Change Is the Only Constant: Entering Yellowstone

Oct 13-14, 2021

As we drive toward Yellowstone, the weather is completely different from yesterday’s white sky and falling snow. Today the sun is shining. The road is visible. The Shoshone mountains beside us announce that we’re traveling through a valley, not a white-out.

We’re feeling hopeful about making it into the park today. I chuckle at a sign that says: “Wyoming is Beef Country. Cody Cattlewomen. Enjoy Both.”

Just outside the park, the temperature drops and it begins to snow. The sun is gone. We seem to be entering a cloud. There is snow on the road.

A few miles into the park an uphill stretch is quite slick. Doug shifts Big Blue into four-wheel-drive for the first time. When we come to Sylvan Pass the temperature is at 21 degrees and the road is completely snow-packed. The sky is now a mottled gray. We crawl along at 20 mph.

There are very few other vehicles on the road. A snow plow passes us going the opposite direction. A hairpin curve makes me nervous but Doug is a cautious driver and it’s not as bad as I feared.

We see a number of pick up trucks stopped on the side of the road, headed the opposite direction. The drivers all have enormous scopes trained on a slope. The other day our friend Kevin had told us about people who pursue wolves using scopes. That information helps us interpret what’s going on here. Doug stops and I get out the binoculars but we can’t see anything on the slope.

We come to Lake Yellowstone, which has whitecaps. In the distance we see some buffalo. I roll down the window to take photos and smell sulfur. Soon the road is down to bare pavement — the thermal activity. Doug switches out of four-wheel-drive.

As we drive I get a text alert from YNP — they closed the road we just traversed. We come to a roadblock and a park ranger specifies which roads are closed.

We tank up at the Sinclair station at Fishing Bridge while it snows all around us. The traveler’s motto in challenging circumstances is a simple one: Never pass up a gas station or a bathroom.

“Change is the only constant.”

Yellowstone was my home for two summers in college (1978 and 1980) and I haven’t been back since. I am giddy to be here at last. This visit is overdue.

(I wrote a memoir that provides the back story of the Yellowstone years.)

We stop at the first opportunity, which is the Mud Volcano and Boiling Cauldron area. A boardwalk winds and climbs through thermal activity that belches clouds of steam. The temperature is only 22 degrees — the steam is extreme. We spend an hour taking many pictures and videos. Everywhere you can hear the burps and belches of boiling mud.

The Dragons Mouth is especially impressive. Its craggy cave produces sounds and vapors as rhythmic as breath. The acrid smell of sulfur adds to the underworld feeling of it all.

A posted sign says: “Change is the only constant.” A few sentences explain how this particular thermal area came into being since 1978 and 1979. That strikes me. Those are the very years I lived here. No wonder I don’t remember this boardwalk and thermal area — they did not exist in this form the last time I was here.

The same could also be said of me. The person I am now did not exist in this form the last time I was here.

The only constant is change.

Doug and I have entered the third third of our lives (if we’re lucky). What will happen next? What do we hope will happen? Answering that is one of the things that propelled us onto the road.

Just as I’m plotting our next stop — how to view the Upper and Lower Falls at Canyon — a park ranger comes by and advises us to proceed directly to Norris. They are going to close the road between Canyon and Norris behind us. Once again they have closed the road we just traversed.

Norris Geyser Basin — Steamboat Geyser

We stop at Norris Geyser Basin because we can. In fact, all the parking lots have been plowed. That strikes me as odd when so many other roads are untouched. Who knows the ways of the park service?

As soon as I open the truck door, I notice two very strange things. First, there’s a freezing rain falling. Second, there’s a helicopter hovering overhead. 

Doug is asking me about an umbrella, but I’m too confused to answer. Why is it raining all of a sudden? Why would there be a helicopter here? And why doesn’t it move on? The noise is very loud and continuous.

And the freezing rain is falling in such a small area — we’ve already moved to a dry spot a few dozen yards away.

Suddenly it dawns on me what’s happening: Steamboat Geyser is erupting!

I’m gob-smacked. Steamboat is one of the largest geysers in the park and is completely unpredictable, sometimes going years between eruptions. When I lived at Yellowstone, a Steamboat eruption was the stuff of legend. 

Giddy with excitement, we head down the snow-covered path, almost running. It seems like a long and slippery quarter-mile. Someone coming the opposite way assures us, “You have plenty of time, it’s only been erupting for 45 minutes, and it will go for 24 hours.”

When Doug and I arrive, we gawk. The force of the eruption is very concentrated, like a firehose, or maybe like two firehoses going side by side in slightly different directions. The steam cloud is enormous, and all the trees around are heavily coated with frost.

This picture doesn’t do it justice, of course.

(I may post video snippets later, if I get comments that people are interested.)

Madison Campground

We arrive at Madison Campground at 3:00. Our original reservations were for six nights but only four remain before the park closes for the season. We’ll just have to pack our time full. It’s a big park with lots to see.

We take the camper off the truck for the first time this trip. Doug cleans off the roof. We make a restorative cup of hot tea and have some cheese and crackers and apple. But we cannot sit still for long.

Quick Reconnoiter of Old Faithful Area

We head toward Old Faithful around 5:00. Sunset will be at 6:30. There’s a very light snow falling.

Near the Lower Geyser Basin we see a herd of buffalo in the distance — across a meadow at the edge of the woods. Closer by, two buffalo are up on the road, playing a game of dodge with the traffic, which has come to a standstill.

One buffalo acts almost like a bouncer, intimidating each driver by swinging its head before allowing the car to pass, then weaving its way to the next vehicle. It’s comical to watch.

A park ranger vehicle appears, running her lights and playing her siren. The buffalo move off the road in that light-footed but lumbering way of large animals.

The roads to Old Faithful are under construction. To get to the Upper Geyser Basin you have to cross the construction site, which involves going up a narrow, curving ramp and over a bridge. Its steep and without a guardrail, so I can hardly breathe until we’re over it.

We find a parking spot near Old Faithful and walk around the complex a bit. The air is freezing and the walkways are treacherous. Everything looks different from what I remembered. In fact I cannot get my bearings at all.

Then I spot the Yellowstone General Store — which used to be the Hamilton General Store where I worked in 1978. We go inside. Not too surprisingly, they’ve completely redone the Soda Fountain area, which was my favorite part. I try to find the back door into the employee area, but it, too, is gone.

We don’t stay long. It’s already dark. I’m tired from the cold, the novelty, the mudlicious beauty (as e.e.cummings might say) of the thermal area, and the tumultuous emotions of this day, which have included joy, fear, surprise, delight, and nostalgia.

Indeed, Change is the Only Constant.