Go Dawgs!

Friday, August 25. Bridge Bay, WY to Canyon, WY.

There is a quaint tradition in Yellowstone where Christmas is celebrated on August 25. The lore is that one year in the 30's, a huge snowfall occurred on August 25, stranding the staff and visitors inside the park. The staff, known in park slang as "savages", celebrated their plight by singing Christmas songs, decorating trees, and pretending to be elves. Thus began the tradition of the "Savage Christmas", and it is still celebrated in the park each year. Lucky for us, we have a room at the Dunraven Lodge in Canyon tonight, but it seems as though the "savage" xmas tradition has become nearly as commercialized as the "civilized" celebration. Christmas decorations are up in every shop, but there's no real xmas spirit to be found. I guess since only a small percentage of Yellowstone is open in winter, one freak snowstorm 30+ years ago isn't enough to create a solid tradition.

But the day did start out decidedly on the chilly side, and a breakfast of hot oatmeal and hot coffee was what we needed to get started. The sun was out, but since we were at over 7,700 ft in altitude, the air was still cool enough for us to put on jackets and tights.

Our first stop was at the LeHardy Rapids, where huge numbers of trout fight their way upstream every year to spawn . . . and then die. I always think of Wyoming as a dry and dusty cowboy state, but here in Yellowstone the water features almost outnumber the lodgepole pines. Matthew and I surveyed the LeHardy Rapids, speculating where we would shoot the gap. As though we're somehow qualified to have that discussion, since our experience with white water of any sort is limited to a week on the Class 2 rapids of the Chattahoochee River. Navigating rapids seem much safer and easier from the safety of the observation deck built by the Yellowstone engineers.

The road left the Yellowstone Lake area, and we soon found ourselves in Hayden Valley. The valley is an old lake bed, formed when glaciers created a lake during the last Ice Age. The Yellowstone River meanders through the valley now, and a large herd of bison was grazing in the valley as we rolled through. Also rolling through the valley was a rainstorm, so when we stopped to admire the buffalo, we took the chance to put on the remainder of our waterproof layers. All set now.

While some rain fell as we traversed the valley, by the time we reached the mud volcano, we were once again under clear skies. The mud volcano area is a fabulous stop, full of bubbling and fuming vents with names like Black Dragon Springs, and Sour Lake. There's a lot to see here, but in our bright yellow rain jackets, I felt like we were on exhibit, as well. An older couple riding a Harley Gold Wing motorcycle announced that we were living out his, if not her, dream of riding across the country on a bike. They were from Utah, just taking a few days to enjoy the park before returning home. A young couple with a 5-month-old black lab named Heater and a penchant for extreme sports engaged us in a conversation about scuba diving in Florida (a subject which we're less qualified to discuss than shooting rapids). They felt a connection to us because we're both freewheeling our way across the country to new lives. They are moving from Bend, OR to Biscayne Bay, FL, sightseeing as much of the country as their pursestrings will allow. Then an older couple from Montreal stopped to ask about our trip. They are hosting friends from Germany, who don't cycle, but confided to us that they'd much rather see Yellowstone from a bicycle seat. They are members of the Bicycle Adventure Club, an organization that Pam and Fred Freed told us about when we met them near Rhinebeck, NY. The 2007 trip is in Russia, from St. Petersburg to Warsaw. Maybe we'll see them again.

And finally, after touring the volcano area, we stopped for a snack before continuing on and found ourselves the object of some amazement by two motorcyclists from Missouri. One of them just kept shaking his head in disbelief; the other declared that "if it don't have a motor, I ain't getting on it".

Canyon Lodge was just up the road, but before Canyon was Artist Point, the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and the Upper and Lower Falls lookout points. Matthew's dad, Jim, had forwarded us a picture taken when Matthew was about 8 years old. Jim's recollection is that the photo was taken at Artist Point or Inspiration Point, and our plan was to try to recreate the old photo with the current, older version of Matthew.

I don't think I've ever been to Yellowstone before (help me out here, mom), but even if I had, there's nothing in my memory from the visit. So I was utterly stunned by the sheer-ness of Artist Point and the Grand Canyon. Yes, the Upper and Lower Falls are incredible, stunning and awe-inspiring, but the rock formations of the canyon leaped out and grabbed me from the first instant. The colors are chalky pastels of reds, browns and yellows, formed by time and water into sharp ridges that break into the canyon and balance chunks of stone at impossible angles. Trees--firs--have grabbed on to these shallow, vertical ridges and grow as though they are surrounded by the safety of a wooded forest. If you were to paint such a picture, it would be classified as cubist-post-modern by anyone who hasn't seen this canyon. It is a place that I am glad is protected by the National Park Service.

It's a short ride from Artist Point to Canyon, where we checked in but found that our room was not yet ready. This isn't a problem for us, since we were feeling the need for food, but I have noticed that Yellowstone services walk to the beat of a different drummer. For one thing, a large number of staff are temporary. Many of them are students, working in the park during summer vacation. A large number are international students. Every staff member wears a name badge that also includes their home state. Many of the badges I saw were from Eastern Europe--Russia, Romania, Czech Republic, Ukraine, France. The staff members that I spoke with are in the park for about a 3-month gig. Just the size of the temporary staff must make training difficult at best. Most of the staff is pretty fluent in English, although it's easy to tell that those who are less fluent become part of the housekeeping staff, while those with more confident English are wait-staff and front-desk staff at the hotels. In such a quintessentially wild, western park, America's first national park, I didn't expect to hear so many different accents--at least not from the staff. Not that I was expecting the housekeeping staff to be wearing spurs and spitting tobacco, but I guess I underestimated the number of temporary staff needed to provide services for the 2 million visitors that descend on the park each year. I didn't realize that we were importing so many international students to help tell the Yellowstone story.

By the time that our room was ready, we'd had a quick bite to eat at the Canyon Lodge diner and were ready for showers. The laundry facilities were at the nearby Canyon Campground, where we spent an hour watching our clothes tumble, reading and discussing under what conditions we would pay $3.25 for a shower (the going rate at the Canyon Campground). It's not the money, exactly, it's just that a shower isn't usually an additional expense on top of lodging costs. Since our room had a private bath, it was very easy to be stingy about the idea of paying extra to be temporarily clean.

We had planned to attend the 7:00pm lecture at the newly-opened Education Center in Canyon. Our laundry duties finished up just before 7, but by the time we walked to the Center we found that the lecture was a sell-out. Instead, we toured the Center. The various volcanic eruptions are graphically displayed, showing how the Yellowstone eruption 640,000 years ago created the park's caldera and other geological features. There is also a huge (20x20ft) topographical map of the park, which is where we saw how much of a climb it would be to Dunraven Pass, the next day's planned route. Matthew was ready with Plan B, though--skip the pass and take the middle section of the Grand Loop to the west toward Norris,then up to Mammoth Hot Springs. We'd backtrack through Norris to get to Old Faithful at the southwest end of the Loop, but I still voted for that over climbing the 8,900 ft. pass.

Around 8:00pm we were hungry enough to consider dinner, and headed to the Canyon Lodge Dining Room. Canyon Lodge was built in the 1950's, and the architecture shows. In a design style that can only be described as Grizzly Adams meets George Jetson, the dining room and lounge area don't do justice to either genre. The large, open stone fireplace has a beautiful copper hood, but everything in both the lounge and the dining room is beige, so the firerplace fades into the background. It's a comfortable place, and the food is pretty decent--I guess maybe the challenge of competing with the park's scenery left the interior designers and chefs bewildered. At least they have gone to the trouble of stocking the local microbrew, and Matthew had a Bozone Amber Ale with dinner. It's one of the better microbrews that we've sampled during the trip.

During dinner we hear a distinctly Southern accent, and strike up a conversation with Alice. Spending this summer working at Yellowstone is the fulfillment of a 28-year old dream. 28 years ago, she and her husband met a teacher who was spending her summer woring at the park. They had often talked of doing the same once they retired, but Alice's husband died before they ever made firm plans. This past winter, with encouragement from her boys, she submitted her online job application and in two weeks had her job at Yellowstone. She's living in a dorm, and loving every minute of this year's summer vacation. Alice teaches an online Special Ed course at UGA, and classes started there in mid-August. She's already had several sessions with her class via the Internet, and will leave the park right after Labor Day. She's already planning next summer's "vacation"; they've asked her to come back to Canyon next year. You can teach an (old) Dawg new tricks, I guess.

During the night it rained again, but I didn't even hear it. Tomorrow's ride to Norris will be a relatively short one, but there are a number of stops we want to make before we settle in at the Norris Junction Campground. We're hoping the weather clears up.