Wonderful world of Yellowstone

Part 2

Mike and I went horseback riding on one of those nose-to-tail group trail rides that departed from near the “Grand Canyon of Yellowstone” the next day.

Just the smell of horse lifted my spirits as we moved along in a group. I enjoyed the vistas of late summer meadow, the clinking of the bridles and clack of shod hooves on stones. We spotted osprey nesting near the precipitous canyon, the dinosaur-like skeleton of a bison, and alarming slash marks made by a grizzly.

I enjoyed the tail switching and ear swiveling as I coaxed a little interaction out of the gelding I’ve been assigned, while Mike looked ridiculously tall on a bald-faced old campaigner named Bert.

The main wrangler, a Native American guessing by his high cheekbones, tan skin and waist length, glossy black hair worn loose under a cowboy hat, rode his paint gelding backwards to talk to us on the trail.

He told us that he’d raced horses when younger and had been to a Mongolia to race the Mongols in a crazy 100-mile overland horse race. “I placed in it against all odds,” he said. “But I had to leave as soon as it started getting cold.“ He shuddered theatrically. “Hate the snow here, too. I go to LA every winter to get away from the cold.”

The lovely redheaded young female wrangler told me that she’d been about to graduate from University of Wisconsin with a degree in environmental biology when the pandemic shut her college down. “It was a shock. Within a couple of months, my college days were over, without even a ceremony for graduation,“ she said. “But I found this job, and I’m having a fun summer.“

I told her about the bird conservation efforts in Hawaii and that there were ranches there, too, if she wanted to go over and wrangle tourists there. 🌴

Here’s a little extra info about Yellowstone! (skim if you’ve seen it!)

·         Yellowstone National Park is huge, the size of several small European countries or TWO average states in the USA, at 3,471 mi². (We pushed hard to reach the border of the park, only to find we had two more hours of driving just to reach our campsite roughly in the middle of it, near Yellowstone Lake.)

·         It’s impossible to see Yellowstone’s best features in just a few days. (We stayed for six, and by then had sketched out where we wanted to explore more deeply.)

·         Visiting the Park during a pandemic was perhaps not the optimal time. Most of the amenities, lodgings and eateries were closed, many of the roads were undergoing major repairs, and yet the place was clogged with visitors.

       Yellowstone has five “gates” and each one goes into a hugely different area and state.

·         Most of Yellowstone is in Wyoming, but parts are also in Montana and Idaho.

·         Yellowstone was the first National Park ever created (1872) and its most famous features are the Old Faithful geyser and the Grand Prismatic Hot Spring. It has the largest concentration of geysers and hot springs in the world.

After the ride, Mike and I drove along the “Grand Canyon of Yellowstone“ a multicolored slashing route through a riverbed cut thousands of feet deep and marked by two gigantic waterfalls.

I loved the stunning views of the Yellowstone River from the Canyon’s edge.

The Yellowstone River Canyon was a feature of the park I’d never heard about, and it was more dramatic and stunning than many of the geysers. The trail along the rim, with artfully placed, boulder-lined lookouts, were spot on to see the cascading falls and buff, gold, burnt sienna and umber cliffs surrounding the deep green, turbulent river hundreds of feet down.

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone by Mike Neal

One of the things I like best about camping is that I seem to deeply notice the process of simple activities. I don’t take time for them at home; my mind is always on the next thing as I hurry through each task.

But when camping I seem to experience seemingly “normal” moments on a deeper level.

What am I talking about?

Fetching water from the pump: crystal clear and purely cold, it comes up from deep in the earth as I pump with a metal handle, enjoying the gush of each gout of water as it hits the bucket. Later, filling up the teakettle and heating it on the stove to make tea is a kind of meditation.

Sitting outside at the picnic table, brushing Koa daily (because of stickers and ticks) I take my time over it, letting his soft undercoat fur drift off my fingertips to catch on a nearby branch—perhaps it will make a lining for a birds’ nest. . . and I notice and enjoy my dog’s happiness at this attention.

The trailer only takes moments to clean, unlike a full-sized house, and I like that, too. I enjoy washing our dishes by hand in the tiny sink and the challenge of using as little water as possible. I love gathering fallen branches and pinecones for firewood; it’s like a treasure hunt and I always see some unexpected thing: a salamander under a log. The carapace of a cicada posed as if alive, a chipmunk with a loud voice.

It’s not always the breathtaking things that take my breath away when camping.

Why do you think that is?