The white plume of boiling water gushed nearly 100 feet straight up, the steam carrying downwind in the crisp air after Old Faithful’s regular belch shot spray into the glinting azure sky.
Hundreds of people sitting spellbound on an arc of bleachers gasped in time to the echoing hisses of Yellowstone National Park’s signature geyser. The water splashed, sprayed and churned.
“It was thrilling,” said Richard Sabul, a grandfather from north suburban Glenview, watching the minute-long, famous spurt recently for the first time.
In the midst of a recession, and in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, many predicted that Americans would opt to stay within the United States this year and take to the nation’s highways more. And attendance figures at the country’s national parks have borne that out, though fewer foreigners have shown up.
Through the end of October, Yellowstone’s yearly attendance was up 8.9 percent–17 percent in October alone–and is poised to easily surpass the normal annual attendance of 3 million.
Yellowstone was not the only scenic public locale attracting visitors, as some 226.7 million people have flocked to national parks in 2002. Attendance for the 365 National Park Service sites held steady or increased–with the exception of seven sites in New York and Washington, the ground-zero locations for the terrorist attacks.
Many of those who visited Yellowstone told park rangers they chose the destination “for reflection,” said chief interpretive ranger Diane Chalfant. “We do feel there’s a connection [with Sept. 11] there.”
Perhaps nowhere else in the nation is there such a powerful sense of attachment to public land.
Preserving a nation’s identity
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Yellowstone has “been made so familiar,” Chalfant said. “It also represents the National Park idea that we can preserve it for future generations. And it is a uniquely American idea that [says,] `I am one of the owners.'”
Old Faithful received its name in the 1860s because of then-hourly eruptions, and it was one of the natural wonders that led Congress and President Ulysses S. Grant to designate Yellowstone as the world’s first national park on March 1, 1872.
More than 130 years later, the geyser stands as a metaphor for the park. It is enduring, assuring and beguiling, a must-see national treasure that holds a special place in the American psyche.
Americans cling fiercely to the notion of shared proprietorship, with everyone wanting a say in the park’s future.
Bob Seibert, 55, its west district chief ranger for the past 11 years out of 30 with the Park Service, said Yellowstone is a lightning rod.
“It is in the scope of the issues,” he said. “The volume of emotions they evoke. I’ve never been anywhere else that so captures the American people’s interest.”
In the beginning, salesmen with big ideas and developers with grand visions sought to exploit Yellowstone and had to be fended off by legislation. As the U.S. matured and expanded, the land helped to freeze the nation’s wilderness past.
The 2.2 million-acre ecosystem is where the buffalo, elk, deer, grizzly bears, black bears and, once again, wolves now roam; where 10,000 hot springs and geysers offer evidence of an active volcano; and where waterfalls along with a 87,450-acre lake have astonished explorers and visitors for more than 200 years.
“A lot of people care intensely about the park who never get here,” Chalfant said.
The 3 million “owners” who travel to Yellowstone for outdoor adventure each year come mostly in summer. They come to connect with the past and, perhaps, to reaffirm their American roots after the Sept. 11 attacks.
A buffalo strutted down the middle of the two-lane road near Yellowstone Lake at a leisurely pace; its enormous wooly head faces straight ahead, menacing horns at rest and baleful eyes ignoring the grid-locked traffic.
“Nothing can slow them down,” said Rick Wallen, National Park Service team leader for bison management.
People come to see wildlife and no large animal is more noticeable than the buffalo, whose numbers have increased in the park from 100 in 1917 to more than 3,600 nowadays.
The large creatures go wherever they please, and farther north in Hayden Valley between 100 and 900 gather. It is a vivid sight, particularly given that the species was nearly hunted to extinction in the 1800s.
The buffalo near the lake shifted to a dirt path, passing within a few inches of cars and outstretched hands. Petting them is not a good idea because an irritated bison is a fearsome creature.
The park is no petting zoo
When motorists pay the $20 entrance fee to Yellowstone, they are handed an orange sheet that reads:
“Warning: Many visitors have been gored by buffalo. Buffalo can weigh 2,000 pounds and can sprint at 30 m.p.h., three times faster than you can run.”
National Park Service personnel are flabbergasted by risks visitors take for photographs near the beast.
“It’s a false assumption that a national park is like a zoo,” Wallen said.
Seibert said many people “are completely out of their element” and don’t seem to understand that the animals are truly wild. He also said park personnel field questions like, “When do you bring the wildlife in for the night?” and “When do deer turn into elk?”
Wildlife is abundant in Yellowstone, and according to the park service 30,000 elk, 1,800 mule deer, 600 black bears, 200 pronghorn antelope and 150 bighorn sheep reside on the land. The Greater Yellowstone area has 250 to 600 grizzly bears.
Frankie Sabul calls it “Wild Disney.”
She and her husband, Richard, were traveling with their daughter, Wendy Mintzer, son-in-law, Max, and grandchildren, Joshua, 10, and Lauren, 8, of north suburban Highland Park.
Chalfant, 44, who first saw Yellowstone as an 8-year-old in her grandparents’ station wagon, believes many tourists are educated about wildlife behavior from the nature shows on cable television. But others are clueless.
“A lot of people come to Yellowstone to make a personal connection with an animal,” said the park’s chief interpretive ranger.
“They want to do something good for an animal. They feed them at home. They like this animal. They want to see it happy,” she added.
This interferes with the natural life cycle of the animals and landscape. Though the policy is to leave things undisturbed, Yellowstone is managed by man and its boundaries are set by man.
In winter, buffalo wandering to nearby towns in Montana disrupt cattle on private ranches. The outrage is tangible.
“I can get 20 letters a week complaining,” Wallen said.
The massive, pounding Upper and Lower Falls, viewed through the narrow, chiseled-rock gorges from Artist’s Point at the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, are rip-roaring, thundering waterfalls that spray water in misty curtains.
They are part of what entranced early horseback explorers. Nathaniel Langford, who became the first superintendent of the park, was an amazed observer on an 1870 expedition.
“These wonders are so different from anything we have ever seen–they are so various, so extensive–that the feeling in my mind from the moment they began to appear until we left them has been one of intense surprise and of incredulity,” he wrote.
Still awing generations
More than a century later, Yellowstone evoked similar reactions from John-Paul Navarre of west suburban Naperville. He was visiting with his wife, Debra, their three children–John-Luke, 7, Nicholas, 5, and Alexander, 1–and relatives from overseas.
The oldest boys were introduced to the mud pots, scalding water and bubbling moonscape of Fountain Paint Pot Geyser Area three years ago and demanded to see them over and over.
The Navarres, who took a 3,800-mile road trip this summer, are a multiple-generation Yellowstone family. When she was a little girl, Debra Navarre’s parents brought her to the park many times.
“So now I’m bringing my own kids,” she said.
Park Service officials say that is common.
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“Yellowstone is about creating memories in families and re-creating comforting earlier times,” Chalfant said.
Americans often come to Yellowstone for succor, but they may be staying away from New York and Washington because of restricted site access and unhappy associations with the terrorist attacks.
Attendance is down 2.8 million at the Statue of Liberty and Castle Clinton, according to National Park Service statistician Tom Wade. The number of visitors is down 4.4 million at five Washington sites, including the White House, Lincoln Memorial and Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
“The decrease is directly attributable to Sept. 11,” Wade said.
Overall parks attendance is down 2.3 percent, or 5.2 million people, over the first nine months of this calendar, compared with last year’s 231.9 million. But take the 7.2 million drop from New York and Washington out of the equation and attendance would be up 1.2 percent.
Some Americans, like the Navarres, spoke defiantly of their reason for visiting Yellowstone.
“Many people, including us, weren’t going to let the events of Sept. 11 change what we were going to do,” John-Paul Navarre said.
Dichotomy of opinion
Though summer recreation at Yellowstone offers loads of options, many people see the park only from their cars. And there is much to see from that perspective: the sparkling, winding Yellowstone River, the animals, the thermal pots and geysers as well as the trees.
In addition to forests of lodge pole pines, spruce, aspen and fir trees, the confines also feature acres of downed trees, resembling fields of pickup-sticks.
Of all the Park Service policies at Yellowstone, the decision to let most wildfires burn unimpeded may be the most controversial.
Nothing highlighted the dichotomy of opinion more than the 1988 fires, when more than 800,000 acres burned. Such blazes are viewed as necessary to clear undergrowth and regenerate woodland. If there is no danger to life and property, they are generally not fought.
This view is not always understood and an unsuppressed fire may provoke public outcry.
“It’s a fire-dependent ecosystem,” said Phil Perkins, a fire management officer at the park. “It’s neither good nor bad. It’s just a natural process.
“We as humans will just go in and mess it up,” he added.
In the Lamar Valley, the wolf watchers were perched on bluffs with powerful telescopes aimed behind a reclining buffalo herd a half mile away. Wolves slipped in and out of view.
Jerry Malady, 55, a retired foundry worker from Rockford, Ill., and his wife Sherry, sat in cloth folding chairs. Summer campground volunteers, they periodically spend sun-splashed evenings wolf watching.
Watching for wolves
“Patience,” said Jerry Malady. “You have to be patient.”
A black wolf rose and sniffed the earth. A grayish coated wolf shifted position. Pups popped into focus. Malady was generous with scope time to those with weak telephoto lenses and binoculars. Perhaps 100 people dotted a cluster of hills.
Since the phased-in reintroduction of 31 gray wolves in 1995 and 1996, it is estimated that more than 100,000 enthusiasts have seen some of the packs. The park’s wolf population is now 131.
The return of wolves, once universally despised and violently removed from the park, aroused intense passions. Wildlife groups embraced the program; ranchers opposed it because of the threat to livestock.
However, there is zero tolerance for a wolf that kills a cow, sheep or horse.
“We go on the warpath and kill it,” said Douglas Smith, a National Park Service wolf biologist who was the agency’s point man on reintroduction.
Also, Defenders of Wildlife, a Washington-based conservation group, reimburses the livestock owner at fair market price. It has paid out more than $90,000 for wolf-related damage.
From a tourist standpoint, the return of wolves is a stunning success. For many, they have eclipsed grizzly bears in esteem, said Smith.
“It’s almost a tidal wave of popularity,” he added.
Park Service officials sought to depersonalize the wolves from the start, referring to the animals only by numbers rather than names. Yet the wolves have developed cult followings and are tracked individually over the Internet.
When wolf No. 7 died, Smith was dumbfounded when he received several calls from grief-stricken supporters.
Back on the hills overlooking Lamar Valley, the wolves played peek-a-boo with their human spectators. When the black wolf settled in the grass, Jerry Malady found it.
The animal tilted its head back. The sound was lost over the distance, but the movement was unmistakable. The wolf was howling. It was Yellowstone’s call of the wild.