Jan. io, 1914 - 
FOREST AND STREAM 
45 
A Trip 
A NIGHT of good rest prepared us for the 
fish that many of us intended to take the 
next morning. So after breakfast some 
eleven of us proceeded to put ourselves into sev¬ 
eral boats, whose capacities were from two to 
four, and to row out of the Lake into Yellow¬ 
stone River, where we anticipated angling a few 
of the beautiful salmon trout. In the course of 
some two hours we rowed back into the Lake, 
and carried into camp something like one hun¬ 
dred pounds of fish. Does that sound “fishy?” 
Well, it is so, and I can prove it by every one 
that was with me, and I will not have to coach 
the witness, either. We could not wait to have 
the fish cooked, so we had to leave them for the 
people who would take our places in the camp 
in the evening, while we hastened away to Yel¬ 
lowstone Canon. There was not much of special 
interest to be seen on this run from Yellowstone 
Lake to the Canon, except the ever-charming 
Yellowstone River, flowing like a stream of bur¬ 
nished silver through the entire distance of seven¬ 
teen miles; the mud volcano, which is about 
five miles from the camp at the Lake, sending 
forth its blue, pasty mud, and odors, that, to the 
delicate nostrils, are anything but agreeable, and 
sounds that suggest the desolation and chaotic 
confusion of the infernal regions. Its grotesque¬ 
ness at once attracts and repels you, and brings 
to the mind the words of Dante : 
“Boil’d here a glutinous thick mass, that round 
Limed all the shore beneath. I that beheld, 
But therein naught distinguished, save the bubbles 
Raised by the boiling, and one mighty swell 
Heave, and by turns subsiding fall.” 
If hell be more desolate and dreary than what 
is to be found round about this dark and gloomy 
Mud Volcano, with its dismal and fear-produc¬ 
ing sounds, who would care to journey to its 
barren and naked shores? Not I. Nor do I 
believe that a single tourist, of all the tourists 
who look upon this volcano of mud, that kills 
everything that its blistering, blasting self touches, 
and listen for a few minutes to its muffled dis¬ 
turbing sounds, as the thought of “That lone land 
of dark despair” fills their minds and awakens 
their souls, wants to go there. We pass through 
Hayden Valley, we Texans would say, prairie, 
which reminds us of our beautiful plains and 
rolling prairies, and creates within many of us 
a longing for home, “away down south in Dixie.” 
Off to the left of our road, but in sight, is a 
peculiar freak in the windings of a creek which 
runs into the Yellowstone River, and which fur¬ 
nished the Northern Pacific Railroad their mono¬ 
gram. We stop at the upper falls, and are driven 
along the road next to the Canon walls up to 
Point Lookout, and such was the over-awing 
power of this mighty Canon, with its falls and 
peculiarly variegated walls, that you felt that 
you were in the very presence of the Almighty 
God of the Universe, so much so, that laughter 
and mirth, and the least semblance of levity were 
entirely absent from every one who viewed this 
awful scenic display. We are soon in camps. 
After supper we meet around the campfire, but 
do not pull off any extra entertainment as to¬ 
morrow is Sunday, and we have arranged for 
several religious services for that day. It is one 
of the customs of the Wylie Management to 
furnish its guests with the most delicious pop¬ 
corn each evening around the campfire. A special 
arrangement is made for popping the corn over 
a campfire, and it is served in abundance to all 
to Yellowstone Park—V. 
By G. S. WYATT 
the guests, who seem to enjoy it, from the quan¬ 
tity that is consumed, beyond measure. Sunday 
was to those who were religiously inclined a most 
delightful day. In the morning the Sunday- 
school lesson was studied, and at eleven o’clock 
we had a splendid sermon by Dr. H. A. Boaz, 
vice-president of Southern Methodist University. 
The afternoon was given to strolling over the 
Canon. In the evening we had an excellent ser¬ 
mon by Dr. H. D. Knickerbocker. No company 
of sightseers were ever treated with more cour¬ 
tesy and consideration than we were treated by 
the Wylie people. 
I wish that I could picture to you in an 
intelligent and clear way the wonderful and ma¬ 
jestic things our eyes were permitted to see in 
this exhibition of God’s almighty power, but as 
I look at it from this distance it seems to me a 
task that is absolutely impossible. I have not 
read a single effort to describe the wonders seen 
here, that in any wise uses the name of the Great 
God, or in any wise refers the possibility of 
such majesty and awe to His All-powerful hand, 
save one lone reference in the otherwise magnifi¬ 
cent description of the Canon by Dr. Wayland 
Hoyt, which is found in the following statement: 
“As soon as you can stand it, go out on that 
jutting rock again and mark the sculpturing of 
God upon those vast and solemn walls.” How 
any man, much less a believer in the God of the 
Bible, can look upon Yellowstone Canon and not 
stand with head uncovered and heart bowed in 
the consciousness of its own littleness, as his 
thoughts are filled with the overmastering influ¬ 
ence and power of the God of nature as well as 
of grace, is more than I can divine. To every 
worshipful soul, God is here in the sweep of His 
awful majesty. You see Him in the rushing, 
foaming rapids that appear to swirl in maddening 
fury around the bowlders in midstream and those 
projecting into the waters from the mountain 
side; you see Him in the wild dash of the waters 
over the Upper Falls, painting upon their rough 
and turbulent bosom the variegated colors of 
green, until they dash themselves in roaring con¬ 
fusion on the rocks one hundred and thirty-two 
feet below, filling the Canon for many feet 
around and above with a most enchanting white 
mist, upon which God paints through the King 
of day, the colors of the beautiful rainbow; you 
see Him in the swift onward flow of the river, 
making ready for its plunge down a precipice 
as high again as Niagara to a depth of three 
hundred and sixty feet, the great volume seem¬ 
ingly waiting a moment on the edge of the 
smooth level of rock over which it leaps, at a 
single bound, to the revolting, but ever-attractive 
gorge below, one unbroken body of charming 
silver foam, where, again, you see all the colors 
that you beheld with such delight at the Upper 
Falls; you see Him in the midst of the gloom of 
the awful Canon into which the river has leaped, 
flowing on now through the appalling depth ap¬ 
parently dwindled to a silver thread, as you 
view it from Point Lookout, or Artist Point, 
or Inspiration Point, one thousand five hundred 
feet above, its walls, almost perpendicular, so 
marvelously marked by the handiwork of God, 
by whatever means He used, in painting upon 
their vast and solemn faces such a variety of 
colors—orange, yellow, green, brown, crimson, 
gray—a perfect wilderness of color, enclosing be¬ 
tween its walls types of the castles of the Middle 
Ages, domes and pinnacles of solid rock, and 
towering crags on which the eagles build their 
nests and raise their young, as you look upon 
the waters at the bottom of the yawning abyss, 
whose beating, foaming rush you cannot hear, 
the very silence, still as the midnight, “profound 
as death,” impresses you with the awfulness of 
the God of all creation, and your soul cries out, 
“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven 
and EARTH are full of Thy glory. Glory be 
to Thee, O Lord most high.” “Great and mar¬ 
velous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty.” 
With Moses before the burning bush, you feel 
like taking off your shoes for the ground whereon 
you walk is holy. 
But to appreciate these magnificent scenes you 
must see them, for as you look upon them you 
understand the fact that it is beyond the power of 
any tongue or pen to describe them; as high as 
the heaven is above the earth you will feel that 
the possibility of description is beyond you. After 
you have used every descriptive adjective at your 
command in an effort at description of this great¬ 
est scene on the American Continent, you will 
feel that it is an insignificant and tame attempt. 
Every American should see to it that he looks 
upon this masterpiece of nature’s scenery. If it 
is ever again possible for me to take a trip to 
Yellowstone Park, and I find that I can spend but 
seven days in the Park, I intend to spend five of 
them observing and studying Yellowstone Canon. 
Early Monday morning we are in a bustle 
and hustle to get ourselves ready for the trip to 
Swan Lake. The first thing that strikes you in 
a very peculiarly impressive way is Roaring 
Mountain, beneath the surface of which, judging 
from the countless steam vents here and there 
over its desolate and barren sides, is a seething, 
hissing, boiling lake of hot water, while at its 
base near the roadside are greenish, milky pools, 
supplied by streamlets of sulphur water from the 
springs. With our boyish curiosity running high, 
Porter. Creed and I, daring but full of fear, 
determined to explore the sides of this appalling 
mountain. When about fifty, or one hundred, 
feet up its side our ears caught in a very dis¬ 
tressing way the muffled sounds of escaping 
steam. We stopped! Listened! Gently tapped 
the formation beneath our feet! The intonation, 
that quickened the movement of our hearts, was 
like that of a fathomless cavern right under us! 
White in the face, trembling in every nerve, 
hearts playing ragtime, we said to one another, 
in pious tones, “We had better go down!” And 
down we went, with precipitous haste. Let this 
be said: “The person, who has ever looked upon 
Roaring Mountain, with its multitudinous steam 
escapes, and heard the deep-toned, cavernous 
sounds that fall upon the ear as the heel lightly 
taps its rocky surface, will never forget it; its 
gloomy face, its steam and smoke-covered sides, 
its ghostly sounds are memories that linger.” 
Obsidian Cliff is the next object to attract at¬ 
tention. The road passes along its base for some 
thousand or more feet, while the cliff rises some 
two hundred and fifty feet above the road, and 
illumined by the sun’s .rays it presents a glassy,, 
mirror-like appearance. We are now at Apolli- 
naris Spring, where we refresh ourselves, “with¬ 
out money and without price,” with a drink of 
as pure and refreshing Apollinaris water as the 
genuine article of commerce. In a short time we 
are at Swan Lake, where we are to refresh the 
physical man at a splendid luncheon before mak¬ 
ing a trip to Mammoth Hot Springs in the after’ 
