it before; so the experiences were doubly interesting, and these facts we had forgotten, if we had ever known them: In 1872, Congress made this a national park. It is sixty-two miles long and fifty-four miles wide, giving an area of 3348 square miles in Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana, and is under the supervision of the National Park Service of the Interior Department. The entire region is volcanic; you are impressed by a sense of nearness to Nature’s secret laboratories.

The park is open from June 20th to September 15th. It is estimated that sixty thousand visitors have enjoyed the splendors of the park this year (1919). We reached there August 20th, at the height of the tourist season. On entering, we drove five miles in a dense smoke along the Gardiner River to Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel. There we spent our first night and held a “council of war.” If the smoke did not lift, we could see nothing and would have to wait. Of course, we intended to drive our car through the park! After looking the situation over and talking with other tourists, we decided to go in the Government cars, for three reasons: First, whoever drove could see nothing of the scenery—you had to keep your eye on the road every moment, as the ways were so steep, with hundreds of sharp curves; second, we were unaccustomed to the very high altitude, an average of eight thousand feet, all were feeling dizzy (one of the ladies had a severe nosebleed), and no “light-headed” driver was safe in handling a car on those roads; third, if you are familiar with the routes, or follow the Government cars and get their dust, all right; if not, you will get off the main roads in no time. The Government has very comfortable White cars, holding eleven and the driver. All the roads are officially inspected daily, and the drivers are expert. You buy a motor ticket for twenty-five dollars, and that ends your responsibility. You have unlimited time at the hotels, if you so desire; otherwise, the trip is made in three days, with ample time to see everything, and even to take side trips.

There were three hotels open this season—the Mammoth Hot Springs, Old Faithful, and the Grand Canyon. They are run exclusively on the American plan, at six dollars a day, with good food and every comfort. A private bath is two dollars extra; with two in a room, four dollars, or, if the bath adjoins two rooms, with two in each room, it is two dollars each, or the modest sum of eight dollars. We found that the tourists in the Government cars were cared for first in the dining-room and always had good rooms reserved for them. This is quite a consideration in the rush season. Thus with your motor ticket of twenty-five dollars, your full three days’ hotel bill at six dollars a day, including side trips, tips, etc., the park can be seen in absolute comfort for fifty dollars, with nothing to worry about. As we had been driving the car so steadily for six weeks, the relaxation was very acceptable. The three hotels are quite different. The Mammoth Hot Springs is a big barn of a place in appearance, lacking home atmosphere, but warms up a bit in the evening when dancing begins.

The next morning, to our joy, the wind had shifted and the smoke lifted, so we were safe in starting. The cars leave at nine and reach Old Faithful Inn by noon. Here you stay until the next noon. On this first lap of the tour you pass the wonderful Terraces, filled with boiling springs, which look like cascades of jewels in the sunlight. Passing the Devil’s Kitchen, Lookout Point, and the Hoodoos, massive blocks of travertine, piled up in every conceivable shape, at an altitude of seven thousand feet, and Golden Gate Canyon, you emerge into an open, smiling mountain valley with high ranges on every side, through which runs the Gardiner River. The Frying Pan is a sizzling, boiling pool that comes from the bowels of the earth. The Norris Geyser Basin is filled with small geysers, spouting at intervals, and looking like bursts of steam. Emerald Pool is typical of the name. As you look down into it, the gorgeous color deepens like a real gem. The most beautiful example of these pools is the Mammoth Paint Pot, with myriads of scintillating colors.

We could hardly wait to finish lunch, we were so anxious to see the famous Old Faithful spout, or “play,” more properly speaking. At regular intervals of about seventy minutes, the mass of water is thrown 150 feet into the air with a roar of escaping steam that sounds like the exhaust of an ocean liner. At night an immense searchlight on the roof of the hotel plays upon it, and everyone goes to the farther side to view the water with the light showing through—a glorious sight! I can think of nothing but thousands of gems being tossed up by a waterspout at sea. The rainbow colors dance and radiate, making a fairyland scene. The chorus of “Ohs!” and “Ahs!” resembles a crowd viewing a pyrotechnic display on the 4th of July. We were fortunate in seeing both the Giant and Castle geysers play.

The Old Faithful Inn is unique, it being built entirely of the park timber in the rough, hewed from the twisted trees of the forests. The fossil forests are one of the marvels of the park, not all at a particular level, but occurring at irregular heights; in fact, a section cut down through these two thousand feet of beds, would disclose a succession of fossil forests, covered by volcanic material through the ages.

The great open fireplaces of boulders in the hotel always gave a cheery appearance, and in the evenings the attendants pop corn for the guests. A very good orchestra played until midnight and hundreds of people danced on the polished floors. The table is excellent in all the hotels. Our only criticism was that the guests were kept waiting outside of the dining-room until all tables were cleared and reset, when we could have just as well been sitting comfortably inside. In front of the hotel are the bath-houses, with many small pools and one large one. The prices are moderate. All rates, even for postcards, are regulated by the Government officials in the park.

Toodles had informed us early in our trip that she would not be happy unless she met “a real cowboy, of the William S. Hart type, and a real Indian.” Up to now she had been disappointed. We were sitting out under the trees by the hotel, waiting for Old Faithful to “shoot,” when the real article came by on horseback, leading two saddled horses. He was a tall, fine-looking chap, with all the proverbial trappings of an old-time cowboy, riding as if he were a part of his horse. As he was close to us, Toodles called out, “Were you looking for me?” He took no notice, and she repeated it. He rode on, never even turning his head. “The brute must be deaf,” a rather piqued voice informed us. We had been accustomed to such unusual courtesy from Westerners that this surprised us. In a few moments he returned, rode up in front of us, and, with a merry twinkle in his eyes and looking straight at Toodles, said:

“I heard you the first time. Now come and ride with me.”

We all laughed but Toodles. She lost her tone of bravado, and exclaimed, “If you heard, why didn’t you answer me?”

“Oh, just busy. Had to deliver my horses.” His manner was jolly, and it looked like a little adventure.

She wanted to go, but she had recourse to the time-honored “I have nothing to wear.”

“That doesn’t matter; I will fit you out. Ever ride astride?”

“No.”

“Ever ride at all?”

“Of course, all my life!” (indignantly).

“Then come along. I will give you the finest horse in the park to ride, and show you views that the tourists never see.”

We all urged her to go, one lending a hat, another a coat, until at last she appeared with a khaki divided skirt, white blouse, blue coat, and sailor hat, looking very presentable, very pretty, and rather ill at ease. While Toodles was dressing he told us that he had been in the park for years and had charge of the saddle-horses and riding parties. As it was all a lark, and we thought she might not want her name known to him, we told him that her name was “Toodles.” “All right,” with a grin; “I’m on.” When starting he whistled to his dog and called, “Come on, Toodles,” and she nearly fell off her horse (he made her ride astride).

“What’s the matter? I am just calling my dog.”

“Oh, is that your dog’s name?” Toodles replied faintly. “How funny!”

Off they rode up the mountains, and did not return until six o’clock. That evening “Charlie” appeared at the dance in ordinary citizen’s clothes, but the picturesque cowboy was gone. He had written a book of “all the fool questions people have asked me in twenty years.” He kept us gasping at the tales of Western adventure until nearly midnight. In the morning he was on hand to see us off.

The next day was clear and beautiful. Our road took us east over the Continental Divide and along the shores of Yellowstone Lake, past the mud geysers, to the Grand Canyon Hotel. On the divide is lily-covered Isa Lake, whose waters in springtime hesitate whether to flow out one end, into the Pacific, or out the other, into Atlantic waters, and usually compromise by going in both directions. We passed over very steep grades commanding a superb view of Mt. Washburne (ten thousand feet high) through the knotted woods and dense pine forests, past the upper and lower falls, stopping at Artist’s Point to get our first view of the Grand Canyon. It is twenty miles long—the most glorious kaleidoscope of color you will ever see in nature! You look down a thousand feet or more at the foaming Yellowstone River. A little south of this point a waterfall twice as high as Niagara, seemingly out of the dense pine heights above, roars and tumbles into the depths below. “Rocky needles rise perpendicularly for hundreds of feet, like groups of Gothic spires.” Again, “the rocks, carved and fretted by the frost and the erosion of the ages.” And the coloring—this is almost impossible to describe. From the deepest orange to pale yellow, from Indian red to exquisite shell-pink, in all shades of soft green touched by Autumn’s hand. With the greenish cascade of water foaming beneath us and the blue dome of the heavens above, we stood there awed by its fearful majesty and unequaled beauty. As if to make the picture more perfect, an eagle soared through the canyon, lighting on a pinnacle of jagged rocks, where his nest clung as if by magic. As we watched him in silence, the words of Tennyson, to which McDowell has written his exquisite composition, “The Eagle,” came to us:

Another wonderful, and, if it were possible, a more beautiful view, is from Inspiration Point, on the other side of the canyon. It is like the most exquisite cameo. Before you a gigantic mass of rocks, with turrets and towers, known as “Castle Ruins,” seems to fill the vista. But, as I said before, it simply beggars description. You stand there in the presence of the marvelous works of God, the evidences of great convulsions of nature through the ages. You feel such an atom in the vastness, the unending space of the Infinite, and you recall the words of Victor Hugo in his “Intellectual Autobiography”:

The Grand Canyon Hotel is in every respect a modern, beautifully furnished, palatial establishment, worthy of any city. This is the most popular hotel, and is always crowded. The governors of twenty-one states and their parties were touring the park. They expressed their appreciation of the Government’s activities in behalf of the comforts and conveniences for the people—also, of its shortcomings, in the failure to provide the necessary funds for further improvements.

We found the roads in most places worthy of the name “highways”; but on the steepest grades, where the outside of the road shelves off into space, with a drop of hundreds of feet, there are no walls or fences, not even railings, to prevent accidents. In the main, the roads are sufficiently wide to allow two cars to pass; in some places, however, the smaller car must back down to a siding to allow the Government cars, which have the right of way on the inside of the road, to pass. Many times we hung on by our eyebrows, apparently, and felt as if our “tummies” had sunk into our boots. We found it more comfortable to look up than down into the depths.

Today we met our small boys again. I had forgotten them. After leaving Minneapolis, many times we had overtaken two boys, who were making a hike to the park, a distance of over nine hundred miles. They were about sixteen years of age, as sturdy, polite little chaps as you could meet. Many times we had given them a lift of fifty miles or more into the next town. They told us that they had earned the money for the trip and carried their camping outfits on their backs. They camped near a haystack at night, bought food (or had it given to them) on the road, and were having the time of their lives. When I thought of the Dakota prairies and Bad Lands, and of the hot, dusty Montana plains, I realized more than ever the sturdy stuff that Westerners are made of. I would like to know what the future holds for those two lads.

The last day of our trip was back to the starting-point, Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel. That morning Toodles left us, taking the trip out to the eastern entrance at Cody. This charming little lady had been with us six weeks, and we were sorry to see her go.

We were told that the scenery was even finer on the Cody road, but we could not conceive of it.

After going a few miles from the hotel, through a bit of woods, our driver jammed on his brakes, with the news, “Here are the bears!”—two good-sized cubs and the mother bear holding us up! They were in the middle of the road; so we had to stop. Everyone wants to see the bears in the park. Well, we did! The old one, a big cinnamon bear, walked around to the side of the car, stood on her hind legs, with her front paws on the door of the car and her muzzle in my lap! I never was so scared in my life! “She wants the candy,” the others exclaimed. I had a box of chocolates in my lap, and, with my hands shaking like aspens, I began to peel off the silver foil from one piece. “Don’t stop for that; give her the candy, or she will be in the car!” yelled the driver. And you better believe I did, in short order! Handing her the box, she gobbled every piece, foil and all. Everyone was standing on the seats with a camera trying to snap the picture. After she sniffed about to see if I had any more, she went to all the cars lined up back of us, where they fed her and the cubs everything they carried. They had to, for she foraged for herself. I assure you that the sensation of having a huge bear eat out of your hand is a thriller! There are black and grizzly (or silver-tip) bears in the park. A few venture out of the woods to the camps and garbage-dumps near the hotels. Of course, the forests are full of large and small game. There are two buffalo herds. The tame herd has increased from twenty animals, in 1902, to 385, in October, 1918. We saw mountain-sheep and many deer.

We went over the Dunraven Pass, one of the most daring drives, getting a fine view of Tower Falls, 132 feet high. In fact, that last day was one long thrill. We reached the hotel for dinner feeling a bit limp and exhausted, we had been at such high tension for three days. We sat by the roaring log fire that evening, living it all over again. “Will you ever forget that view of the canyon?”—“How truly wonderful the trip has been!” It was truly wonderful! I have not given you even an approximate idea of the scenery or the wonders. I can only say, “Go and see it for yourself.” For those who enjoy camping, every comfort and facility are provided. If you wish to camp de luxe, the Yellowstone Park Camping Company maintains five permanent camps or “tent cities” in the park. All tents have floors, electric lights, and are heated by wood-burning stoves. The beds are full-sized and comfortable. There are large dining-halls, recreation pavilions, and “campfires.” The campers in the park were legion this season.

The next morning we bade good-by to Mrs. H., who left us for Gardiner, and the “bird-man” and his lady chauffeur proceeded together.