Rockies Road
Rockies Road
Reger-Folta Yellowstone Vacation
August 5-29, 2005
Hey, that's us in the picture to the right, on the last day of the 6-day backpacking adventure that formed the highlight and centerpiece of our family vacation to Yellowstone National Park! For that part of the trip we were joined by Edie's sister Ellen and her two kids, Will (then 15) and Emma (then 13). But the rest of the trip entailed a wild ride by car from West Hartford, Connecticut, to Bozeman, Montana, and back, via Niagara Falls on the way out and Chicago, Illinois on the way back. This web page is meant for our friends and family, and ourselves, as an aide-memoire and a guide to our adventures!
Resources for the Homebound Traveler
There's a plethora of books worth reading about all the places we visited -- so many that's it's a bit arrogant to pick recommendations out. The selection below reflects little more than my own prejudices and limited familiarity with a vast literature. I'm sure people more experienced than I will have plenty to add. Nor have I tried to find something to cover every single region we visited! Truth is, most of the books below are items that caught my eye in some store or other on the trip!
Great Lakes Region
For Native American settlement history, including interaction with the Europeans who spread across the region, try Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History, ed. Helen Hornbeck Tanner (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987), with dozens of excellent maps and short but informative historical sketches.
The nineteenth century was the great time of
ethnography. Johann Georg Kohl was a German who lived with the Ojibway on Lake
Superior in 1855 and produced, in the way of the time, a massive account of
their culture called Kitchi-Gami. Life among the Lake Superior Ojibway
(St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society reprint, 1987). Kitchi-Gami is Kohl's
transliteration of Superior's name, the very same Gitche Gumee of
Longfellow's famous "Hiawatha." The translation (from German) leaves something
to be desired, but still this is the standard account of Ojibway life before the
overwhelming assaults of modernization.
View of Georgian Bay from Ten Mile Point, Manitoulin Island, Ontario
I don't know whether it remains standard or not, but radiating an exuberant (and maybe over-romanticized) love for its subject is a book on the French voyageurs originally published in 1931: Grace Lee Nute, The Voyageur (n.p.: Minnesota Historical Society reprint, 1987). A broader view of French settlement in the New World can be found in Robert Larin, Breve histoire du peuplement europeen en Nouvelle-France (Quebec: Sepentrion, 2000), which argues that the unattractiveness of New France ironically help implant permanent settlement here more effectively than in France's ostensibly more attractive Caribbean colonies. Lapin also emphasizes the interests of the fur companies in keeping people out of the Great Lakes and farther western regions.
Loess Hills of Iowa
The beautiful loess hills of Iowa remain virtually unknown -- a topography completely different from the surrounding plains, formed at the end of the last glaciation when wind-blown soil (loess) was deposited along the banks of the Missouri river. A discussion of the hills' unique geology and ecology appears in Cornelia F. Mutel, Fragile Giants. A Natural History of the Loess Hills (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1989). A general treatment of the geography of Iowa can be found in Jean C. Prior, Landforms of Iowa (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1991), covering the hills at pp. 48-57, with useful pictures and diagrams.
Yellowstone
The first thing that strikes every visitor to
Yellowstone is of course the extraordinary thermal activity -- unless they were
puzzled, before even that first obligatory visit to Old Faithful,
by the lack of mountains in much of this Rocky Mountain park. I know no better
guide to understanding the geology than Robert B. Smith and Lee J. Siegel,
Windows into the Earth. The Geologic Story of Yellowstone and Grand Teton
National Parks (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). It's generally
well-written (if repetitious -- perhaps it wasn't mean to be read straight
through) and has lots of great pictures and maps. I suspect the best parts were
written by the geologist Smith rather than the "science writer" Siegel.
Old Faithful in eruption
Yellowstone's boundaries were drawn in 1871-1872 in days long before the concepts of ecology had even been sketched. As a result much of the territory that defines Yellowstone as an ecosystem -- essentially everything above about 6100 feet elevation -- remains outside the park. You can get an understanding of this larger world through the essays (some rather technical) in The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Redefining America's Wilderness Heritage, ed. Robert B. Keiter and Mark S. Boyce (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991).A long section (pp. 309-376) treats the still controversial decision -- I mean controversial outside the world of ecologists, who know the act was essential to Yellowstone's survival -- to reintroduce wolves.
The whole question of a policy for the future for wilderness in America has provoked lots of discussion. Now David Foreman, one of the erstwhile founders of Earth First! and an important theorist of wilderness, has thrown down a challenge to policymakers and citizens alike in Rewilding North America. A Vision for Conservation in the 21st Century (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2004). Foreman imagines a future in which huge swatches of North America, areas large enough to contain self-sustainable ecosystems, are carved out of our over-developed and depleted landscapes. The accelerating rate of species extinction which makes the current time one of the great extinction periods of Earth's history adds urgency to his appeal.
The history of Yellowstone is treated exhaustively by the Park's former historian, Aubrey L. Haines, The Yellowstone Story. A History of Our First National Park, Revised Edition, 2 vols. (Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1996).
Too often we forget that Americans were not the first to see the wonders of Yellowstone. The history of US relations with Native Americans has not been a pretty one, and one extraordinary, largely unknown episode was the effort in 1877 by the US Army to force part of the Nez Perce Indians led by Chief Joseph onto a reservation. The war that resulted was fought in considerable part in Yellowstone, and the Nez Perce for the most part ran circles around the military. The story can be read in detail in Jerome A. Greene, Nez Perce Summer 1877. The U.S. Army and the Nee-Poo Crisis (Helena: Montana Historical Society Press, 2000).
A stunning feature of the Old Faithful area is the Lodge -- damaged in the fires, undergoing reconstruction, and now in a ruinous setting of concrete parking lots and knock-off buildings almost devoid of trees. But even with the scaffolding, the view of Old Faithful from the second-floor veranda beats the bleacher seats anytime. You can read about it, and some of its cousins in other national parks, in Christina Barnes, Great Lodges of the National Parks (Bend, Oregon: W. W. West, 2002), the "companion volume" to the PBS series of the same name.
Some random musings on other books can be found in Vacation Reading.
Where We Stayed, Who Helped Us
We've belonged for years to the American Automobile Association but had never availed ourselves of their services before for trip planning. Even though I knew what I wanted to do, and the route, I decided to see what they could supply. We got from them a print out of the route which included most usefully estimated driving trips (pretty much right on east of the Mississippi, but very conservative west, where highway speed limits are typically 75 on interstates and 70 even on two-lane rural roads); "Tripticks," maps with just your road on them printed out and bound in spirals, which I found confusing and rarely used; and travel books with information on hotels and attractions, which we consulted (I wish though I had also gotten the camping guides, which I did not realize were separate volumes till we were on the road) -- all for free.
For the backpacking trip we relied on Howie
Wolke
of Big Wild Adventures, whom Gary has known for several years and with
whom Gary took his various Sonoran Desert trips.
Howie scouts the trail ahead
A long day's drive brought us from Ironwood,
Michigan, to Devils Lake, North Dakota,
where we spent two restful days at the
West Bay Resort. A great advantage was
provided by the 13-year old daughter of the owner, who entertained Alison and
Caroline a full day while I did laundry, got the "bug storm" washed off the car,
and did some reading.
Evidence of the BUG STORM!
Panorama of Yellowstone Scenery, Taken North of Canyon
Part I -- The Drive Out
The Route
I-91 N to I-90 (Mass Turnpike) near Springfield, MA; I-90 W to Buffalo, NY; I-190 N to Niagara Falls, Ontario;
We left home in the morning on Friday, August 5, 2005. We followed the interstate, jammed with cars and gravid with trucks, and in New York passed for many miles along the banks of the Mohawk River, a glistening blue stream that runs alternately through hills clad in woods and the remains of old industrial towns. I kept thinking of James Fennimore Cooper and of the Mohawk Indians of northern New York, who fought a board war just thirty years ago against Canada and the United States. Our first stop that day was Niagara Falls, Ontario, where I had booked a room in a motel almost overlooking the gorge of the Niagara River, a couple miles downstream from the falls.
Part II -- Yellowstone 1: Backpacking at Pebble Creek
Part III -- Yellowstone 2: The Usual Suspects
Part IV -- The Drive Back