Lost in My Own Backyard: A Walk in Yellowstone National Park
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The Discovery of Yellowstone Park,
Nathaniel Pitt Langford, written in 1905; Bison Books, 1972.
Langford’s fascinating and somewhat self-congratulatory account of the 1870 Washburn Expedition. As historian Aubrey Haines points out in his introduction to the 1972 edition, the title is erroneous: Langford “recorded definitive exploration, not discovery.” I have problems with the sort of gratuitous chest-thumping that confuses documentation with discovery.
Geology
Interpreting the Landscape: Recent and Ongoing Geology of Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks,
John M. Good and Kenneth L. Pierce, Grand Teton Natural History Association in cooperation with the National Park Service, 2002.
Fire and ice and earth-shattering eruptions—this short book, written for laypeople, helped me get some kind of grasp on all the geology going on in and around Yellowstone, and that’s saying a lot. I’m a guy with geological dyslexia.
Windows into the Earth,
Robert B. Smith and Lee J. Siegel, Oxford University Press, 2000.
This is the definitive treatment, or so I’ve been told by geologists who should know. I spent a splendid afternoon in the Norris Geyser Basin with author Smith, but I haven’t yet read the book. This is why I have geological dyslexia. I’m ashamed of myself.
Biology
The Wolves of Yellowstone,
Michael K. Phillips and Douglas W. Smith, Voyageur Press, 1996.
This oral and written history of wolf reintroduction, by the two project leaders and others of note, is as clear a picture as you will get about why the wolf was reintroduced to the park, and how. It’s not so good if you hate wolves. Me? I got goose bumps.
Life at High Temperatures,
Thomas D. Brock, Yellowstone Association, 1994.
The husband-and-wife team Thomas and Louise Brock discovered that the earthy-colored scum on Yellowstone’s thermal ponds contains microbes, thermophiles, creatures living in acidic waters that until then—1965—were considered too hot to support life. Here Dr. Brock gives us a break and writes a highly simplified explanation of life at high temperatures.
Scats and Tracks of the Rocky Mountains,
James C. Halfpenny, Globe Pequot Press, 2001.
This is a must-have. Is that the track of a black bear or a grizzly? (It is really easy to tell, by the way.) Who left that pile on the trail—a coyote or a wolf? Halfpenny provides a field guide to seventy wildlife species in a book that fits in your back pocket. Don’t leave camp without it. Illustrated by Todd Telander.
Safe Travel in Bear Country,
Gary Brown, Lyons and Burford, 1996.
You know you have to hang your food if you’re overnighting in the backcountry. But how do you do it? How much rope do you need? What is “bear sign”? Which bear is most dangerous? If a bear charges, do you run or play dead? Should you carry bear spray? All these questions are answered and more—you need this book.
Two Books on Yellowstone Place Names
Yellowstone Place Names: Mirrors of History,
Aubrey L. Haines, University Press of Colorado, 1996.
The retired park historian organizes his book rather conceptually, introducing each chapter with a review of the historical period: names drawn from Native American life in the park, for instance, or from the fur trade. It’s good reading, but tough to use as a reference.
Yellowstone Place Names,
Lee H. Whittlesey, Montana Historical Society Press, 1988.
The present park historian organizes his book alphabetically. I find myself reaching for this one more often than Haines’s, mostly because it is easier to use as a reference.
Read It or Die
Death in Yellowstone,
Lee H. Whittlesey, Court Wayne Press, 1995.
One reviewer called this book “morbidly fascinating,” and it is, but the author’s central message, shouted out in capital letters, is “PLAY SAFELY.” Not a bad idea. More than three hundred deaths are recounted here. If a body of water is bubbling, there’s a good chance it’s boiling, so a person would die horribly if he decided to jump in, for instance, to save a dog. Bison gore people every year in Yellowstone, and that one over there weighs two thousand pounds and can run three times faster than an Olympic sprinter. Please don’t try to put your four-year-old daughter on its back. The cute picture isn’t worth her life, or even yours. Yes, all the animals here are real, and they’re all wild. The water in Yellowstone Lake averages 41 degrees in the middle of the summer. You’d last twenty minutes in water that temperature: so how far from shore do you want to paddle that canoe? Death should probably be required reading for anyone who wants to enter the park.
Maps
Trails Illustrated
P.O. Box 4357
Evergreeen, CO 80437-4357
(800) 962-1643
These maps are sufficient for most users—that is, people who stay on the trails. There is a map of the park as a whole and four separate maps of Yellowstone in quadrants.
USGS 7.5 Minute Quadrangles (commonly called topos) are available from many local outdoor stores or can be ordered directly from:
Map Distribution
U.S. Geological Survey
Box 25286 Federal Center
Denver, CO 80225
Acknowledgments
I AM A WRITER AND QUICK TO NOTE UNATTRIBUTED citations of my work. For that reason I’ve tried, in the text, to credit every quote I’ve swiped from another writer. Sometimes, inadvertently, a citation slips by. In general, if something I’ve said makes me look brilliant in the field of geology or biology or science in particular, I probably took it from a book listed in “A Selected Yellowstone Bookshelf.”
Perceptive readers of my work will see echoes of stories I wrote long ago for Outside magazine, among others. The long section on backcountry travel in this book appeared, in a shorter and somewhat different form, in National Geographic Adventure magazine. The story won the National Magazine Award, which I shared with writer Jack Gorman, who did what is called the service aspects of that piece. You have seen that I am not very interested in service—in telling you how to get there, where to stay, and how much things cost. This is a failing I hope I’ve remedied by listing several books in the back of this one that are entirely devoted to such things.
I am more interested in suggesting ways to think about the park and its significance. I’m especially interested in the exhilaration anyone with a heart feels while walking Yellowstone Park.
About the Author
TIM CAHILL IS THE AUTHOR OF SEVEN PREVIOUS books, including Hold the Enlightenment, A Wolverine Is Eating My Leg, Jaguars Ripped My Flesh, and Pass the Butterworms. He is an editor-at-large for Outside magazine, and his work appears in National Geographic Adventure, The New York Times Book Review, and other national publications. He lives in Montana.
Also in the Crown Journeys Series
Land’s End by Michael Cunningham
After the Dance by Edwidge Danticat
City of the Soul by William Murray
Washington Schlepped Here by Christopher Buckley
Hallowed Ground by James M. McPherson
Fugitives and Refugees by Chuck Palahniuk
Blues City by Ishmael Reed
Time and Tide by Frank Conroy
Also by Tim Cahill
Hold the Enlightenment
Dolphins
Pass the Butterworms
Jaguars Ripped My Flesh
Pecked to Death by Ducks
Road Fever
A Wolverine Is Eating My Leg
Copyright © 2004 by Tim Cahill
Photograph © 2004 by Galen Rowell/CORBIS.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published by Crown Journeys, an imprint of Crow
n Publishers, New York, New York.
Member of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.
www.crownpublishing.com
CROWN JOURNEYS and the Crown Journeys colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Portions of “Backcountry Trails” have appeared in slightly different form in National Geographic Adventure magazine.
Map by Jackie Aher
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cahill, Tim.
Lost in my own backyard: a walk in Yellowstone National Park / Tim Cahill.
1. Yellowstone National Park—Description and travel. 2 Yellowstone National Park—History. 3. Natural history—Yellowstone National Park.
4. Cahill, Tim—Travel—Yellowstone National Park. 5. Walking—Yellowstone National Park. 6. Hiking—Yellowstone National Park.
7. Camping—Yellowstone National Park. I. Title. II. Crown Journeys series
F722.C15 2004
978.7'52—dc22 2003025779
eISBN: 978-1-4000-8081-6
v3.0