The Old Faithful Inn, Yellowstone

tWe've just completed a 3 night stay at the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park. The inn was built in 1903 by the Northern Pacific Railroad company to the design of 29 year-old architect Robert Reamer. It's a beautiful building and is the first example of, and blueprint for the National Park Service Rustic architectural style, otherwise known as Parkitechture. Robert Reamers rather inspired vision was that the building should seem to have sprung up from the ground, as if it had grown rather than been built. You can see this below in the use of lodge pole pine for the entirety of the lobby.

(Thanks to Kev for the loan of his 10-20mm for the above shot)

We stayed in the "new" west wing, added by Reamer in 1927 in room 4058 and a definite highlight of our stay was taking the hotel tour. The tour runs daily at 09:30 and 11:00 and we were guided by the excellent Mary. Mary was filled with fascinating facts and anecdotes, but the one which struck me the most was hearing about the hotel in Winter.

The hotel opens in early May (weather permitting) and closes in mid-October. When the hotel closes, all the soft furnishing are placed into storage, all the doors are locked and the windows are boarded. The electricity is switched off and the entire hotel sits out the winter cold and empty.

Yellowstone is full of seasonal staff from all over the place (I wish I'd done a season somewhere 10 years ago, you can apply for Yellowstone here) and although the Old Faithful Inn is closed throughout winter, the adjacent (and recent, completed in 1999) Old Faithful Snow Lodge is open through the winter and staffed by a hardcore breed of seasonal worker. I say hardcore because the weather is freezing, there's no TV and limited internet and travel is by either skis, snowmobile or snowcoach.

As Mary tells it, this year the Snow Lodge staff were given a special treat; the front door to the frozen Old Faithful Inn was unlocked for one night, and just enough electricity was turned on to power a projector. No heating or lighting was turned on and staff were instructed to turn up just before midnight, wearing all their clothes and bedding. With all the furniture in storage they sat on the floor to watch their cinematic treat.

What did their employer choose to show them as they sat freezing, in a cold, dark and deserted remote hotel? Have you twigged it yet? Of course they got to watch The Shining. Amazing scenes.

American pay phones are rubbish

America is awesome, right? If you want to keep believing that I suggest you never use a pay phone here, and particularly not one operated by Qwest. From my previous post, you'll know that I'm in Yellowstone National Park. There is no connectivity here – no mobile reception (well, there is if you're American, but O2 have no roaming), and no wi-fi. Whilst I highly approve of keeping things this way and leaving the parks as a retreat, I wasn't expecting quite such a kerfuffle from trying to phone home.

Armed with $6 of quarters, we approached the payphone and followed the printed advice: “For an international call, dial 0 for the operator”. Alas, there was no operator, just a machine requesting an area code and number. FAIL #1. Next I tried the standard international dialling pattern in the US of 011-, this took ages to connect and eventually just said “error 16”. FAIL#2. Next, I tried calling the Qwest number on the phone and got through to Danny who said he'd be happy to connect my call for me. I gave Danny my credit card details and everything was going well until he asked for my zip code. “Is this an international card?” asked Danny quizzically, “Oh, I'm sorry we only accept US cards sir”. Way to go Qwest, make it impossible to accept card payments for the calls which will make you the most money. FAIL #4.

I was reaching boiling point by now, so we went back to the hotel and sought some advice. “Get a calling card” was the tip, so we headed over to the store and exchanged our quarters for a said item, which was pleasingly Yellowstone branded. This went a little smoother, although on the first call I made, the recipient could hear me, but I couldn't hear a thing; and of course I got charged for it. FAIL #5. Finally I was able to successfully make the call, but man did it take a lot longer and involve way more complexity than I was expecting. Lesson learned, America is the land of the brave, and the home of the free, unless of course you want to dial internationally from a pay phone.

Yellowstone

I'm in Yellowstone, the first National Park ever created in the United States. It's a big place, comprising 2.2 million acres and although it's highly accessible to visitors it's still a wilderness, with only 370 miles of road and less than 1% of the park developed for tourism. Further contributing to the wildness is the abundance of wildlife including: bears (black and 'griz'), bison, moose, elk, deer, mountain lions, wolves, bald eagles and more. As if that wasn't enough, Yellowstone is a geological marvel – it sits atop a huge volcano and contains over 50% of the world's geysers, plus hot springs, mud pots and fumaroles.

The main tourist experience consists of driving around a figure eight of roads established in 1905 by the US Army Engineers Corps. There's plenty of goodness to be had by planning out an itinerary of hikes and sights, but I've found that the most rewarding experiences so far are the unplanned, unexpected and impromptu. I'm still feeling humbled today from our stroke of luck whilst driving back to the hotel last night. As we drove back towards Mammoth from the Lamar Valley (a.k.a. the American Serengeti), we spotted a long line of tail lights and a large number of vehicles parked at the side of the road at the Blacktail Ponds turnout. As we approached the turnout, I could see flashes of movement from the field below and the tripods and cameras lined up on the road side. You quickly learn that in the park, collections of cars parked off road means animals and from the number parked here it was clear that something special was happening.

After parking safely (always pull completely off the road, y'all) and walking back we discovered that the focus of all the attention was a pair of grizzly bears protecting a bison carcass from a pack of wolves. Wolves are endangered in North America and were controversially reintroduced to Yellowstone back in 1995, so just seeing a wild wolf is rare enough, but to see the interaction between a pack and a pair of grizzlies I think we were incredibly lucky. Over the next hour as the sun set and the light faded we watched on entranced as the wolves circled the bears and then darted in, only to fall back as the bears charged and swiped at them. After a while, all but the alpha wolf retreated away up the hill and we assumed that the show was drawing to a close. However, the alpha wolf continued to stalk and harass the bears. Suddenly the wolves began to howl; a solitary voice was quickly joined by others as the hillside lit up with this eerie and haunting song.

Information was being passed from person to person, most of it originating from the park rangers so we came to learn that the bears were a mother and three-year-old cub, and that a total of nine wolves were out on the hillside. We also learned that until very recently the bison carcass had been frozen into the lake, but since being exposed by the thaw the bears had been dragging it out of the water and guarding it from all comers. The wolves must have been attracted by the carcass (May has been enjoying the way uncommon words have crept into conversation – I've never heard or uttered the word carcass as much as in this week) as the rangers didn't know of a local pack or den.

Just as we were preparing to leave, someone beside us proffered her binoculars and said “Have you seen the third grizzly coming down the hill?”. Sure enough, a larger and much darker bear was charging down the hillside, scattering the wolves as he made a beeline for the carcass. We learned from the ranger that this was a male bear, and when he approached the carcass the female bears backed right off. In the twilight we watched the male bear settle down on the carcass, as the females looked on and the alpha wolf continued to circle. The whole experience felt like watching a segment from Planet Earth unfold right in front of us and was totally captivating – I don't think I'll ever forget the sound of that wolf howl as it echoed up the hillside. People we've bumped into since have confirmed how lucky we were to see this as even regular visitors have rarely seen a wolf, let alone a whole pack harassing grizzly bears.

As if to reinforce my feeling that the park is best experienced serendipitously, my efforts to catch a repeat performance this morning by getting up before dawn drew a blank. I arrived by 05:45 and found both the turnout and the roadside full of cars. I joined the line-up of tripods and my only reward was a single coyote. I think I'll stop trying and trust the rest of the holiday to luck.