The story I was telling son Jim had to be
suspended. We needed to navigate through a bear jam in Yellowstone National
Park. Tourists coming from both directions abandoned their cars and, cameras in
hand, scurried across the highway, heedless of other traffic. We couldn't see
the bear but could tell where it was located–where all the people were
gathering.
We drove on, glad all those cars were no
longer ahead of us. Jim and I were travelers using Yellowstone as a through route
into Montana, not tourists lingering to see the sights.
Given the choice over breakfast in
Riverton, Jim had decided we'd spend the day in Grand Teton National Park rather
than Yellowstone. To an 11 year old, hiking up to the Death Canyon Ranger
Station, where his Dad once spent a summer as a back country patrol ranger,
sounded like a lot more fun than looking at geysers.
Now, after a satisfying day in Death
Canyon overdosing on nostalgia, we were on the road again. As we drove away from
the bear jam I resumed my story of the Yellowstone Earthquake the summer of 1959, when I was a ranger.
A mountain creates a lake
When the earthquake struck that night I
was in the ranger station, feet propped up, reading. It was one of the biggest
ever recorded in the mountain west, 7.5 on the Richter scale. It did a lot of
damage.
I told Jim about the mountainside that collapsed
west of Yellowstone and roared down into the Madison River, damming the canyon.
It buried a campground and an unknown number of campers. The exact death toll from
the quake remains an estimate. A nationwide appeal went out. Anyone knowing of
family or friends who might have been camping in the area was asked to alert the
authorities. And especially, the authorities should be notified about people who
failed to return from vacation. Those who never came home were presumed still to
be in that campground, buried forever under thousands of tons of rock.
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Helicopter rescuing campers.
(Gallatin County Emergency Management)
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Slide dams the Madison River
(NPS)
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The slide backed up the Madison River,
creating Quake Lake, 200 feet deep and 6 miles long.
Grand Teton stands firm
Afterwards we heard many reports of
geological changes wrought by the quake, not all of them trustworthy. It turned
out to be true that Old Faithfull's average eruption cycle was lengthened by
few minutes. Some minor geysers changed their eruption cycle as well, while a
few new ones began to erupt, and some springs became hyper active for a time. However,
it was not true that Grand Teton, the highest peak in the range, had risen fourteen
inches. Nor four feet either, as some claimed.
But all that came afterward. The night
the earth moved I was sitting by the stove in the ranger station, book in hand and mind far away. Clothes
hanging nearby were finally dry. That morning I had saddled Spud and patrolled
up the north side of the canyon to the high point on the Skyline Trail (now
called the Alaska Basin Trail). Rain fell steadily as we descended late in the afternoon.
Good thing I was wearing my hat
We were home and Spud, watered at the
creek and wiped down, was munching at his oat box in the corral. Leaving a track
of muddy boot prints from the door to the cook stove, I had started a fire and
the cabin was beginning to warm. I dug out some dry clothes and began to strip
off my wet ones. I was standing in the stork position, jeans off one leg and around
the ankle of the other, when the door opened and two young women walked in.
They were hikers who had come down the trail behind us.
The moment was more disconcerting than
embarrassing. Few people used the south end of the park in those days, and none
had ever come in without knocking. Our ranger orientation had not covered what
to do if young women entered our post while we were not wearing pants.
Gallantry seemed the best course.
Standing barelegged, still wearing my sodden uniform shirt and ranger hat, I
invited my visitors to warm up and dry off by the stove. "No thanks,"
one answered cheerfully. "We're going to camp where the trail drops off
into the canyon. That's not much further, is it?" "About 200 yards,"
I said.
Perfect end to a vacation
So I had neighbors that night when
strange events began to occur in the dark. Out in the corral Spud whinnied
anxiously. Looking up from my book, I was slow to grasp what was happening. The
logs of the wall across the room were shifting back and forth. Myriad small lights
scurried around the cabin as the Coleman lantern swung from its hook above my
head. My chair jolted under me. Across the creek, loose boulders rattled down
the 1,500 foot cliff on Prospector Mountain.
The quake lasted less than a minute. I took
out sugar cubes to calm Spud, then walked down the trail to check on the
neighbors. They were elated. Ecstatic. When they set up camp that afternoon they
were already looking forward to returning to New Jersey with absorbing tales of
backpacking among the high peaks. (And, perhaps, of walking unannounced into a back
country ranger station.) Now they could also tell their friends about the thrill
of surviving a strong earthquake . . . in their sleeping bags . . . in Death
Canyon.
Epilogue
Before recounting another incident that occurred
when traveling with Jim that day, I want to reaffirm my promise never to
fabricate. Sometimes life really does serve up coincidences completely off the probability
scale.
Death Canyon having been hiked, and the
story of the Great Yellowstone Earthquake having been told, we drove on into
Montana. When out of the mountains we could again get radio reception. The lead
story in the local news that day–August 30, 1974–was that Yellowstone had
been shaken by its first major earthquake since the big one in 1959. Jim and I were
in Grand Teton at the time but felt nothing because we were in the car moving
down the highway.
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Looking down into Death Canyon from Skyline
(Alaska Basin) Trail.
The Death Canyon Ranger Station is located at the foot of
Prospector Mountain, left center of picture.
(NPS)
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The Mouse Drowned, but the Butter Survived
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