Y E L L O W S T O N E   -   D A Y   # 1

Thursday, August 5, 2004

This is Sheepeater Cliff. From the road there's a sign announcing "Sheepeater Cliff" so I envision a steep cliff where Indians, hunting for meat, chase wild sheep over its jagged edge to their certain death. But I am wrong, way wrong. It's just a diet thing according to the sign. I'm still not sure what the correlation is between the rock formation pictured above and eating sheep.

Obsidian Creek.

In 1988, 38% of Yellowstone was burned by fire. That's really pretty amazing when you think about it. Here's a map of those sections of forest affected by the fires. Also some pics of the actually damage, there will be more to come as I drive and hike throughout the park.

As you can see, the forest has reseeded itself as a by-product of the fire. Amidst the towering, burned-out snags are young evergreens reaching to the sky with needled, outstretched branches. It is good to see the resilience of nature in action.

I really hope the Forest Service has learned something from this catastrophic fire. Before the flawed practice of fighting forest fires was ever implemented, forests great and small had been burning for millenniums and they not only survived, they thrived. Fire is an integral part of the forest's natural cycle. Fighting fires is fighting nature. Fight fires long and hard enough, eventually enough flammable ground cover will accumulate to explosive proportions. That's what happened with the Yellowstone fires.

A forest is like a steam kettle. It's naturally designed to let off steam when pressure builds up to a certain point. If you forego the kettle's pressure relief valve, pressure is going to build to the point where the kettle is going to blow. And when it blows the kettle is destroyed. Fortunately this analogy isn't 100% accurate. The forest has the capacity to heal itself, it is always looking for entropy, its natural balance. Man need not mess with it.