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Published: January 22nd 2007
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Surreal Steam and Snow
It's just so outer worldly, it's phenomenal. SOME say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice. -Robert Frost
The Ugly Duckling of Yellowstone
There is truly something awe inspiring when two distinct opposites come so close to one another as to intermingle and interact in such a unique way that creates something of deep beauty and mystique. There really is no other way to describe how my least favorite place in Yellowstone, Mammoth Hot Springs, could transform from this bland off whitish ugly thermal feature to a surreal, beautiful outerworldly landscape. The weekend of the 15th a bunch of friends from the Mathematics Department here at Montana State and myself went out to Yellowstone to snow shoe around by Snow Pass and Mammoth Hot Springs. We were greeted by the usual Buffalo and Elk along the sides of the road foraging for salt and plants to help get thru the winter and to be honest, I didn't expect to much, I figured a
nice leisurely hike around a mediocre hot springs. But the snow that had fallen was desperatly battiling the hot steam leaking out of the ground and all the trees around the thermal vent were covered in a type of snow I've never seen before. Now, some of you may be like "type of snow? It comes in types?", but I assure you it most definitly does, the Eskimo and Inuit of the northern part of the Americas had many words for snow. This snow was so textured from the continuous melting from the steam and extreme cooling of the subzero temperatures around Yellowstone at night. The trees were encased in this snow. They were weighted down and heavy looking. It looked as if a well placed blow or high pitched squeal would shatter these trees without effort. The way that the walking pathes over the terrace are constructed one actually walks underneath a 'tunnel' made from these heavy ice-snow laden trees out over some of the thermal vents where the most unexpected sight greets you. In the thermal springs the water if boiling over florescent green and light brown bacterial mats which are framed by ice-snow (I believe the second
Vent in the woods
A Thermal Vent right in the middle of the forest. video shows it better than my words describe it). Do to the cold temperature in the air and the hot water of the springs, the whole upper terrace was engulfed in steam which produced more of the ice-snow trees sitting out in the mist, like ghosts reaching out to touch something more material than they were.
When I first visited Yellowstone, I wasn't super impressed by it. It was cool to see all the wildlife and some thermal features, but for some reason it doesn't quite sink in the first time how other worldly this place is. The Yellowstone river is one of the few undammed rivers in the US and the ecosystem inside the park is like no other in the United States. The rock has it's own personality, colors, textures and the weird bacterial mats and smoking lakes. I'm not sure why it took so long for me to appreciate this park, but if you are not impressed with Yellowstone, that just means you need to visit it more often (granted, the swarms of people can be very detracting from getting to introspective about the park, but that is perhaps why one needs to go more than
Nurishment
Corrine takes a drink from Justins Water Tit. once, due to the distraction that humans create here).
Bozeman is Burning
The fire and ice of yellowstone created this surreal and beautiful landscape, but on our way home to Bozeman fire and ice created a much scarier and dangerous manifestation! Coming thru the pass from Livingston to Montana, I noticed a large plume of smoke rising into the air. There was a huge fire in the middle of Bozeman sending up tons of smoke. Everyone in the car debated where this fire was located. Was it Main St? Was it on campus? Was it the Wal-Mart? Was it Famous Dave's Bar-B-Que (where we were going to dine)? As we rode down the interstate thru Bozeman trying to figure out where this conflaguration was, silently (at least from the interstate) a large column of fire reached up towards the ski and the fire grew in brilliance. We would discover later that the large column of flame was caused by a large propane tank catching fire and exploding. Luckily all of this was occuring at a construction site where there were no humans hanging out this late at night. As we drove to Famous Dave's we got a call from
our friend Michael Courey who informed us he was watching the fire from a couple of blocks away. He wasn't the only one, it seems almost the whole town was driving to stand around the fire and watch as the Bozeman and Belgrade (the neighboring town) tried to put the fire out. In the paper the following day, it was reported some guy in a red pickup was so excited he drove up on to the scene of the fire and ran over six fire department fire hoses, all the cops did was give him a sobreity test! I wish I had taken pictures of this as it was yet another surreal and amazing time where people stood around watching an office building burn! I wanted to accompany this story with a news article about it, but the Bozeman Chronicle doesn't seem to have any reference to the blaze which I find strange!
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koala yummy
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pedestrian!
Who wrote that ridiculous first sentence! Hahaha, just kidding Luke. I love you! your best friend.