Yellowstone (part 2) - New Air
/Joking of course. There’s no way I was going to scale any of these mountains. The sheer elevation from ground to even the next ridge is enough to knock you backward, and then you add in the thinning air. If you’ve never left your home this could be a concept you may not be intimately familiar with outside of a textbook- but- the thin air you experience at elevations is… Frustrating? You know how breathing works, you huff and puff and eventually you recover, but at elevations you just don’t, not really anyway. You basically end up getting used to breathing, less. I WILL however, gladly take a ski-lift up and have mild panic attacks as I feel my breath get ever so shallow at a slow pace!
And just look at the views! Sidenote- everywhere we go we meet people that are from where we are from. When we lived in Maryland, we would always find people from Maryland. Now, as an Ohio’n, we go to the nearest brewery in Bozeman and met the bartender who was from the Dayton area! Now I know this started as a tangent, but I think it’s become very relevant to this tale- travel is so worth it. Each new direction will put you in front of new experiences and sometimes unexpectedly, familiar faces or personalities. There’s no reason why I met a person from my hometown who then worked at the Coca-Cola factory in downtown Atlanta, but I did! And you come away with these small encounters with insight and stories about people and about their travels and suddenly the world begins to feel more comfortable than it did when you stepped foot in a place you have never been before. Those kinds of connections, for me at least, become invaluable to your time away and for nothing else end up enriching your life experiences. I’m talkin’ core memories kinda stuff. I remember and forget so many things but those “enriched” experiences somehow always stick with me in the most positive ways and sometime down the road you can stop and look back at a photo or trigger a memory and think “man we were really out there, living.” I also find it to be a fun way to track (time) in your life, you know. Like where were you on 9/9/1999, because I was in a line rushing to get to the cashier with my copy of Final Fantasy 8, and also the Dreamcast debuted on that same day!!! Obviously! …That’s specific and I’m cataloging myself as an older gamer but you get what I mean.
Since arriving we’ve had great beer, took a nice drive through Big Sky Resort and started our way up the dried slopes to take in the sights. We were also told that the lift would be closing soon and the only way down after that would be to mountain bike or walk down and we were all out of mountain bikes… And we left the bear spray in the car… And I didn’t change into my hiking boots… You know what, this was risky-biscuits, I’m not gonna lie.
(And with that thought playing in the background of my brain I proceed to take the most swift but precise photos as I can without tools because you’re not about to catch me slipping, wildlife).
The landscape up top in Big Sky gives you a front row seat to the semi-experience of flying. You are really up there with the wind and the sun and though we came at a mild time in June it’s easy to imagine how gnarly it could be. Granted this is a resort where nature is manicured and maintained to a degree, but the scale and blunt power of nature doesn’t speak the Queen’s English… She is THE Queen and she don’t care. She will steamroll you. And this was one of those sobering moments illustrated for you to witness. She always welcomes you sure, but you WILL play by the rules or be made to bend the knee. And for those coming to stop in and give a quick salute, you can immediately reap the benefits. There is plenty to admire!
I am not the biggest car enthusiast, but when you see a supercar rolling up and down the mountain roads it catches your attention. It’s just too bad that we positioned our way ahead of a Ferrari up the mountain in a tiny Mitsubishi rental that struggled to hit 40 on an incline. Sorry guy, but you rolled the dice and these roads are balance beams on the side of a cliff face. Go’on an’ power down that engine and enjoy a little scoot-scoot.
We had our fun and took as much time to soak up the panoramic scene as we could, scouting a massive zip-line, endless mountain bike options down the dry ski-slopes, the gigantic lodge and just as we exit the building an entourage of supercar rentals begin their trip back! I hadn’t thought this was even an option but it sure was an interesting sight and added some unexpected flavor just then. It’s not a flavor I’m keen to ever pay for but hey, I’m good with the eye candy. I’ve photographed exotic cars many gigs ago, and I’ll just say these elevated roads wouldn’t give me the greatest confidence with such a machine haha. But good on ya’ if you like it.
As we started off again, I snapped this photo of an Abstract work made of wire. You never know what kind of art will speak to you but it’s always worth the look and although this was placed a little out of the way in the Lodge, it still grabbed my attention in a major way. It’s especially simple, but an extremely accurate representation of everything we had just witnessed at the top of the mountain. It is- in the end- just squiggles and a white canvas. But it’s also the mountains, the valley, boulders, the thin shale slabs resting at the peak where we walked, elevation, cold, winter, calm. For just squiggles- it’s still moving the wheels in my mind… Did the Resort honor this piece as much as I was in this moment or did they simply throw it in to fill space? Would I be offended by its placement if I was the artist? Who was the artist of where did this come from? For how plain it may seem, it is how they say “worth a thousand words,” still. And having never been to the towns we would soon explore; I didn’t yet know how much this was foreshadowing.
The sun was high and we still had a ways to go but soon found ourselves in yet another kind of scene. Stone faces and elevations would come and go, dwarfing you (and your vehicle) as we slid past their towering frames. All the while the draw distance ahead of you would clue you in to how far and how large the mountains ahead of you actually are. Each peak more and more washed over with the blue of the sky, the color of those evergreens and warm colored stone slowly fade with each layer giving way to the big sky. It’s like it slowly swallows the land. Depending on where you live you can see this effect anytime you want, and I have even in other states we’ve traveled to, but it doesn’t make it any less impressive. Soon enough we bounded into the northwestern outskirts of Yellowstone National Park and into West Yellowstone where we would spend the night. In the most positive of ways this town reminds me of parts of Alaska, its small and a little tourist-y, but it is its own character and that character is dripping with wild-west seasoning. I’m a Mid-Atlantic boy (shoutout the DMV), so this type of look is completely out of bounds in my brain, haha. My visual language by default is east coast & southern, so getting here strikes me in an awe-inspiring way. Wearing a cowboy hat where I’m from feels like a joke, here, it feels like it could be- in earnest- a necessity. It’s also definitely fashion, as I would later discover. It’s a shake-up but I am taking it in stride and people watching as I go- an easy way to get clued in on the people and the life of wherever you are.
In the meantime, we take a short break and plan our next route- my first steps into Yellowstone proper. Not before long we’re back in the car and it doesn’t take long to reach the Iconic Western Gate where we are immediately greeted by our first Yellowstone critter! (I just wanted to say that word).
We say goodbye to the thinning air and take in the evergreens, the landscape is morphing and I still have tons of battery left on my camera. I roll down the window as we creep slowly by- I press down on the shutter and grin-
