Days Off

In my second last week we thankfully had two days off, how wonderful it felt just to have the chance to relax! On the first day I went to West Yellowstone with the same group of friends as in the previous week. West is a town just a few hundred yards from the border of the park boundary. A town with similar style to Bozeman yet far more touristy with the only shops available full of souvenirs and ‘Yellowstoner’ shirts - ironically made in China. I walked around and took pictures while my friends had T-Shirts printed. It was certainly a very western looking town, so different and intriguing when I am used to the English stone paved streets. We ate dinner at a peculiar place called Einos, a small restaurant where you order the food as it comes from the fridge. As in, you must cook it completely by yourself. It was an interesting concept, one that I was not sure whether was created through laziness or to be unique. My friends all cooked themselves huge steaks on the grill while I had my veggie burger going. The warm light dashed across the lake and the horse grazing fields to eventually shine through the panes and onto the messy used bottles of steak sauce and ketchup beside our plates. It sure was nice to cook our own after eating stomach churning cafeteria food for months.

On my second day Tommy happened to see me and invited me on an off trail hike to Sulphur Mountain. I think this was technically incorrect according to Yellowstone rules as you are supposed to follow trails, but this had so much more glory and adventure. We drove to the middle of Hayden Valley, where Yellowstone River pulls out sharply and curls back again multiple times. Apart from the mountains and this, it would appear that the valley was rid of any interest – this certainly is untrue. We walked across the road and started the little climbs over and down the undulating yellow grass hills. Admittedly we were lost to start as we found nothing but generic pines, Tommy forgot his map. We continued the expedition as Tommy was sure that what we were looking for was somewhere around, it is amazing how things can keep so well hidden when so close. We attempted to reach atop a higher hill to look around for the destination, but before we got there we could see a large gray white patch creeping through the spaces between a dead forest; a telling sign of a geothermal area. We had found the place; mighty steam rolled along the ground and rose upwards from cracks. Some pines stood disjointed and plucked bare with a painted cream coating all the way to their sharpened pencil like tips. We tread our steps carefully as the crust around these areas can be much thinner than may appear; following the bison tracks and prodding the ground with branches aided the walk. We met the openings and stared into the dark open cracks of the earth where the hot air flowed and the muddy water boiled. Tommy asked me to take his picture multiple times through the trip, one time he even posed with my camera apparently as a dramatic element. If there is one thing I have learnt about Asians it is that most love picture taking, and in particular posed picture taking with wide forced grins – many of my friends would say ‘One more. One more. One more’ after each snap.

Crystallized rocks of sulphur contrasted against the thermal desert in a radiant neon yellow and spiky web forms were strewn where water movements sounded below. We headed up the so called Sulphur Mountain, which in reality was the height of a small hill (I am unsure whether this is its official name). Tommy reached the boulder at its head before me and let out high sounds of excitement and praise for what could be seen, the object of his projected awe unbeknown to me. His childlike happiness was certainly deserved as he rushed down the slope (falling frequently). There lay beneath, next to the edge of the pale hill’s rise, a bloated circular pit of azure Caribbean waters shooting up a few metres from its heart and spraying around its oddly bumpy brown dripping outskirt. I had never seen a feature as such a perfect sphere or so ideally exquisite.

Unfortunately, Tommy had to be back to Canyon to go work so we left the area with haste, following the steam pots run off around the forest, for who knows what furry dangers could be waiting in there. More features were in the area as steam rose from many dips all over; alas we had no time to investigate the glory that could have been awaiting. As we walked the plain back, smoke billowed purplish from behind Mt. Washburn and slithered along Yellowstone River below like a cool misty morning. The forest fire that we had witnessed the brewing beginnings of in previous weeks was clearly still ablaze. I am unsure of its present condition, yet it has been unnaturally hot in Yellowstone for this time of year. The road to Roosevelt was also closed for safety.