The Yellowstone National Park Part 17

_Preliminary._

In the following description there will be mentioned in succinct outline all the notable features of interest in the Yellowstone National Park. For more detailed information, the reader is referred to the list of names in "Appendix A."

The necessary limit of s.p.a.ce forbids any thing like extended description, even if the inherent difficulties of such a task would permit. Captain Ludlow has well stated the nature of these difficulties:

"The Park scenery, as a whole," he says, "is too grand, its scope too immense, its details too varied and minute, to admit of adequate description, save by some great writer, who, with mind and pen equally trained, can seize upon the salient points, and, with just discrimination, throw into proper relief the varied features of mingled grandeur, wonder, and beauty."

Of the many who have attempted, with pen or pencil, to reproduce the wonders of the Yellowstone, no one has yet completely satisfied these important requirements. The writer, for his part, will modestly decline any such undertaking, and, like that pioneer explorer, Folsom, will confine his descriptions "to the bare facts." He will, however, occasionally call to aid those who have seen and written of these wonders. To the early explorers, in particular, who entered this region before it became generally known, its strange phenomena appealed with an imaginative force which the guide-book tourist of to-day can hardly realize. This may account for the fact that some of these explorers, who have never, before or since, put pen to paper with any literary purpose in view, have left in their narratives strokes of word painting which the most gifted writer would find it difficult to excel.

The season selected for the tour will be the early days of July. The rain and snow and chilly air, not uncommon in June, are gone. The drought and smoke of August and September are still remote. Even mosquitoes, so amazingly plentiful at certain seasons (Langford found them on the very summit of the Grand Teton), have not yet made their appearance. It is late enough, however, to call forth in their richest glory the magnificent profusion of flowers which every-where abound in the Park. The air is at its best, full of life and energy, and so clear that it confounds distances and gives to objects, though far away, a distinctness quite unknown in lower alt.i.tudes. The skies, as they appear at this season, surpa.s.s the sunny skies of Italy, and the tourist will find in their empyreal depths a beauty and fascination forever lacking in the dingy air of civilization. In short, the open air stage trips through that rich mountain atmosphere will form one of the most attractive and invigorating features of the tour.

Without further preliminary, the role of guide will now be a.s.sumed, and the tourist will be conducted through the wonders of this celebrated country, following, over most of the distance, the present general route.

CHAPTER XIII.

A TOUR OF THE PARK.

_North Boundary to Mammoth Hot Springs._

[Ill.u.s.tration:

_Terry Engr. Co._ _Gandy._

Gardiner River.]

Distance five miles. The road for most of the way lies in the valley of the Gardiner. The princ.i.p.al points of interest en route are:

_The Junction of the Yellowstone and Gardiner Rivers_ which determines the north boundary of the Park. It lies in the State of Montana, the state line being two miles further south. The old prospector's route bore off at this point and kept up the valley of the Yellowstone.

Folsom took this route in 1869; so did the Wasburn party in 1870.

Hayden and Barlow in 1871 kept along the Gardiner and thus saw the Mammoth Hot Springs.

_The Gardiner Canon_ is a precipitous valley of loose gray walls suggestive of danger from falling rocks. The nests of fish-hawks here and there crown detached pinnacles. The most striking feature of the canon is the river, a typical mountain torrent of such rapid fall over its rocky bed that it is a continuous succession of foaming cascades.

Some four miles up the river, at the point where the road leaves it, the tourist gets his first sight of any indication of subterranean heat. This is a large stream of hot water, in early times called the _Boiling River_, issuing from an opening in the rocks and emptying directly into the river. It is formed of the collected waters of Mammoth Hot Springs which find their way to this point through underground pa.s.sages. It was here that "numbers of invalids" were encamped when Hayden and Barlow saw the spot in 1871.

From the last crossing of the Gardiner a winding road, which rises 600 feet in its length of one mile, brings the tourist to the world-renowned _Mammoth Hot Springs_, and to the administrative and business headquarters of the Park.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

_Terry Engr. Co._ _U. S. Geological Survey of the Territories._

Mammoth Hot Springs.

Bunsen Peak in the distance.]

[Ill.u.s.tration:

_U. S. Geological Survey of the Territories._

Pulpit Terrace.]

First in importance, among the many points of interest accessible from this locality, are the _Hot Springs Terraces_. These have been built one upon another until the present active portion const.i.tutes a hill rising 300 feet above the site of the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel. The formation about these springs, it will be remembered, is calcareous, and to this fact is due its distinctive character, so different from the silica formations which prevail nearly every-where else in the Park. The overhanging bowls which these deposits build up are among the finest specimens of Nature's work in the world, while the water which fills them is of that peculiar beauty to be found only in thermal springs. Speaking of this feature Dr. Hayden says:

"The wonderful transparency of the water surpa.s.ses any thing of the kind I have ever seen in any other portion of the world. The sky, with the smallest cloud that flits across it, is reflected in its clear depths, and the ultramarine colors, more vivid than the sea, are greatly heightened by constant, gentle vibrations. One can look down into the clear depths and see, with perfect distinctness, the minutest ornament on the inner sides of the basins; and the exquisite beauty of the coloring and the variety of forms baffle any attempt to portray them either with pen or pencil."[AZ]

[AZ] Page 69 Hayden's Report for 1871. See Appendix E.

_Cleopatra Spring_, _Jupiter Terrace_, _Pulpit Terrace_, _Minerva Terrace_, the _Narrow Gauge Terrace_--an incongruous name for a long fissure spring--the _White Elephant_, another fissure spring, and the _Orange Geyser_, a very pretty formation, dome-shaped, with a pulsating spring in the top, are among the most interesting of the active springs.

_Liberty Cap_ is the cone of an extinct spring and stands forty-five feet high and twenty feet through at the base.

_Bath Lake_ is a warm pool of considerable size, much used in bathing.

Scattered over the formation in every direction are caves, springs, steam-vents, handsome deposits, and curiosities without number to attract and detain the visitor. Many of them, like _Cupid's Cave_, the _Devil's Kitchen_, and _McCartney's Cave_, are of much interest. In the last-mentioned cave, or, more properly, crater, an elk fell one winter when the crater was level full with light snow. His antlers caught between the sides of the crater, holding him in a suspended position until he perished. He was found the following spring by Mr.

McCartney.

Besides the hot springs features, there are other important objects of interest in this neighborhood.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

_Terry Engr. Co._ _Haynes, Photo., St. Paul._

Golden Gate.]

[Ill.u.s.tration:

_Terry Engr. Co._ _Ingersoll._

Osprey Falls.]

_Lookout Hill_ is a prominent rounded elevation opposite the hotel.

Upon its summit is a block-house, built by Colonel Norris, in 1879, as a headquarters building for the Superintendent. The awkward and inconvenient location was selected for its defensible qualities. It will be remembered that the two previous years, 1877 and 1878, had witnessed the Nez Perce and Bannock incursions into the Park.

_The Falls and Canon of the Middle Gardiner_, distant four miles from the hotel, are the finest scenery of the kind in the Park, excepting only the Grand Canon of the Yellowstone.

_Bunsen Peak_ is a conspicuous summit located between the Middle and West Forks of the Gardiner. Its western face terminates in _Cathedral Rock_, a bold cliff that overhangs the valley of _Glen Creek_.

_Golden Gate_ and _Kingman Pa.s.s_ are names applied to the picturesque canon of Glen Creek. It is justly considered one of the gems of the Park scenery. The skillful engineering feat of carrying the tourist route through this difficult canon was performed by Lieutenant D. C.

Kingman, of the Corps of Engineers, U. S. A., in 1884-5. _Rustic Falls_ is a handsome cataract near the head of the pa.s.s. The best view in this vicinity is to be had from above the pa.s.s, looking through it toward Mt. Everts.

Besides Bunsen Peak, the tourist will find _Terrace Mountain_, _Sepulcher Mountain_, and _Electric Peak_ ever ready to satisfy whatever ambition for mountain climbing he may possess.

The _East Gardiner Canon_ affords some fine views, and the falls and rapids at its head are extremely beautiful. It is through this canon that access can most easily be had to the summit of _Mt. Everts_. This last name is given to a feature which bears almost no resemblance to the ordinary conception of a mountain. It is simply a broad table-land extending from the Yellowstone south and terminating in the lofty and conspicuous bluff just across the Gardiner from Mammoth Hot Springs.