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AS I APPROACHED a dark, gaping hole in the Earth at Yellowstone National Park, an older woman peered into it and seemed not to notice me.
"It makes you feel so insignificant," she announced, never once taking her gaze off the noisy hole, where hot air jetted forth from far below.
"Yes," I replied, deciding it better to say something than ignore her, "and it gives me the feeling that I'm looking deep into the fiery engine that drives the planet."
It was an odd exchange with a stranger, but not nearly so odd as the thing we looked at, nor any of the thousands of other weird geothermal sites in Yellowstone.
When the park was originally established, it was because of these thermal fields. Here, in this corner of Wyoming and spilling over into neighboring Idaho and Montana, nature has put more evidence of the planet's inner workings than anywhere on Earth--some 10,000 sites in all.
To this day, scientists come here to study and ponder the meaning of the seemingly endless variety of geysers, spouts, fumaroles, mud pots, springs, pools, and assorted other places that afford an opportunity for the heated inner Earth to reach the surface in some form or other.
Tens of thousands of people flock here from around the world, drawn chiefly to the most famous of these sites, Old Faithful, so named for its more-or-less-regular and always exciting steam eruptions.
While you really can count on Old Faithful's spoutings, they are not so regular as clockwork nor are they--despite the fountain's reputation--nearly the highest in Yellowstone.
Of the two weeks I spent in and around the park, three or four days were spent almost exclusively on the thermal features, yet, when I came home, read up on them and watched a video, I was disappointed to learn I'd seen no more than a scant sampling. Most are contained within what are called geyser basins, grouped roughly toward the western side of Yellowstone.
Most, but by no means all--and it is those chance discoveries of other thermal sites, tucked into out-of-the-way parts elsewhere in the park, that I enjoyed most.
My favorite part of Yellowstone is the Lamar Valley, a wide, broad, scenic meadowlike valley with a river running through it. This grassy expanse, miles in length, is home to every kind of wildlife in the park. But even here, at odd spots such as Soda Butte and along the Yellowstone River canyon that cuts across its western end, there are thermal sites.
Three times in its geologic past, the Earth has risen up beneath what is now Yellowstone, exploded and cast forth huge quantities of its molten center. The last time it did so, 640,000 years ago, the earth fell in above the subterranean chamber, creating an immense caldera that today makes up much of the central southern part of the park.
Sharing the limelight with Yellowstone's thermal features are the park's waterways--lakes, ponds, rivers and hundreds of named waterfalls and cascades. I think it would be possible to spend a long life exploring this 2.2 million-acre wonderland, and still not see it all. As an example, I missed a geyser beside the Firehole River that sends a steaming fountain fizzing into the cold stream beside it.
But I did not miss seeing nondescript Isa's Lake. What is remarkable about this pond--less than an acre in size, I would suppose--is not the busy road that bridges it, not its being more than 8,000 feet above sea level, nor even the fact that it sits smack on the continental divide. No, what makes this small spatterdock-covered pond so fascinating and possibly unique is that its waters flow out of both ends, part flowing ultimately eastward to wind up in the Gulf of Mexico, part westward toward a Pacific Ocean destination. And if that isn't enough of a believe-it-or-not, try this: The waters that flow out the east end of the pond turn and become westward-bound, and vice versa. Truth truly is stranger than fiction.
Most of Yellowstone is covered by forests, although the fire of 1988 destroyed some 800,000 acres of them. It was a calamity and yet, 14 years later, the recovery and rebirth of those forests is well under way. Even now, vast tracts of standing burned trees are evident, especially in western parts of Yellowstone. Areas of the burn have a ghostly appearance, yet nearly everywhere young lodgepole pines--which make up 80 percent of Yellowstone's woodlands--are growing rapidly.
Yellowstone is as much a symbol of America as a place on the land. Many people I talk to at home have been there; everyone seems to want to go. Surely, no travels through the homeland are complete without a good visit there. When time comes for a first trip, or to re-visit, here are a few suggestions.
The park is a busy, popular place. Try to time your visit for the off-season--late spring and early fall are ideal. Once there, try for the most popular places such as Old Faithful and the Lower Falls of the Grand Canyon early in the morning. Crowds are thinner then and the light is much superior for pictures.
If time and inclination allow, camping gets you closer to nature. (I heard coyotes, wolves, bugling elk, owls, sandhill cranes and trumpeter swans at various campsites--worth the trip alone.)
And a word about bears. Warnings about grizzly bears are posted everywhere. But common sense and a few fundamental precautions make it more likely you'd be injured in an auto accident driving to Yellowstone than by a rampant grizzly.
More about those bears next week when I wind up my Yellowstone visit with some notes on the wildlife.
PAUL SULLIVAN, a former reporter with The Free Lance-Star, is a freelance writer living in Spotsylvania County. Contact him by mail at The Free Lance-Star, 616 Amelia St., Fredericksburg, Va., 22401; by fax at 373-8455; or by e-mail to PBSullivan2@cs.com.
