AUGUST 7 -- YELLOWSTONE, THEN AND NOW
[I have no postcards from this day, but they apparently left Yellowstone at 5:00 p.m. on this date, as revealed in tomorrow’s postcard.
It
looks like the family had so much fun touring Yellowstone National Park and the Jackson
Lake area, but I see the downside, and today a visit to the Park is a very different
experience. I asked AI to give me a comparison. Read on:]
 |
| My aunts -- Bernice and Shirley |
It is easy to look at old photos from the 1920s and feel like early tourists had a more magical, unfettered experience. Visitors back then could walk right up to the edge of active geysers, feed black bears directly from their car windows, and explore the wilderness without crowds, boardwalks, or reservation systems. From a perspective of pure, lawless novelty, it certainly looked like a thrilling vacation. However, historians and park rangers point out that this unfiltered freedom came with severe, often hidden consequences that would shock a modern traveler.
The Chaotic Reality of 1920s Tourism
- Severe Safety Hazards: Without boardwalks or
guardrails, early visitors frequently suffered severe, sometimes fatal
burns from stepping through the fragile thermal crust into boiling acidic
water.
- Violent Wildlife Encounters: Encouraging bears to feed on
human food and garbage caused massive spikes in injuries. Dozens of
tourists were hospitalized every year from bear bites and maulings, and
the animals suffered from poor health and shortened lifespans.
- Widespread Destruction: Early tourists routinely threw
logs, rocks, and trash into geysers to force eruptions. This permanently
choked off the plumbing of several unique thermal features, destroying
them for future generations.
- Ruined Landscapes: Soap and laundry detergent were
regularly dumped into pristine pools like Morning Glory to change their
surface tension and trigger bubbles, which accelerated the growth of
damaging bacteria and altered their brilliant colors forever.
Why Today's Experience Offers a Different Kind of Value
While modern rules
can feel restrictive, they were enacted to save the park from being loved to
death. Today's visitors trade the chaotic, destructive freedom of the 1920s for
a different set of benefits:
- Ecological Health: Thanks to strict management,
Yellowstone is the only place in the lower 48 states that still retains
all of its medium-to-large wild mammal species that existed before
European settlement.
- True Wild Behavior: Instead of watching a
garbage-fed bear beg for scraps by the roadside, modern tourists get to
witness apex predators hunting, foraging, and raising their cubs in a
completely wild, natural ecosystem.
- Preservation: The boardwalks ensure that the vibrant thermal
pools and delicate microbial mats look exactly the same for you as they
will for visitors a century from now.
Early tourists
certainly had a wilder, more unscripted adventure, but modern visitors get to
experience a healthier, more authentic ecosystem that has a chance of surviving
into the future. [End AI]
[As a final word from me, the fact is that you must do your homework before visiting Yellowstone – or any national park, for that matter. You can’t do it your way. You have to know the rules. Tent camping -- actually "roughing it" -- is a thing of the past. You have to have a metal-sided camper and keep your food within secure metal boxes. And you must have a reservation for overnight stay.
A friend once said, "A seer of sights I am not." I agree. And to this I can add, "Been there; done that." The crowds can have it. KW]
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