Where in confusion canyons and mountains and swift running rivers with
painted banks abound, and elk and deer, buffalo and bear range through
the wilds unterrified by man and gun, and tall, straight pines in almost
unbroken forests plant their feet in a tangle of down-timber that
centuries were required to produce; where in the earth there are vents
through which roar and rush at exact intervals columns of boiling water,
sometimes more than two hundred feet high, or in which painted mud
blubbers and spurts; where pools by thousands at scalding heat boil and
murmur; where under one's feet is felt the hollow of the earth and
through hundreds of holes of unfathomable depth come deep growls of
Nature in her confinement; where dyes have been daubed in delirium on
hillsides and river's brink; where a canyon gashes the earth thousands
of feet through colors so vivid and varied that no record can write them
down; where one of the highest navigable lakes in the world washes the
feet of mountains that hold aloft the snows through every month of the
year; where the supernal and the infernal are blended in a harmony that
only Infinitude can produce, and every miracle of Creation has been
worked; where one can be lost in a wilderness as long as he will and
come face to face with almost every form of creative eccentricity--there
is _Geyserland_.
_The Way in and Out_
Yellowstone National Park is reached via the Union Pacific and its
connection, the Oregon Short Line, the New and Direct Route, over one
stem from Kansas City and Leavenworth, and over another from Council
Bluffs and Omaha. By way of the latter you cross the Missouri River over
a magnificent steel bridge and traverse the "Lane Cut Off," a splendid
illustration of modern railroad construction. If you journey over the
stem from Kansas City, your way leads through a succession of thriving
cities and towns amid the finest farming region of the West, and through
beautiful Denver, through Cheyenne, thence through Wyoming, and a
portion of Utah, to Ogden, from which point Salt Lake City, 37 miles
distant, is reached.
[Illustration: _The Cascades of the Firehole River_]
[Illustration: _Hayden Valley between Yellowstone Lake and the Falls_]
Leaving the central system of transcontinental lines, access to the Park
is had in a night by way of the Oregon Short Line Railroad from Salt
Lake City, Ogden, or Pocatello to the station, Yellowstone, Montana, at
the western border, nineteen miles from the Fountain Hotel.
All along this route are strewn stretches of delightful scenery, and
fields of rare fertility; but these things the tourist does not see--he
awakens for breakfast at Yellowstone, and an hour thereafter is
following the course of the beautiful Madison, well on his way into the
Park and to the wonders that there await him.
_The Scenery_
As a whole, the scenery of the Park is restful and satisfying. What it
lacks in the stupendous it makes up in softness of coloring and the
gentle undulations that lead gradually to the massive mountains. The
green of the pines, lightened and darkened here and there with the
shades of different species, is everywhere. The waters of the rivers are
dimmed by the shadows; the cascades have a glimmer and sparkle quite
their own, and now and then peep out in the sweeps of the distance,
little lakes that shimmer in the sun. Vagrant clouds of steam, signs of
the geysers and boiling springs, are seen all over the landscape,
especially in the early morning when a little of the night frost still
lingers in the air. Many grotesque shapes are taken on by the rocks, and
there is hardly a spring or pool that does not suggest its name by its
form. From the Lake Hotel can be seen facing skyward, the profile of a
human face so perfect it has long been called "The Sleeping Giant."
Yellowstone Lake is a marvel of beauty; the dense forest comes down to
its shores, little dots of islands sprinkle its surface, its waters are
crystal clear away into the deep, and under the kiss of the sun the face
of the sea takes on a glory altogether splendid.
[Illustration: _Keppler Cascades_]
[Illustration: Western Entrance]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Gibbon Falls]
[Illustration]
_Coaching in the Park_
The stage coach, the old-fashioned one with the lofty seat for the
driver and the boot and the thorough-brace, the rocking-cradle vehicle
that served so well when civilization was beating its way westward fifty
years ago, holds the first right-of-way through the Park. Driven from
use almost everywhere else by the iron horse, it has found safe refuge
there, and neither the railways nor the automobiles can enter to oppose
it.
[Illustration: _The Mud Geyser_]
[Illustration: _A Coaching Party_]
A good half of the pleasures of the tour is found in the coaching. To
watch for the coming of the stage at the door of the Inn where the
baggage is piled, and the porters and bell boys stand expectant--to hear
the clatter of the wheels, the sound of hoofs, and to see the gaily
harnessed horses in conscious pride swing the coach gracefully under the
Porte Cochere--to be wheeled over the winding, dustless roads at ten
miles an hour behind prancing leaders and wheelers--to be garbed as you
please without thought of style or detail--to breathe air distilled
among the fragrant pines--to be touched by breezes that fan your cheek
and dishevel your hair--to be free from all care and abandon yourself to
the delights that come with the everchanging scenes that panoramic
Nature is constantly unfolding to your gaze--is to experience an
exhilaration never to be found among the busy haunts of men.
The drivers, gentlemanly and skillful, are full of information, and you
do the 158 miles from Yellowstone around the circle back to Yellowstone
with so little fatigue that you regret the trip is not longer.
_Park Regulations and Improvements_
Two companies of United States Cavalry are stationed at Fort
Yellowstone, and, during the summer detachments of these troops are
placed in different parts of the reservation. Their duties are to patrol
the Park, prevent the spreading of forest fires and the commission of
acts of vandalism. The troops have authority to make arrests for any
violation of Park regulations. Hunting is especially prohibited, and all
guns are officially sealed at the entrance to the Park.
The commanding officer at Fort Yellowstone is Acting Superintendent of
the reservation. All rules and regulations emanate from the Department
of the Interior, and printed copies of them will be found posted in all
Park Hotels.
The Government has constructed a system of macadamized roads of easy
grade throughout the Park, and these are kept sprinkled daily during the
Park season.
[Illustration: _The Crater of Oblong Geyser_]
[Illustration: _Punch Bowl Spring_]
[Illustration: Grotto Geyser Formation]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Rapids above Upper Falls]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: _Upper Geyser Basin_]
_The Geysers_
Nature has lavished her gifts on the region of the Yellowstone--wild
woodland, crystal rivers, gorgeous canyons and sparkling cascades--all
under the guard of mountain sentinels around whose lofty heads group
every form of cloud castle that vagrant winds can build. But of all the
wonders that God in His mysterious way has there worked to perform, none
is so strange--so startling--as the geysers.
To count them, great and small, would be like counting the stars, and to
measure in words their awful power, or picture their splendor of sparkle
and symmetry--that, no one can do. They must be seen to be appreciated,
and once seen--the memory and mystery of them will linger to the end of
the longest life. They are as different as geysers can be. There are
dead geysers--dead from bursted throats--mere boiling pools now--shaped
to resemble a variety of familiar things; with depths that the eye
cannot sound, and colors--blues, greens, purples, reds--down their deep
sides and in the wonderful tracery about their rims, so blended, so
beautiful that one may well believe that all the paints on the palette
of the Master were commingled in their decoration.
One blubbers and gurgles and grumbles awhile, and then with an angry
roar lifts a great column of mud into the air. Another steams and growls
through an orifice hundreds of feet wide in seeming angry spite that
years ago it blew out its throat and ceased to gush forever.[A] But the
geysers that most attract are the regular-timed spouting wonders--the
Giant and Giantess, Old Faithful, the Grand, the Fountain, the Castle
and others whose names mark the geography of the Park.
[A] In 1888, Excelsior, then the greatest geyser in the known world,
while playing with unusual vigor, ruptured its crater and has never
spouted since. In its former periods of activity it is said to have
raised the Firehole river seven feet in as many minutes with its waters.
(_Ed._)
[Illustration: _The Geysers in Winter_]
They are variously located in three distinct basins which are far enough
apart to give the traveler by stage a few geysers with each day's
entertainment. These basins are great wastes of a white deposition
called in Park vernacular "the formation" under which must be boiling
one of the mighty cauldrons of the earth, for one can feel under foot a
tremble, and can hear through a hundred orifices the hiss of steam and
the angry murmur of the waters below.
The coming and going of the geysers is an astonishing and awe-inspiring
spectacle, and so accurately timed and so certain to perform are they,
that no one need miss the experience. The geyser passive is a hole at
the summit of a cone. The cone rises gradually from the plane of the
formation and, ragged and deep, growls hoarsely and steams fitfully.
Thus it is a moment before its time for activity, and then comes the
geyser active. There is a loud preliminary roar and then suddenly, with
a rush and power almost terrifying, a white obelisk of scalding,
steaming water is lifted into the air sometimes 250 feet, and there held
scintillating and glistening in the sun until the play is over, when it
sinks gradually back from whence it came, and the fitful growling and
steaming begins anew.
Every geyser has a time of its own and there are thousands of them,
varying in size from the little growler that sputters and spits a
thimbleful from its tiny throat, to the Giant that three times a month
plays for ninety minutes, 250 feet high.
How old the geysers are, recorded time does not tell, but one or two of
the wise men, who are always measuring the duration of things by some
system of calculation, have determined by multiplying the deposition
from each eruption by the height of the cone, that the Giant, for
instance, has been playing some thousands of years.
If those who come and go across the land every year on pleasure bent
only knew how curious and beautiful geysers are, the National Park would
count its visitors by multitudes.
[Illustration: Old Faithful]
[Illustration: The Great Falls From Below]
[Illustration: _Old Faithful at Sunrise_]
_Old Faithful_
In imagination, lift in a symmetrical cone two hundred and fifty
thousand gallons of scalding, steaming water one hundred and fifty feet
high and hold it there three minutes; jewel the grand fountain with a
million diamonds; filter through it the hues of innumerable dancing
rainbows; commingle in confusion every sound of splash and splutter--and
you will have a faint idea of Old Faithful in action.
It is the immutable water-clock of the Yellowstone--the most perfect
illustration of geyseric phenomena--the most famous and beautiful geyser
in the whole world.
The note of the beginning of the play of the geyser is an angry growl
down deep in its throat whence almost instantly the water, in rapid
recurrent leaps, forms the stately fountain that plays for three minutes
and then slowly sinks into the earth to await its time to rise again.
Sometimes the winds unfold from its top an iridescent banner of spray;
but more often the fountain form is a perfect cone.
Old Faithful plays every seventy minutes and never disappoints. Visitors
to the Park may therefore see it under various conditions of light. In
the daytime, under the sun, it glistens and gleams with prismatic hues;
but the most enchanting hour to witness its performance is that when
night is falling--when the dusk is around it, and the last faint tints
of the sun linger in the sky. Then it is a spectre in ghostly white
standing against the sombre background of the wilderness--a sight
strange and startling and never to be forgotten.
It has long been the custom at Old Faithful Inn to flood the geyser at
night with the rays of a searchlight. Then the spectacle takes on new
features--all the rainbow hues are there, and looking through the
fountain along the sweep of light, one sees a bediamonded form more
beautiful than any ever wrought by the hands of the Ice King.
Verily, Old Faithful is one of the most wonderful presentations in all
the repertoire of Nature.
[Illustration: _The Great Falls from Point Lookout_]
_The Canyon and Falls of the Yellowstone_
The Canyon and Falls of the Yellowstone beggar description. They are
twin wonders in a Wonderland. Is there any other gorge as gorgeous as
that Canyon? With such gaiety of coloring--with such delicate and lovely
shades of yellows and reds, purples and pinks, greens and crimsons, all
commingling in harmony from the green-fringed brink, down, down the
craggy sides into sombre depths where the writhing, gleaming ribbon of
river thousands of feet below, plunges along on its winding way to the
sea?
And the falls--the drapery of the canyon--the two silvery curtains that
hang at its head--a great river pouring over a precipice and falling in
glassy sheets hundreds of feet, then ruffling and flouncing and
festooning until lost into the rainbow-hued mist at their feet.
See all this as thousands have and thousands will from "Inspiration
Point"--a rocky balcony over the gorge, with the eagle's nests below
you--or from "Artist's Point" on the other side, where Moran transferred
the glories of canyon and falls to canvas; or see it from any of the
other places where tourists love to linger and look, and you will see
the most tremendous, stupendous, alluring and altogether splendid
spectacle that Nature ever spread out for the wonder, amazement and
delight of mortal eyes.
[Illustration: MAP OF OREGON SHORT LINE, UNION PACIFIC,
OREGON-WASHINGTON RAILROAD & NAVIGATION CO., SOUTHERN PACIFIC AND
CONNECTIONS]
[Illustration: Bridge above The Rapids]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: The Upper Falls]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK Oregon Short Line Railroad]