If you want to spice up your family vacation, why not go to a place that could kill you, and that might one day kill us all.
Last week, our family traveled to Yellowstone National Park in northwestern Wyoming. This place is a trip. Literally, in that it was a two day car ride for our family of five. But also figuratively.
Amid the steam of an otherworldly collection of active geysers, fumaroles and boiling hot pools of water, Yellowstone rests atop an active volcano that will eventually erupt. The explosion could be violent, blotting out the sun with ash, or it might just burble hot lava across crowded parking lots. Either way, that fateful day will make the news.
Just before we left, footage from Yellowstone went viral when a hydrothermal explosion at Biscuit Basin flung rocks, mud, boiling water and steam into the air, damaging a boardwalk as tourists fled. No one was hurt, but the resulting videos certainly weighed on our mind.
Fortunately, we survived our vacation with no apocalyptic events of any kind. In fact, we deeply enjoyed one of the nation’s most beautiful and unusual places.
First of all, we don’t travel much. Aside from weekend getaways, this was the third family vacation we’ve ever tried, the previous two being the Black Hills of South Dakota and Winnipeg.
This one was important to us. Our oldest is 19, heading off to a four-year college. Our younger twins are 17, embarking on their senior year in high school. If not now, when?
Yellowstone is one of the most popular travel destinations in America, drawing visitors from around the world. In fact, we heard dozens of foreign languages in our travels around the park. The presence of so many different cultures illuminated certain universal human behaviors.
For instance, one can translate marital strife with no verbal language whatsoever. Eye rolls, grimacing and wild gestures transcend words. Kids are dumb everywhere. And no one likes traffic. Four-way stops were uniquely challenging because a whole world’s worth of different customs and tendencies surrounding these intersections were on display.
In addition to open pools of boiling water and the simmering potential of volcanic annihilation, Yellowstone makes certain to warn visitors about bears. This is one of the few places where grizzly bears and black bears co-exist. Bears once dined alongside campers at Yellowstone until several decades ago when wildlife biologists finally won the argument about why so many people were getting mauled by bears.
It turns out that feeding bears human food is bad. They’re better served living in the woods. A similar realization was made here in northern Minnesota at the Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary, where a logger tamed a group of bears with food for so long that they became dependent on people. Bear propaganda is a solid portion of what you’ll see at Yellowstone, second only to the admonishment, “don’t pet the fuzzy cows.”
We did see bison on the trip and several elk. We also saw a fox, coyote, osprey and the beautiful western tanager, an exquisite bird that will live in my memory because my attempted photograph looks like melted gummy worms.
The geographic features are what made the visit, though.
Congress established Yellowstone National Park in 1862, the world’s first national park, entirely on speculation. No member of Congress had ever seen the place, and most never would. What convinced them, along with stirring testimony, was a painting that depicted a striking waterfall set amid the vibrant hues and grandeur of the “Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.”
We got to stand at Artists Point, the very place where that painting was created. You don’t realize how many images of Yellowstone National Park dwell in the zeitgeist of American life until you go there. Everywhere you turn, a postcard from an antique shop manifests into a panorama of living color.
One thing those postcards won’t show is the smell. The distinct feature of many Yellowstone geysers and fumaroles is sulfur, best compared to rotting eggs. In fact, a one-time member of the Lewis and Clark expedition, John Colter, is believed to be among the first white men to see the place.
Colter described a place of “fire and brimstone,” evoking the biblical sensations of heat and sulfur associated with God’s wrath. No one believed him until later expeditions proved him right. All I know is that no one has to apologize for flatulence in the geyser basins.
And yet, just around the corner, you’ll find clean air and beautiful waterfalls, 300 in total. One of my favorite experiences was hiking to Fairy Falls, a couple miles off the main road. It’s not the mightiest waterfall, nor are the nearby geysers the biggest, but with so few people around you really get to enjoy them.
Yellowstone was known to native peoples long before the United States existed, and remains sacred to them. But, somehow, it remains sacred to almost everyone. Nestled in the mountains 8,000 feet above sea level, Yellowstone didn’t become popular until after iron ore was rolling off the Mesabi Range — a time not so long ago in historical terms. In fact, the rise of steel trains and automobiles made Yellowstone accessible to families.
Our sons are now men only a few years younger than us when we had them. What is time to a mountain or a river? To a family, time is all too short.
Aaron J. Brown is an author and college instructor from northern Minnesota’s Iron Range. He writes the blog MinnesotaBrown.com and co-hosts the podcast “Power in the Wilderness” on Northern Community Radio. This piece first appeared in the Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024 edition of the Mesabi Tribune.
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