September 4, 2012

ON OUR FIRST FULL DAY IN YELLOWSTONE, we decided to take a quick overview bus tour. In the past, we have taken such tours in European cities and found them to be an easy way to get an overall view of wherever we were staying. Our quick overview tour of a small section of the 2.2 million acre park took about 8 hours. Fortunately, our tour director was very knowledgeable and kept up a running commentary for the full 8 hours.

We stopped at a variety of scenic spots and saw a variety of wildlife, including an elk and numerous buffalo. I even took photos of a couple of birds for Carole, a Western Blue Bird and a somewhat shy raven.

Throughout the park we saw numerous signs to the effect that the animals were wild and dangerous. Other signs recommended safe viewing distances for the various animals. Given that over three million people visit Yellowstone each year, it follows that some of these people will be very stupid. One of those stupid persons was in the park last week. When he spotted a buffalo resting on its side, he concluded that he had a great photo op. He decided that the photo would be even better if the buffalo would simply turn its head slightly. When the visitor walked up to the buffalo and tried to move its head, the buffalo took umbrage at this invasion of his personal space and nearly gored the guy to death. Every year, a number of people are gored by buffalo. In almost every case, those people unwisely had gotten too close to the buffalo.

The main focus of the tour was the various “thermal” sites which most people identify with Yellowstone.  Supposedly, 2/3 of the geysers in the world are located in Yellowstone; and we must have seen most of them.

People are warned to stay on the wooden boardwalks because the ground could be a thin crust over some steamy place. A couple of hours into the tour, along with a couple of thousand other people, we watched Old Faithful erupt.

Yellowstone rests on top of a huge volcano which is still deemed active although it has not erupted in hundreds of thousands of years. The caldera of the volcano is nearly forty miles wide. Years ago, we sailed into the caldera of an ancient volcano at Santorini in the Mediterranean Sea. That volcano caused massive damage in the Mediterranean Sea and may have been the source of the myth of Atlantis. Nevertheless, the caldera at Santorini was only a few miles wide. While there may not have been an eruption for hundreds of thousands of years in Yellowstone, the molten rocks several miles below the surface create super-heated water which comes to the surface in geysers, steam vents, mud-pots and hot springs. Altogether, there are ten thousand of these hot spots in the park. Some of the hot spots emit odors which would be familiar to anyone who has been in a fraternity house the morning after a beer party.

The hot spots are indeed hot; their temperatures are usually over 200 degrees. Some of the hot springs are at what they call a rolling boil on the Cooking Channel. Somehow, over the years, a few visitors must have mistaken the hot springs for the hot tubs in their local health clubs. Twenty people have died from burns sustained while leaping or falling into hot springs. Alcohol was involved in more than a few of these incidents. The only one of these people I could excuse for jumping into the pool was a man who jumped in trying to save his dog. Sadly, his efforts were in vain; and the man and the dog died the next day. 

Later in the day, I purchased a book entitled Death in Yellowstone. The author, Lee H. Whittlesey, was a lawyer who had once been a park ranger. His book is not a typical collection of yarns the rangers tell the tourists, but a scholarly account of the variety of deaths which have occurred in the park over the years. His accounts of people being gobbled up by grizzlies and his descriptions of people emerging blind and skinless from hot spots are probably not appropriate for bed time stories.

There was only one sour note to the tour, the presence of a guy who viewed himself as an expert. On many of the tours we have taken over the years, there has been a self-styled expert in the tour group. Invariably a stupid male, these experts are easy to spot. Early in the tour, they call attention to themselves by vigorously nodding in agreement with comments made by the tour director and making observations like: “I’m glad you pointed that out; most people don’t know that.”  We had one of those experts on our tour. His specialty was helping the tour director along by adding details he must have recently read in some brochure.

I waited for the right moment to deal with the expert. That moment came when the tour director pointed out a minor attraction called The Abyss Pool. At this point, I pulled the expert aside; and, in my best entre nous voice, began a brief conversation.

 

“Weren’t you surprised that there was no warning sign by that pool?”

“You must have missed it; it’s right over there.”

 

“No, no, I wasn’t referring to the danger of burning. I was referring to the danger of staring.”

“Staring? I’m not I following you.”

“Surely, you are aware of the works of Friedrich Nietzsche. He was the first person to observe that if you stare too long into an abyss, the abyss starts staring back.”

I then sniffed auditably and turned away from the obviously puzzled expert and rejoined the group. During the balance of the tour, I would catch the expert sneaking surreptitious looks at me. In any event, he became markedly more subdued.