Days 18-23: Yellowstone, Take One

It's a sunny morning in West Yellowstone, Montana. Forest fires have covered the area from Calgary to Yellowstone - and considerably further south as well - with a blanket of smoke. The sunsets are gorgeous; the air quality is not.

The first day at Yellowstone, I felt lazy and just enjoyed nature through the window as I read all day. The second day, I pushed myself to do a moderate six mile hike but felt pretty wiped. That night, I couldn't seem to catch my breath.

Texting my mom that night, I described the breathing to her. Let me pull up her text: it made me smile and freak out a little, all at the same time.

Sounds like what they call wheezing.

Between the altitude (elevation is around 7000 feet) and the smoke, my lungs began to protest. I rested another day and now am feeling much better.

Ok - scenery time!

Entering Yellowstone by the North Entrance, near Mammoth Hot Springs, the landscape is not immediately endearing. It looks like the Central Valley of California: dead brown golden hills.

Along rivers, though, you see a stripe of green. I love how this picture depicts the change in vegetation:

Here's a distance shot of the Mammoth Hot Springs. It looks like the set of a futuristic 60s space movie. There are several active hot springs on this hillside. Where the hot water dribbles down, there is a thin crust of mineral deposits over squishy land. You cannot walk on the land directly. You have to walk on wooden platforms built over the springs (as seen in the center left of this photo) - or take pictures from a distance, if you can't deal with pushing through busloads of tourists on the narrow walkways.

With 2.2 million acres of park, Yellowstone has several distinct microclimates. While the northern area near Mammoth is hot and dry, when I drove further southeast to the so-called Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River, it was much more green. The air smelled piney and fresh: like the Northwest!

I realize that I feel subtly uneasy in these dry, flat, golden landscapes surrounding the Rockies. They are a bit Valley of the Shadow of Death for my taste. My subconscious goes on yellow alert. I feel this sense of relaxation when I get back somewhere cool and green, with plenty of water in sight. Is this a Washington native thing? Do Aborigines, for example, relax in dry landscapes? But I digress...

On the southern side of the Yellowstone River, not far downstream from Yellowstone Lake (one of the largest lakes at this elevation in the world), the trail sits just a few feet above the banks of the river:

Continuing east, you come to the Upper Falls of the Yellowstone:

After a couple of miles and another waterfall, the river is some ways below you. Now you can see why they call it the Grand Canyon!

The canyon walls are decorated with sunset pinks, oranges, and a hint of violet. You cannot quite see the colors as vibrantly here as they are in real life.

Next stop: another day or so in Yellowstone, then heading into Grand Teton National Park (which borders Yellowstone to the south) and Jackson Hole.