#title The Yellowstone National Park in Winter (Preview)
#author The Montana Daily Record
#date 18 Jul 1911
#source The Montana Daily Record (Helena, MT.), 18 Jul 1911. <[[https://mthspublic.newspapers.com/article/the-montana-record-herald/208662995/][mthspublic.newspapers.com]]>
#lang en
#pubdate 2026-10-20T18:18:07
#topics wilderness, history, half-finished error correcting
#notes This text still requires a lot more error correcting, however people can click the link in the source field to view the original photoscan.
[[t-m-the-montana-daily-record-the-yellowstone-natio-1.jpg f]]
The polar regions are hardly less accessible than the Yellowstone National Park — the greatest playground of the American people — is in winter. This is scarcely conceivable, for in summer 40,000 visitors now find it one of the easiest places to leach and to travel through. Lieutenant Frederick Schwatka attempted to explore the park in January nearly twenty-five years ago. He had returned not long before from an expedition. In search of Sir John Franklins party that had perished in the Arctic regions. Before that he had been on a 3,000 mile sledge journey in the frozen north and had suffered terrible hardships. On his trip into the Yellowstone Park, Lieutenant Schwatka was accompanied Icy a large, well organized party. They traveled on Norwegian skis and Canadian web snowshoes: but the snow was so light that it would not support them, and their toboggans were exceedingly difficult to draw. It took them three days to cover twenty miles. Lieutenant Schwatka, injured as he was to such hardships, fell ill and was unable to proceed. He and all the rest of the party but four of the sturdiest men turned back. The photographer, F. Jay Haynes, Edward Wilson, a government scout, and two others kept on. It took them two other days to make the circuit of the park, 200 miles. The thermometer ranged between 40 and rm degrees below zero most of the time, and the adventure nearly cost them their lives.
*** Winter Population of “Playground.”
The total winter population of the park is usually between four and five hundred people. These Include three troops of cavalry. The cavalry can use their horses only during the summer months. I hiring the winter they are stabled at Fort Yellowstone. The stage horses are driven down to the lowlands, miles away, when the tourist season is over, and graze in the sheltered valleys there until the snows melt.
In the great hotels that are thronged during the tourist season live only the caretakers. generally two in each place, n man and his wife The first blizzard isolates from the world outside w iv- body in this great national domain that has an area of 3.312 square miles. No valley within its limits has an elevation of less than 6,000 feet, while many of the mountain parks within and near the park rise from 10,000 to 14.000 feet above the sea level. Yellowstone lake. 15 by 20 miles in size. Is the largest body of water in America at that altitude. 7 741 feet above the sea. On the summit of the range a few miles south of Yellowstone lake is Two Of । an pond, a small lake with two outlets, one into the Atlantic through the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers. the other into the raoifle through the Snake’ river, a branch of the Columbia. The Grand canyon of the Yellowstone, ten miles long, has an average depth of 1.200 feet and is the most brilliantly colored landscape in existence. Rut in winter everything is blanketed with snow eight ten feet deep. All is Ice-bound except the more than half a hundred great geysers that throw their columns of boiling water hundreds of feet in the air, almost as little seen by humankind as when they began their spoutings ages ago
From December to March the enforced dwellers in the park are nearly as much cut off from the world as though they were penned in by the polar Ice Of course the telephone and the telegraph bring them scraps of news from the outer world, but the only way of getting about is on snowshoes or skis. Even then the I distances between the places where the people live is so great and the ways so dangerous that few venture forth. Only the government scouts, whose duty It in to look after the wild life in the park and see that It is not molested by poachers. got out at all. The rest of the people there are like the bears they hibernate until spring. An ample supply of fuel and provisions is laid in before the first snowstorms begin to sweep over the Continental divide, and there is little to do until the sun swings nortward and the snows melt.
*** Building a Hotel Amid Arctic Temperature.
Despite the arctic rigors of this region. ‘ however. £30 men fought the cold there , Inst winter completing the fifth of the big hotels that are the halting places of tourists in this summer playground that belongs to the people of the United States The first order prepared on the kitchen ranges of this new hostelry, which stands on the brink of the great precipice down which roars endlessly the mighty catarnct of the Yellowstone, was for nnlls Nnlls big and little brads and spikes. fenpennies and shingles, had to be’ heated on the cook stoves before the carpenters could handle them The reason for this baste was that the new hotel had to be finished in time for the summer season, when the park is in its brief period of verdant glory.
Moro re ni or will go to the Yellowstone N. Honal piik this year than ever before. In 1872, when the federal government mUlcahd it “os a public patk nr pleasure ground for the benifit and enjoyment of the people probably not more than 1,000 poisons a year were visiting It. In the next twenty-three year the number of visitors climbed slowly to about 3,000 annually. In 1885. the authorities began counting the persons who entered the park, have been were 6,438 and complete records kept ever since. There visitors in 1895. Ten yarr later the number had risen to 26.
In 1906, It dropped to 17.172. The next year It fell off nearly a thousand. In 1908, the total was 18,784. Then came the most remarkable Increase in visitors that the park lias ever known. In 19’9. there were nearly tun. as many (32,‘d3) as the year before. This was principally due to the opening of a new railroad gateway to the j ark at Yellowstone, Montana-which made It murk easier of access.
*** A Bit of E. H. Harriman’s Wizardry.
This came about through a visit that the late E. II. Harriman male to the park in the summer of 1!“H He was so Impressed by the wonders of the park that he immediately ordered the location and construction of a branch from the Oregon Short Line, a pint of the 1’nkm Pacific system, to the western border of the park. This road, from Idaho Palls to Yellowstone, Montana. twenty miles from the lower Ge\ser Basin, was finished Nov. 12, 1907. and was opened for traffic? the following June. It is lu7 miles long and cost nearly T.’.hhj o its construction called into play the greatest energy and skill in the sck of railroad building.
Owing to the deep snows and severe winters work could b? carried on during only about four months of the year. I’ t, in that brief smson, a vast army of nu n ami marl.In s tolled night and day The giant mountain barriers with their deep valk-vs in between had to be conquered. That part of the earth where the tails ran had to be remodeled so as to S’ cure the safest and easiest grades. Probably no railway, where so many ob- utachs had to be overcome, ever wa? built in so short a time. Put the largely Increased number of visitors to the park has proved that the new line is fully appreciated. of the more than 10.000 who entered the park last year, nearly half went by this new western gateway that Mr Harriman created.
The government scouts who are guardians of the wild creatures are about the only ones who over see much of the winter lienutles of the park Those who have hern there any length of time have learned much that is new about the habits of the animals that abound there, although they are chiefly concerned in keeping poachers out of the park There are fewer of these now than there i sed to be. because heavier penalties have been laid by the government on those who ar? caught The f. w that do venture into the park mostly come in winter. Then there is has chance of their being detected, but more risk of losing their lives in the cold and snow. One thing more than all others tempts them-the buffalo inscrnpulous taxidermists will pay the weight in silver for a buffalo head now adays, for thes? beads are practically unattainable by legitimate means The rest of the wild creatures that make their homes in the park are seldom molested.
*** Poaching In Deep Snows.
It has been seventeen years since one of thes- poachers after buffalo has been caught, hut he did so much damage before ho was arrested that it has taken a long time to make up for If.
Early in March, 1894 a party was organized at Fort Yellowstone for the purpose of visiting the winter ranges of the gam? to ascertain the exact number of buffalo that Rtlll existed and to photograph them. The party traveled on Norwegian snowshoes, with packs of sleeping bags, provisions and camera, directly to Hayden valley via Norris and the Grand Canyon. They found righty — nne buffalo in the valley. together with numerous small groups of elk aggregating more than VO
In a secluded spot toward the And of the second day’s march they discovered the cache of a poacher. They wore much surprised at this, as they had no idea that there was any one in the park killing game. The cache consisted of a canvas tepee, stooping bag. provisions and toboggan and they found six buffalo brads suspended ’n a tree nearby A trace of flip in the tepee ’rd the scouts to believe thet the nna.her was not very far away.
In rupture him was the next move. It had hem mowing constantly all Hip morning and all the snowshoe tracks leading from the ramp were entierity obliterated. The scouts separated and went in different directions.
When five miles from the camp one of them heard a half dozen rifle shots in rapid succession Hastening through the timber in that direction, he tame upon an opening in the forest and saw the poacher. He had driven six of the buffalo into the deep snow and had slaughtered the entire band. The scout was alone and armed only with a revolver. Poachers of this kind ire desperate men They know that the arm of the federal government is long and Its grip sure once it seizes them. Therefore they light to the last. No desperado is more reckless of his life. The scout know all this, but did not hesitate for a moment. It was still snowing hard, and neither the poacher nor his dog noticed the scout’s approach. The scout was within twenty feet of the poacher and had him covered with bis revolver before he told him to throw up his hands. A moment more and he was disarmed. Then he was handcuffed and taken to the guardhouse at Fort Yellowstone. He had killed about one-eighth of all the buffalo in the park.
*** Elks and Bears Very Comfortable in the “Big Cold.”
There are about 250 buffalo in the park now. To protect them more effectually against poachers about 20(1 are kept in .in enclosure and have become partly domesticated. The remainder run wild in the country to the east of Yellowstone lake.
Fully 5.000 elk winter in the foothills of Mount Washburn, on Specimen Kidge, along the east fork of the Yellowstone river and along the main stream of that river clear to the base of Mount Evarts. During the winter the elk live in “yards”—places 500 to 1.000 feet in diameter where they keep the snow trodden down. The bull elks pat red these “yards” at night, so as to keep away the mountain lions and other animals that prey on them.
The elks shed their horns about the first of March and until they grow out again lead a quiet life so that their sprouting horns will not be injured. At the time When they shed their horns they are still herded together, and now and then a scout will run across Rome secluded spot in the primeval wilderness where the ground is covered with two or three score of these great antlers, some of them six or seven feet long. They are allowed to remain where they are, for it is not permitted to take them for decora-park or even to use them for decorative purposes. Hut before the end of the next winter they disappear. The field mire and other small rodents eat them.
The bears that are seen around the hotels in the Rummer time, stealing garbage nr fighting the searchlight when It is turned on them at night go into winter quarters In November or December and sleep until spring. There are hundreds of them, black, brown and grizzly. They go into caves or hollow logs or under the roots of trees that the snow will cover. There are many natural caves in the park. Sometimes four or five bears will snuggle up to each other in the tame cave and sleep the winter away. It is in winter, too. that the cubs are born. When the baby bear Comes into the world he is not much bigger than a rat, but he grows and grows in his cave, kept warm by his mother until spring When be emerges into the light he is a full grown cub quite able to take care of himself and fight anything of his site.
*** A Paradise for Wild Things.
Millions of trout come up Info the smaller streams to spawn in the spring Ikers live mostly on berries and fish, when they in get them. Since there are no berries in the spring the bears break their fast on fish. Tin y w ide into the creeks and scoop thorn out with their paws When the little hours get tired of catching fish in the shallow pools they go hunting for moles and work as industriously as puppy dogs digging them out of the earth. Springtime when the bears are lean and hungry, is their busiest time.
Three-fourths of the park is a dense forest, a primeval wilderness. Away from the few hotels and roads and the trails the park today is what It was before even a Pharaoh reigned In Egypt It is such a parade for the wild things that roam It at will there that they have less to fear, even from each other and from the elements, than anywhere else In the wilderness When the fury of the winter storms drives the elk, deer, mountain sheep and antelope into the sheltered valleys and canyons they have nothing to be afraid of ex pt the pelting, driven steel-dust of the mountain blizzards Nature is kind even to the birds. On the great terraces where the stupi minus springs of hot water they incessantly gather gnat flocks of wild ducks and other flowl.
In this region, neatly 8,000 feet above the sea, where the mercury sinks away below aero from December to March, there is far more wonder and mystery In midwinter than the summer tourist ever gets a hint of Civilisation is miles a way across a wilderness of shining, snowclad mountains. The gale driven snow dances over this waste and is piled into fantastic drifts Sometimes It is swept with a roar through the mountain gorges faster than the swiftest railway train ever travelled. It covers to the eaves some of the big hotels. In summer time these pines are buzzing with life, but In winter they are pictures of desolation, almost indistinguishable from the rest of the landscape hmenth the enshrouding snow If the caretakers wish to get out they have to obtain exit from a window on one of the upper floors. Tall trees burled In the snow appear like bushes. The general aspect of the country is entirely changed
*** Masses of Purest White in Place of Brilliant Hued Rocks.
The Incomparable wonder of the Grand canvon of the Yellowstone. that huge gash In tin earth whose walls glow with every tint of jewels and flowers. Is a nose of purest white save where here and there the winds have swept away the snow and left tin billiant-hued rocks exposed Their reds and yellows and purples and crimsons glow the brighter in contrast with the surrounding white- ness The black foliage of the pines stands out sharph Where the water slides over the precipice and forms the Great Falls of the Yellowstone it roars down as white as carded wool. Down at the bottom of the gorge, where the waters are swift and deep, they are black. There are immense Icicles 200 feet long. An ice bridge 100 feet high is formed at the base of the falls
The great geysers play mdlessly. each at Its appointed period, although no one is there to see them Every 70 minutes Ohl Faithful sends its column of water and steam 300, 500, and sometimes 1.000 feet into the air and holds It there for three minutes Sometimes the winds un- fidd from its top an Iridescent banner of spray: at other times the fountain form is a perf ct cone, in w inter Its boiling hot water gives off a vast ( loud nf drifting steam At nightfall of a January evening th!« immutable water ‘ lock of the Yellow stun — beenmi a spectre of ghostly white a sight so strange and startling even those who neighbor with It never los their nwc of Its majesty Al) about the geysers the foliage of the trees is luavlh laden with lc giving them a thousand fantastic shapes A cloud of vapor, like the steam from some great manufacturing city, hangs and drifts over the geyser basins the workshop of nature.
*** The “Sisterhood” of the Geisers.
There are more than fifty in this giant sisterhood of get sera Not even In Ireland or New Zealand or anywhere else where the earth is still being made is there such a convent of their order as in the Yellowstone No one Ima ever been able to describe them adequately in words any more than It has been possible to tell on the printed page the event of the wonders in this workshop of the Almighty.” It is a place where almost every form of creative eccentricity In nature is found.
But the geysers play unseen, and the agents that are molding the earth keep at their Disks in solitude nil winter long The groat streams and water falls never rest In their toil of tearing down the heights and building up the valleys. Only during threw months In the year l« It possible for many people to see this Titanic work of Nature In progress If those who travel for pleasure each summer knew how curious and beautiful a place the park is there would he as great an Influx of visitors between the 15th of June, when the season begins, and the 15th of September, when it ends, us now sail away to Europe for rest and play.
The trip through the park may be made In five days, or it may be rut down to two by visiting the legion of the Geysers alone.
*** Many, Many Wonderful Things.
There are many wonderful things on the road before one gets to the Yellowstone park. however. Going west from Ogden on the Union Pacific is one of the most stupendous pieces of railwnx engineering In the world, the great Salt Lake cutoff that was constructed at a cost of 16.000,000 to save 43 miles of the distance between Ogden and San Francisco. It crosses the Great Salt Lake at its deepest portion and is 102 1–2 miles long. Some of the best engineers in the world pronounced this cutoff Impossible, but It was built and is one of the unique features of American railroading.
Another tiling that attracts travelers is Salt Lake City itself, which has been constantly In the public eye ever since It was a little huddle of wagons In the wilderness more than three generations ago. In many ways It is one of the most remarkable cities in the world, and as the seat of power of the religious empire of the Mormons it is unique. The tabernacle, with Its great organ, the biggest In the warld, and the other notable buildings have been described over end over again, but no words ox photographs -an picture them adequately any more than they can a bath In the lake Itself in water In which one cannot sink.
To get to the Yellowstone National Park or to Salt Lake City is now one of the easiest things Imaginable. The directions are simple You go to Ogden by the Union Pacific, the new and direct route, turn to the north for the park and to the south for the “City of the Saints.”
*** The “First Man On the Ground.”
It is Just a hundred and four years wince the Yellowstone territory was discovered. A trapper and hunter found It. He was one John Colter, a private In the famous Lewis and Clark expedition. When, in ISM, this distinguished band of pioneers retraced their steps and started back to St. Louis over their route that eventually opened, up the great northwest Colter broke away. All by himself he set out for the headwaters of the Missouri He was practically forgotten when, four years later, he came into St. Louis, tattered, torn. Indian-like in his ways, but bubbling over with enthusiasm.
He had seen the most wonderful place in the world, he said, where steam came out of the earth and scalding water leaped miles high, where there were diabolical furnaces under the ground. It would have been the “abode of the damned,” he said, but for the fact that there was no sign, for hundreds of miles, of human beings. Surrounded by the curious, John Colter talked for days on the wonders I e had seen. And he met with the fate of many, no one believed him.
He told of too many wonders. St. Louisians marveled. then laughed, then, for many a long year, apoke of “CoItei s Hell.” They thought he had imagined it all.
But Colter, trapper, pioneer and discoverer, proved exactly right. It wat not until thirty-four years later that he was found to have told the truth. Bridger, the noted guide, confirmed his romantic story.