Go West, Middle Aged Man
Wild Horses in Wyoming
I have seen wild horses before, but usually from such a distance that you would need binoculars. I grew up in Virginia, and of course our most famous wild horses (ponies actually) are on Assateague Island and the spectacle of the yearly drive to neighboring Chintoteague Island is attended by thousands. But those weren’t my first wild horses, my first were in Hungry Mother State Park near Mount Rogers on the Virginia - North Carolina border. They were way off in the distance and you’d have to struggle in order to catch a glimpse. So, much to my surprise when driving US 89 south toward Yellowstone National Park from Montana to Wyoming, seeing not one but two herds of wild horses, stopped us dead in our tracks. More preoccupied with eating snow, they could not have cared less as I stuck my head out of the sunroof of the Subaru armed with a 200 to 500 mm lens. Even without the lens, this is the closest I have ever been to a wild horse, let alone a herd. It was nothing short of majestic.
Previously, the furthest west I had ever driven was in 2004 to Sioux Falls, SD. My job at Kitchen Etc as a signage designer had finally come to an end as they shuttered their doors forever, and I found myself as a graphic designer in search of a job. At the time - at least here in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts - there were around fifty design jobs that were able to pay the bills, and around five hundred people all fighting for the position. The competition was tough, so I took the mythical adage, “Go west, young man” to heart and started looking at positions in South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming, all places that I have never been. So, when I started to get positive feedback from Sioux Falls, SD it was time to see what the west and the prairie were all about. This is when I learned that the grass moves like the undulating ocean waves that I would long for had I moved west. I spent less than eight hours in Sioux Falls before heading east, and barely saw a thing. However, it was this trip in October, that I think that I finally saw a glimpse of the west as it truly is; as William Blake said in the Marriage of Heaven and Hell, “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: Infinite”.
The prairie appears to be an infinite expanse of grass and winding road, especially RT 1806 south of Mandan, heading to where the Cannonball River flows into the Missouri. This is south central North Dakota, a land of rolling hills and grassland. The pullover is rather unassuming, and the faint footpath that winds from the side of the road is immensely peaceful, belying the the actual events that took place here in 2016. This spot has a much more notorious monicker: the Rosebud Camp near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation where the Dakota Access Pipe Line protests took place. Though the majority of the reservation land resides within South Dakota not far across the border, I am walking the site of the encampment where conflict made national headlines. What I see now, and what I imagined it looked like are two completely different things. There are almost no signs of what happened in 2016 and one would have to look very hard and know what to look for. I did not come to honor either side, though I have my personal feelings, but I came because I felt that it was important to see. Like much of the west, from the time of the initial expansion to the present, conflicts take place but then move on, though a memory remains. From the Battle of the Little Big Horn to Standing Rock, an indelible mark is left no matter how swiftly it is swallowed by the earth.
To the south and west is Yellowstone National Park, a place I have wanted to visit as one of the most iconic American landscapes. She did not disappoint. What I discovered about Yellowstone - it is nothing like I imagined. It is a cauldron of creation that is primal, serene, yet in places the pulse of our planet can be seen and felt. Mammoth Hot Spring is a surreal Salvador Dali painting wrapped in diaphanous steam scented with sulfur, the mineralized terraces looking like they would be more at home in the darkness of a cave rather than broad daylight. As the hydrothermal waters percolate to the surface, gasses release from the acidic water and calcium carbonate precipitates, forming the delicate terraces that have been visited by people for more than 11,000 years, but also by eyes far older than humans have walked the earth. They drift like great furry barges, grunting softly to each other. The bison are massive, and pay no attention to the apes driving automobiles. They don’t need to. Personally being in the presence of one of the last megafauna that we share the planet with is primal. They are almost close enough to touch, but to do so could lead to my death. So, like my wild horses to the north, it was from the sunroof in the middle of a Yellowstone traffic-jam that I had to be content with.
Old Faithful Geyser, Yellowstone National Park, WY
Old Faithful, when compared to the whole of the park, is disappointing. I arrived half an hour before the next eruption was going to take place. I’ll admit, I wanted to see it. The crowd gathered fast around the boardwalk that rings the travertine dome that was venting steam. Everyone was waiting in anticipation, mostly in silence, for the eruption to begin. What seemed like an eternity later, a small plume of water belched forth from the dome, and subsided. People murmured in excitement, but then there was nothing but steam. A few minutes later, another plume of water lifted skyward, but then ceased. This cycle repeated for several minutes more until the dome vomited a column of water toward the heavens much to the delight of everyone. The eruption was one of the longer lived ones, lasting around five minutes. It was exciting. It was pretty. And even though it was a sight to behold, didn’t quite match the majesty of the roiling blue eye of Silex Spring and the thundering of the fumaroles on the Fountain Paint Pot Trail. There the geysers erupt perhaps not as high, but barely cease, and walking down the boardwalk wrapped in steam struck a far more primitive chord with me that was on par with seeing bison and wild horses. I get why Old Faithful is popular. It’s convenient.
I exited Yellowstone at the southern entrance, the sun beginning to sink lower to the horizon. There was still three hours to go before reaching Jackson where I would roost for the night. But as if Yellowstone were not enough, then there were the Tetons.