I continued cycling up the Madison River to its end. The surprising thing is that the end is not an end at all, just the confluence of two smaller rivers, the Firehole which comes from the south, and the Gibbon from the north. This was a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion to my relationship with this river. I had secretly hoped that the source would be in some swampy high spot on the continental divide but reality is not nearly so romantic.
The cycling today was arduous, not because of the terrain or the heat. The roads were so narrow and damaged that I had to concentrate on the road surface, so I did not fall into a pothole. At the same time I had to watch my mirror to be sure I was getting my share of the road. I had to watch ahead to be sure that there would not be too many vehicles crossing paths at the same time. And then there is all of the other stuff of cycling. I'm mentally drained.
The roads are generally in miserable shape: perhaps 70% of the fifty miles I cycled on today were cracked, potholed, frostheaved, and generally substandard. I realize that there is a lot of politics going on here, and the federal budget cuts are high on everyone's minds, so one can expect that some highly visible systems are going to be shortchanged in order to make a point.
I am certain that places like Yellowstone could make a profit in any year. Its assets are to rich, and its enthusiasts are too loyal. The question then becomes: what to do with the lesser parks? Does each individual line item have to pencil out? These are not trivial questions, and I think before those who make the decisions on such matters should hike in a national park, bike along a rail-trail, boat down a wild and scenic river, and find some solitude out there somewhere before they put a price/cost on the wilderness.
It's been 8 years since the fires of 1988, and it is stunning to see how much of the park was affected. Here in the northwest quadrant where I am now sitting, there are almost no visible effects. But for most of my fifty miles the burn was everywhere.
I cannot imagine what it must have been like for Babcock and Turner when they came to Yellowstone. It was clearly a tourist attraction, but the scale of tourism has gone through a transformation far beyond anything they could have imagined. Here is what their journals described:
From Cinnebar we ran, or rather walked eight miles to the Mammoth Hot Springs hotel, where Mr. Jage pushed the register around before us with the grace so well known to the guests of the Rainier-Grand. It is not necessary to describe the beauties of the park, even in part. If the reader is anxious to read more of it I advise him to get the '96 issue of "Wonderland" put out by the Northern Pacific railroad company for the benefit of itself and incidentally for tourists. We remained but a short time at the springs; just long enough to look over some of the formations and view some of the objects of interest, and then wheeled on twenty miles to the Norris geyser basin. At this place there is no hotel, hardly a lunch station, and had it not been for the kindness of Sergeant Larson and Mr. Evans of Troop I, Sixth Cavalry, we might have been obliged to camp out. These two gentlemen made us welcome and, though their barracks were rather crowded, owing to the presence of several people with a pack train, they gave us the best that they had, and we slept soundly, and in the morning we were wakened by the genial call of Mr. Evans: "If you gentlemen would like some fresh coffee and eggs, roll out." No soldiers ever responded to reveille more readily than we to that first call, nor was it the last time that we partook of their hospitality, for we stopped on the return trip. There are two troops of cavalry in the park, but they are divided for the most part into squads and stationed at a dozen or more places to prevent any infractions of the rules relative to fires, firearms and vandalism. Their duties are different from any other troops in the army, being much like the mounted police of Canada. The day we were at Norris basin two men were arrested for not extinguishing their fire. In the past much damage has been done to the park, and much unnecessary labor forced upon the soldiers by the carelessness of campers in leaving their fires burning. Now when a man fails to put out his fire, he is marched to headquarters and fined. Sometimes people desire to take firearms into the park, and again some like to annoy the geysers with a diet of soap. Neither the geysers nor the animals are to be annoyed with lead or soap, and the person who disobeys the rules is almost certain to be taken into custody by the gentlemanly blue-coated guardians of the park. One day a lady, probably relying on the fact that the park is the property of the people of the United States, concluded to take her share home with her, and with a hatchet was breaking off souvenirs to adorn her front yard, when she and her hatchet were arrested.
Tomorrow is a big day. 120 miles to Cody. Hope my friend is along.
Dennis