A gardener and a birder go on vacation

Jill Severn portrait

There’s a risk in leaving tomatoes ripening on the vine in early October when frost might ruin them, but for a trip through Yellowstone National Park, the risk seemed worth taking. And after three days in the Park, the tomatoes seem unimportant.

There are many wonders in Yellowstone, set in two immense landscapes.  The first is miles of rolling hills covered with lodgepole pine trees. Some hillsides are young; others right next to them are tall elders. Each generation has grown up after fire tore through the landscape, triggering the germination of the scorched tree seeds. In some places, blackened skeletons of burned trees rise above an expanse of a bright green new generation.

The second backdrop of wonders – and, like the forest, a wonder in its own right – grasslands stretch across vast areas under a sky as big as Montana.  That sky is delightfully foreign to those of who live in Thurston County.

There are also a wild variety of landscapes within the Park, ranging from plunging canyons to rugged mountains, to wetlands, lakes, and rivers and streams that beckon fly fishers. It contains the full catalogue of natural wonders in the American Northwest, except, of course, those related to the Pacific Ocean.

The Park’s high elevation hosts plants unfamiliar to most people who live around Puget Sound; only those who spend time in the mountains would recognize rattlesnake orchids, for instance. This small, now withered flower was pointed out to me by my traveling companion, birder and all-round naturalist, George Walter. But in the Park’s iconic canyon, there was plenty of our familiar salal, a staple of both our Thurston County woods and many people’s gardens.

Erosion leaves trees at the top of the canyon wall with roots hanging in thin air.

Both were growing at the edge of the Yellowstone Grand Canyon, which would warrant National Park status on its own. Its complex geologic history involves erupting volcanos, earthquakes, landslides, erosion, and the patient and persistent power of a river to wear down rocks and carve its course. Over many millennia, the steep banks of the canyon have worn away, leaving trees clinging to the high edges with half their roots left dangling in the air. A young woman remarked at how much she admired those trees. “It’s amazing,” said, “They just make it work.”

The beauty of the Canyon is great enough to attract buses full of Japanese tourists, cars from all over the U. S., and people from other, usually affluent countries. Happily, many brought their children or grandchildren. Some also brought their parents or grandparents. In the course of our few days here, we had conversations with people from Italy, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Argentina, and Germany.

The German couple we chatted with told us they come here every couple of years. They also tour other favorite sites in the American West, which they love. What’s special about Yellowstone, the woman said, is that “Every time, it’s different. It’s always changing.”

This was said on a boardwalk that wove around a hillside with “thermal features,” – which can be any of the many upwellings of steam, boiling water, and upright eruptions. (The definition is so broad I will now think of my bathtub as a thermal feature.) And the thermal features of Yellowstone – with the apparent exception of Old Faithful – are ever-changing.

We saw pools of water boiling hard enough and with enough force and volume to make sizable waves. The last time the Germans had visited, it had been much quieter. Not all of the thermal changes are so gradual. There are still occasional small earthquakes that open new cracks or rearrange the subterranean landscape and reshape what happens on the surface.  Geologic change is always in progress.

Anyone interested in color would be enchanted by pools like this.

There are thermal features all over the place – in the grasslands, in huge fields of steam leak from the underground, in bubbling pools of many textures and colors. Some are the texture of latex paint; some look muddy and others are stunning shades of blue or green. Even in the middle of a verdant hillside of lodgepole pines, you might see a plume of steam rising in the distance.

The cumulative effect of seeing many of them may make you feel you’re at the edge of the underworld – the purview of geologists and people with, shall we say, spiritual specialties.

Staring at a boiling pool – and hearing horrific stories about people who’ve died in them – does evoke childhood teachings on the horrors of a burning, boiling, eternal hell. So, I was glad to be in the company of a naturalist whose expertise reinforces the geologists’ point of view.

Signs everywhere warn against bothering the buffalo, so people stop along the road and take pictures out their car windows.

He was glad to be in a place where ravens, not crows, hang around the lodges, parking lots and other places where humans gather. As much as the bison, elk and bears, ravens send the message that everything about this place is the best and nothing less.

A few lone buffalo (officially American Bison) hang around and pose for semi-closeups. Here, a buffalo bull poses for a semi-closeup.

It’s good for a gardener to see all these wonders, and to become more aware of what’s beneath our feet deeper than we can dig. That, as much as a belly full of the beauty of what’s above ground, is what I will bring home from Yellowstone.

That, and a lot of photos.

Jill Severn writes from her home in Olympia, where she grows vegetables, flowers, and a small flock of chickens. She loves conversation among gardeners. Start one by emailing her at  jill@theJOLTnews.com