American Dream
150 years ago, the first ever national park was created in the state of Wyoming by the 18th president of the United States, Ulysses S Grant. Today, Yellowstone remains one of the most iconic in the world.
Steve Backshall tracks down Yellowstone’s grey wolves in Deadly on a Mission: Pole to Pole
I HAD BEEN ADMIRING a young male with a black scraggly mane (to be fair, he had been flirting, glancing my way while snorting and shuddering) when I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. A little further up the hill, a mere 30m away from where I was standing, a skirmish between two young bison was unfolding.
When animals weighing more than 900kg lock horns, it is truly startling. The enormous heads bashing each other with increasing ferocity create a wave of energy that surges through the air.
Actually, these youngsters were just playing, preparing themselves for the real thing. In autumn, when the rut begins, these mock battles become serious business, as each contender strives for dominance. Herbivores as well as carnivores have been fighting for mating rights in Yellowstone National Park long before recorded history.
It was the last weekend in May and I should have been basking in the spring sunshine, but an unexpected overnight storm had dumped several inches of snow over the landscape. The upside was that the auburn bison stood out prominently against their white surroundings. The icing on the cake would have been if the ‘red dogs’ (newborn calves) had been tagging along. But it wasn’t until later that I was rewarded with this sight: turning off a road just north of Biscuit Basin, which follows the Firehole River, I spotted several youngsters nuzzling up to their mothers.
Where the wild things are
A guide to the many species found in Yellowstone
1. MADISON VALLEY
Located roughly 20km inside the popular West Yellowstone entrance, this underappreciated area is a good place to spot black bears and coyotes, plus herds of bison roaming and elks rutting.
2. MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS
Bizarre travertine terraces just south of the north entrance to Yellowstone, which were formed by dissolved limestone solidifying at the surface in areas of thermal activity. Elk feed on the lawns around the springs, which were planted by the US Cavalry in 1902.
3. BARRONETTE PEAK AND TOWER FALL
Barronette is a mountain peak that soars 3,156m above the northeast corner of Yellowstone. Bring binoculars to see bighorn sheep, black bears and mountain goats, plus nesting ospreys at Tower Fall.
4. LAMAR VALLEY
A tributary of the Yellowstone River. Large herds of bison are prey for wolves, while mountain lions hunt for elk, mule deer and marmots. Also in the mix are grizzly bears and pronghorn antelopes.
5. HAYDEN VALLEY
This broad, green valley straddles the Yellowstone River in the centre of the park. It’s possible to see grizzly bears, scattered elk, herds of bison in summer, and, in winter, Canadian lynx.
6. YELLOWSTONE RIVER, LAMAR RIVER, GARDINER RIVER AND MADISON RIVER
The Yellowstone River and its tributaries are home to otters, beavers, Yellowstone cutthroat trout, mottled sculpins and mountain whitefish. Bald eagles and ospreys nest here too.
7. YELLOWSTONE LAKE
A large, high-elevation body of water in south-central Yellowstone, fed by the Yellowstone River. White pelicans, osprey, bald eagles, loons, grizzly bears and elk can all be seen, and algae and heat-loving freshwater sponges have been found near thermal vents.
8. THE GRAND CANYON
Running to a length of about 30km, the canyon has some of the most spectacular waterfalls in the entire park. It’s also home to a bald eagle’s nest the size of a car.
This year has been Yellowstone’s 150th anniversary. The first national park in the world, it is possibly one of the greatest conservation projects ever known: on 1st March 1872, the US federal government recognised the unique tapestry of natural resources here and set aside 2.2 million acres in perpetuity for the American people.
Today, visitors come from all over the world to experience the great landscapes and wildlife of this iconic park. Yellowstone is the core of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and one of the best-preserved temperate ecosystems on the planet. Every type of wildlife thrives here, from carnivores to herbivores, mustelids to invertebrates – even heat-loving sponges that live near thermal vents in the depths of frigid lakes. It’s a land where herds of bison cover the valleys, eagles soar in the skies, and black and grizzly bears trundle across the hillsides.
Part of the draw is the feeling that you’ve been transported back to the Wild West, because animals that were prevalent 150 years ago are still here. And, even though most visitors tread only a tiny portion of the park, the knowledge that you are in a vast wilderness makes it magical.
Wildlife may flourish in the park today, but this hasn’t always been the case. Poaching between 1872 and 1902 reduced its 1,000-strong bison population to just two dozen individuals, and by the mid-1920s, wolves had been hunted to extinction. Yet Yellowstone has come a long way in the decades since: last year 5,450 bison were counted across its river valleys, a result of a strenuous restoration programme.
Keeping and returning things to a natural system – to the way they were before humankind altered things – is the raison d’être of Yellowstone, according to park biologist Doug Smith, who runs the renowned Yellowstone Wolf Project. “Since our beginnings, it has been a struggle to figure out what a natural park should be like. But one of our founding philosophies is that it should be a natural system that functions the way it always did. And the modern idea of a natural system is that it should include natural predators.”
Grey wolves were one of the species worst hit by poachers (and even game wardens) in the 19th and early 20th centuries, hunted to extinction by 1926. But fast-forward 50 years and society was beginning to reverse its fear and loathing of predators. In 1972, the Endangered Species Act would pave the way for the 1995 reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone as a means of restoring a landscape degraded by burgeoning numbers of deer.
Today, 95 wolves roam the park, most commonly sighted in the Lamar Valley, to the north-east. Packs usually comprise about 12 individuals, depending on the available prey, and are led by an alpha male or female. Many of the wolves in Yellowstone sport black coats, which is caused by a mutated gene, likely from Old World domestic dogs brought across the Bering land bridge 7,000 years ago.
Keen to see these charismatic hunters for myself, I ventured out early one morning in the company of guide Doug Hilburn to stake out a new den in the Hayden Valley, not far from the banks of the Yellowstone River. “The den used to be over to the left of the road, but since they’ve moved to this new location, we’ve had trouble spotting the cubs,” said Doug. We strained our eyes, watched and waited, but a sighting was not to be.
Wolves are doing well in Yellowstone, but challenges remain. Wild animals follow food and, each winter, as the park’s wolf packs roam beyond its boundaries to hunt, there are reports of shootings. In February this year, Yellowstone’s entire Phantom Lake wolf pack was reportedly killed in Montana. The issue may have been exacerbated by a rise in gun ownership, but there is also a confusing myth circulating that there is a problem with the type of wolf re-introduced.
The story is that giant timber wolves were brought in from Canada. Some say that these animals were more likely to roam, posing a risk to people and livestock, but other folks had different ideas. Daniel Mikos, owner of the Yellowstone Basin Inn, believes these animals would have been the preferred choice. Being larger, they were more likely to predate on the park’s bison and therefore less likely to leave the park to find food.
However, both are moot points because according to biologist and tour guide Tenley Thompson, there is only one type of wolf. “Most scientists no longer think there was such a thing as a timber wolf, and that this was just a typical North American grey wolf,” she explained. “They are genetically the same animal.” And do wolves cause problems for livestock? “Less than 0.2 percent of cattle mortality in the US is caused by wolves,” said Tenley. “Domestic dogs kill three times more cattle annually than wolves; even birds of prey such as vultures and eagles kill more cows each year.”
“The whole place resembles a smoking moonscape complete with vents spewing sulphurous gases”
It seems that changing the myth of wolves as the enemies of ranchers is still a communications challenge for the National Park Service.
As soon as the road opened after the snowstorm, I headed out west from Canyon Village, in the north-eastern part of the park, to a region known for its geothermal activity.
Looking out over the Norris Geyser Basin, it was unnerving to think I was standing on a vast caldera more than 60km in diameter. This entire area bulges with magma just underneath the surface. Volcanic activity creates the geo-thermal features that makes Yellowstone unique: there are thought to be 14,000 of them dotted across the park, more than anywhere else in the world (see box on p51). The best known is Old Faithful, a geyser that fires a column of water into the air approximately once an hour.
The ‘soil’ here is not rich and fertile, it is rhyolite, a fine-grained lava offering very little by way of nutrition. This sandy material covers much of Yellowstone’s terrain, likely originating from a volcanic event that occurred long before animals roamed the land. Lodgepole pines, which make up nearly all of the Yellowstone forest, roughly 80 per cent of the park, cope well with this due to their shallow root structure, as do some prairie grasses.
The scene before me was reminiscent of something from a freakish alien planet. The entire basin, which spreads out for 15km, is covered by super-heated water and punctuated by scorched trees, resembling a smoking moonscape complete with vents spewing sulphurous gases, boiling mud pots and flamboyant ponds edged with psychedelic hues of turquoise, hot yellow, deep red and sparkling green.
These colours are not just for show; they are heat-loving, one-celled organisms known as thermophiles that can thrive in temperatures in which other life-forms would expire. When you see pictures of Yellowstone’s rainbow lakes, you’re seeing thermophiles in glorious technicolour action.
And there’s much, much more. In the eastern central region lies the spectacular 32km Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, carved out by the Yellowstone River. Millions of years ago there was a mountain range here that was subsequently flattened by a vast eruption. Today, it’s the Hayden Valley – avast, sprawling green plain, home to bison and wolves, while the river itself is where otters and wetland birds such as harlequin ducks, Canada geese and several species of grebe, plus rare fish such as the Yellowstone cutthroat trout and fluvial grayling are found.
150 YEARS OF HISTORY
1862
Gold rush northwest of what would become Yellowstone Park.
1870
Old Faithful geyser is discovered during the Washburn Expedition and named for the frequency and predictability of its eruptions.
1872
Ulysses S Grant decrees Yellowstone as a national park.
1883
The Yellowstone Park branch line is completed by the Northern Pacific Railway, ending at Cinnabar station, north of Gardiner.
1886
The federal government drafts in the cavalry to help control poaching. They stay for 32 years.
1918
National Park Service takes over administration of the park.
1932
President Hoover expands the park by 7,000 acres.
1948
Yellowstone receives one million visitors.
1959
A magnitude 7.5 earthquake strikes on 17th August, with an epicentre in the west of Yellowstone.
1973
Endangered Species Act passes into law.
1973
Grizzly bear listed as an endangered species in the lower 48 states.
1995
Wolves from British Columbia, Canada, re-introduced into the park.
2022
Yellowstone celebrates its 150th birthday.
For many, this is the first port of call to see wildlife. Visitors are also drawn to the location of the Dragon’s Mouth hot spring and the Mud Volcano, an enormous mud pot where there is more uplift and sinking of the Yellowstone Caldera than anywhere else in the park, creating a convergence of faults and earthquakes.
Intrinsic to the ecology of Yellowstone are lightning strikes and, subsequently, fire. Wildfires are part of a natural process of renewal, clearing undergrowth and allowing new seeds to grow. Though the phenomenon has been going on for millennia, wildfires have increased in frequency – in some cases due to drought, possibly linked to climate change, but also due to human activity. Many fires burn themselves out quickly without causing too much damage, but rarely, wind-driven blazes can destroy large areas of forest, as happened in 1988: some 150 fires (146 started by lightning and four by humans) tore through more than a million acres of the park. Part of the reason that there are few moose seen in Yellowstone (only about 150) is because of a decrease in the moss they eat; a result of wildfires.
Wildfire is a natural tool for regeneration has long been advocated by the First Nations people of Yellowstone. Today, the federal government and park rangers liaise with them on matters of conservation.
In the decades since the park’s creation, the First Nations people have increasingly had to share their land with visitors from all over the world; in 1948, the number of tourists exceeded one million.
Though the park opened in 1872, it wasn’t until 1891 that the first lodge appeared. The Lake Yellowstone Hotel was created for the wealthy upper class of the East Coast, and even wealthier Europeans. These well-heeled guests would likely have arrived by train near the North Entrance, close to the town of Gardiner. They would have then transferred to a stagecoach before embarking on a five or six day Grand Tour of the park.
Today, visitors come in their droves, quickly filling the accommodation near Canyon Village, where hundreds of rooms were added for the park’s 125th anniversary, as well as the additional lodgings next to the sprawling Old Faithful Inn. Hotels in the towns of Mammoth Hot Springs, on the park’s northern border, and Gardiner, Montana, on the other side of the main entrance, can be booked year-round, but winter is a popular season. Many now also stay in hotels outside the park and drive in.
As Yellowstone continues to entice visitors to experience its wild wonders, and the vagaries of weather and climate change impact the entire world, the park will have to carefully balance the needs of both wildlife and tourists. Let’s hope the growing trend towards sustainability, plus the will to protect and restore its unique landscapes continues for the enjoyment and enlightenment of everyone who visits.
Long may the wolves run and the red dogs roam.
IN NUMBERS
It’s a pretty big place!
240 km is the distance that mule deer in Yellowstone move on their migration route – the longest of all the park’s species.
4,000km2 is the approximate territory of a grizzly bear.
7 mustelids are found here: the river otter, Pacific marten, mink, short-tailed weasel, long-tailed weasel, wolverine and American stoat.
300 waterfalls exist in Yellowstone (at least) and it is likely there are several more that have yet to be discovered
GEO-THERMALS EXPLAINED
Geyser
A geyser occurs when the exit route of hot water and steam (heated by magma deep undergound) is restricted by rock plumbing and thus ejected outwards and upwards with great force. Most of the world’s active geysers are in Yellowstone’s Upper Geyser Basin. Cliff Geyser erupts every few minutes and often to a height of up to 12m.
Travertine terrace
This is a rock formation made of limestone deposits, which settle in a stepped, terraced formation when mineral spring water cascades down a hill or cliff. This entrancing formation is similar to a waterfall.
Mud pot
Resembles a pool of bubbling mud and is a type of acidic hot spring, but with limited water. A mud pot is created when a shallow depression collects water that is agitated by gases venting from below. The Artist Paint Pots are an excellent example.
Fumarole
A fumarole is a steam vent – a geyser whose tiny amount of water turns to steam before it reaches the surface. They frequently produce a hissing sound and reach the highest temperatures of any hydrothermal features. Yellowstone is home to more than 2,000.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lynn Houghton is a Canadian-born British travel writer and photographer who grew up on America’s west coast. She splits her time between London and Hampshire and writes about wildlife, nature and adventure.