The Flatlander's View

Paradise lost? Weeping for Yellowstone from afar

By Steve Moseley
Posted 6/30/22

Please let me join the legion of Yellowstone disciples to chime in on what has happened there. This brokenhearted old man must purge if he’s to recover emotionally.

I wonder if it’s …

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The Flatlander's View

Paradise lost? Weeping for Yellowstone from afar

Posted

Please let me join the legion of Yellowstone disciples to chime in on what has happened there. This brokenhearted old man must purge if he’s to recover emotionally.

I wonder if it’s not somehow worse, if that be possible, to process this catastrophe from afar — Nebraska, say — than from right down the hill in Park County. If seeing truly is believing then you may be up-close enough to eventually come to terms with the reality and destruction of this magic kingdom of nature, the only one like it on the entirety of our shared planet.

Not so for Good Wife Norma and me as we grapple with this tragedy from a distance.

More than seven years of Yellowstone explorations when we lived among you have just been made even more valuable to us. I would not have thought that possible.

One of the ongoing joys that remain for us of northwest Wyoming is helping the occasional Flatlander find extra, unexpected enjoyment from their own visits to paradise by applying our ‘local’ knowledge. A year does not go by that GWN and I don’t sit down in a local restaurant or around our own dining room table with folks who have come to us for guidance.

I keep a cache of marked maps and travel guides near-at-hand to send home with them, which we restock each time we return ourselves.

We advised Nebraska farmer friends on the how-to of visiting in deep winter. These grain producers, unburdened at last of an attendant lifelong cattle feeding operation, were free in winter for the first time and a rarin’ to embark on adventure. Having read a column about my buddies and me going on photo safaris to Yellowstone in December or January in my paper here, they decided to follow our lead. They came to our home where we coached them up and sent them away with marked maps, copious notes and pamphlets. They had a spectacular winter wonderland experience … as did those of us following their journey on Facebook.

This past year we helped with honeymoon plans to northwest Wyoming for two young couples. Same for a teacher, coach and fishing buddy’s multi-generational family journey.

I don’t know what to tell someone now. Our institutional knowledge is fractured. All bets are off, especially in terms of the upper loop, access to the Beartooth Highway, beloved Red Lodge (Red Box Car, Carbon County Steakhouse, Pollard Hotel, Grizzly Bar at Roscoe, et al) and so much more.

We all saw wildfires coming, but ravaging, mountain-scouring floods and landslides on this epic scale? Never.

Our own planned trip in September with another couple lies in suspended animation as we monitor developments. It may be salvageable yet, given a brighter future for the south loop. Plus, as you already know, Park County is surrounded by so much more than Yellowstone. There are amazing things to see and do in every direction from Powell. Perhaps we’ll remanufacture our expectations, spread our maps and forge a new grand plan.

We can and probably will pull together a wonderful trip, likely by injecting a lingering exploration of the Bighorns on the way out (via Sheridan) and back (via Buffalo). An added benefit of this itinerary is that it brings us back to Powell … twice.

It will not be the same; cannot be the same. But for now … sigh … it will have to suffice.

The Flatlander's View

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