Old, Faithful And Mysterious

Yellowstone is indisputably America's No. 1 travel clich�. But this doesn't seem to diminish her magnificence. One would have to be fabulously jaundiced not to be overwhelmed, assuming that time is taken to walk at least a quarter of a mile away from the traffic arteries that carve her into seven pieces. If you do not do that, and sad to say not very many people do, you come away having seen only a very frayed rendition of the real park, like hearing a high school band of no distinction whatever play Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Of course this rendition is acceptable to some, perhaps most. It is still vaguely Beethoven. Enjoyable, a catchy tune. But if you walk that minimal quarter of a mile you gain a sense of splendor; before you is a mountain vastness not diminished since Jim Bridger or John Colter or the Indians hundreds of years before Bridger and Colter. You will lose your niggling sense that "everything" is spoiled. For as long as you want to stay you won't have to think of the word ecology in its negative sense, a natural chain we have inordinately violated. Yellowstone is 95% wilderness. It is possible to be justly and intensely critical of what we have done to the remaining 5%, but other than this minuscule lump or series of lumps of land, the park is still out there, awesome and unsullied.

In mid-July, driving, say from Gardiner at the historic north entrance to Old Faithful, can be vexing beyond belief. Traffic jams! Wilfred and Myrna and the kids have stopped to feed a black bear a Hostess Twinkie. They think it might be old Smokey himself and half expect that abortive quavering baritone that warns us against carelessness with matches. Traffic backs up for a mile. Horns beep, and throughout the line there is a certain seepage of adrenalin. Whining children are clouted about head and shoulders, and dad's lips curl in anger. Even though the maximum speed limit is 45, a safe margin for the twisting roads and animal life, no one wants a traffic jam when he's looking at Nature. The upcoming sights will partially heal the tempers. When you reach Old Faithful you can have a Coke at the lodge, surely one of the most incredible pieces of American architecture. And then you can go out and stand on the boardwalk behind a string of girls in hot pants and wait for the geyser to erupt. When Old Faithful goes off (every 35 to 90 minutes) the roar of water is accompanied by the clicking shutters of a thousand Instamatics. Deafening. It would be even more wonderful if you didn't have to go out into that hot parking lot and get back in the car. But the Upper Falls way over at the canyon are next on the itinerary.

We got up before dawn and drove in Chico's pickup down through the park and out through West Yellowstone, across the Henry's Fork to Ashton, Idaho, where we doubled back east on a small road through the Targhee National Forest into the southwest corner of Yellowstone. There were four of us uncomfortably stuffed into the front seat as Lemuth, who had been dozing in the camper, claimed he was quickly dying from an exhaust leak. He did look a trifle pale, and Chico admitted to bad mufflers. We wanted to enter the park near the Bechler Ranger Station and hike in about six miles, where we would meet the Bechler River, then move along the river until we found good fishing. The night before, when the equipment and food was divided up, I had felt very unsure of myself. Any back country trip is strong medicine, though this notion is scorned by those who do it often. Both Lemuth and McGuane will take off alone into the woods, sometimes for days on end. But when I am alone in some comparative wilderness area I have often fallen into an utter, petulant snit of loneliness. A near hysteria over the non-human silence. No arrangements have been made for me! One can get lost enough on a '100-acre woodlot to panic, let alone the 3,500 square miles of Yellowstone. Teddy Roosevelt, in some respects the father of the national-park system, once said that you don't really know a man until you have camped with him. This bit of information is posted on the wall at Charley O's bar and restaurant in New York City, a place I immoderately longed for while stuffing my pack with the rather arcane-looking equipment.

It is a matter of supreme irritation to find out that the most pressing problems in the park now are litter and traffic. Looming rather large behind is the general controversy in conservation circles between the hyperthyroid protectionists and those who favor "land use," a concept that has served so often as a euphemism for land abuse. The point is really that the flora and fauna can't talk other than in very subtle ways and must be defended. The original intent in making Yellowstone our first national park back in 1872 was to maintain the area in a "pristine" condition for the enjoyment of the people, to protect and preserve the area as it was found. The irony in the notion of enjoyment and preservation has been continuously evident, but never so much as in recent years. One grievously feels that the intent in administering the park should be to allow as many people to enjoy the park in such a way that it is not overwhelmed and becomes no longer a park but a geographical extension of society's ills: waste, traffic, overcrowding, the destruction of the environment.

Some of the lesser problems are more immediately fascinating. How does the staff of rangers protect the people from their aggressive stupidities toward the animals? In the 100-year history of the park only four deaths may be attributed to animals. This is an absolute triumph of brute patience if one thinks of the endless ways the animals are harried and abused. Extreme cases are the rule: parents spread jam on a child's face to get a photo of a bear licking the jam off; another photographing father attempts to put his daughter piggyback on a bear; a man coaxes a bear into the front seat of the car with his wife, again for a picture; and early in this century a death was the result of a quaint tourist poking a treed grizzly cub with the point of his umbrella.

In June of last year a park visitor from Spokane, Marvin Schrader, was taking snapshots of his wife, using as a backdrop a prone bull bison. Then Schrader attempted to walk around close behind the bison for reasons that will remain unknown. The animal charged, knocking Schrader through the air for a good distance, a horn catching him in the abdomen and disemboweling him. The signs, plus the warnings in the park literature handed out at every entrance, make it hard to understand how this pathetic accident could happen. Nearly every fisherman or hunter knows that you don't walk up and kick a domestic bull or walk between a range cow and her calf, let alone treat truly wild creatures this way. But people who wouldn't dream of trying to pet a stray German shepherd or a Doberman don't hesitate to try it with a bear.

Recently there has been a controversy of some magnitude over the grizzly management program at Yellowstone. Within the last three years most of the dumps have been removed or sanitized in favor of incinerators in the hope of weaning bears away from garbage and back to natural food. In 1970 a dozen grizzlies had to be destroyed and eight were shipped to zoos, a tragic 10% of the total number in the park. John and Frank Craighead, the well-publicized grizzly experts, have been extremely critical of the program and have gained support in the press. Glen Cole, who is the resident research biologist at Yellowstone and appears no less brilliant than the Craig-heads, has insisted the plan will work in time. It seems it might, and after a relatively short interval. Last year the rangers had to destroy only six grizzlies, and none were sent to city zoos.

It is important to understand that the number of people who are injured by grizzlies is statistically insignificant, the odds running around one million visitors per single injury for the past 40 years. But a certain wild-eyed melodrama gathers around any incident where an animal injures a human, whether it is a bear, elk or bison, and no matter how explicable the situation. Wolves have been much maligned despite the fact that there is not a single validated case in the history of the United States of a wolf attacking a human. The park has an estimated 15 wolves within its boundaries. For a while it was thought that these animals were extinct in Yellowstone, which would be understandable in that 134 were killed between 1916 and 1926 in a misguided predator-control program.

Finally, now that the bears seem to have returned to natural feeding habits, one would prefer to have visitors told to "proceed at your own risk" rather than killing any more of the dwindling number of grizzlies. One senses a great distaste on the part of the rangers and naturalists for killing anything; each troublesome bear has a "rap" sheet and is given several chances. But this in itself doesn't seem fair in a place specifically set aside for the bear to be a "natural" beast. Despite all of its inherent drama, this is one of the least of the problems in running Yellowstone in 1972.

We helped each other strap on the packs and started out immediately using our encased fly rods as walking sticks. I had been given the lightest pack, about 35 pounds, in deference to my shabby physical appearance. I admit to overemphasizing health difficulties. Within the first mile or so I managed to sweat through several layers of clothing and deeply regretted my succession of nightcaps the evening before. McGuane was leading at what is best described as a dogtrot. He wanted to go fishing. After another mile of physical torment I gathered courage and shrieked, "Slow down!" This tactic worked momentarily, but then the pace quickened again. Fake a fall, I thought to myself, and cover your body with catsup as if wounded on a field of battle. No handy catsup. "My feet hurt," I yelled, and they stopped. My feet actually did hurt. I was sure my right heel had turned to grape jelly and gristle. The three of them stood there impatiently as I applied medication and a bandage. I tried to light a cigarette, but my matches were wet with sweat. Chico offered me some raisins. Raisins! Later when we made camp I discovered that we had walked the first six miles in less than an hour and a half, sort of a hideous Grand Prix of hiking. My legs trembled involuntarily, but I was happy. With the pack off my back I felt I could jump lodge-pole pines with a single bound. We ate some rotten-tasting dehydrated stew quickly and headed for the river, Chico and Lemuth upstream, and McGuane and I a mile farther down.