200 Feet off the Road

Yellowstone being a major tourist destination, there’s a fair chance that your view of a geyser/elk/baby coyote will be blocked by several hundred people or a large campervan. Before coming out here, I had figured that it would be pretty easy to escape the crowds by going a half mile or so down the trail. Wrong, said Jamie (my boss), you only need to go about 200 feet from the road to have a trail to yourself.

And I didn’t think that people were that lazy, but indeed it is true. Today I went a bit further than 200 ft from the road, and hiked 10 miles to the bottom of the canyon to where a warm sulfur stream meets the Yellowstone River, and saw only a dozen people the whole way. And the backcountry here really is amazing… the same steam vents, hot springs, and multicolored mineral laden sands found in the crowded geyser basins also lined the canyon walls. And the trail went right by them, or over them, so that you splash through hot spring outflows and slip in the crumbly sinter deposits. Near the roads, geysers are carefully fenced off and signs graphically warn visitors of the danger of falling in. In the backcountry, no one would stop you if you tried to do what this child is doing.