Yellowstone

 As a junior copywriter at Ogilvy, the most dismal assignment I was tasked with was to write a document for the media department, explaining at length the universally ignored "80/20 rule" which was the new big buzzword at the time. Quite why this had to be 60 pages long still baffles me because it could just as easily have been explained in one sentence. That is, 20% of your customers account for 80% of your profits.

A similar rule applies to Yellowstone Park, and this I learned from a friendly girl from Atlanta who was doing her summer job at the West Yellowstone branch of McDonald's, where I stylishly ordered a Sausage McMuffin w/egg, hash browns and McCappucino value-breakfast-to-go.

Adventurer. Mountaineer. Poet. Survivor. In 4-door saloon equipped with nothing more than climate control air-conditioning and power steering.

She explained the "98/2 rule", which states that 98% of visitors to Yellowstone only ever get to see 2% of the park. Munching on my food, I drove through the gates ($25 entry fee, valid one week). The place is truly gigantic but all the sights are clearly marked around the designated circuit on the foldable map you are given.

If you believe the Daily Mail, the super volcano that is Yellowstone has completed its 600,000 year hibernation and can be expected to wipe out North America any minute. Having been mezmerised by BBC's outstanding three-part documentary (which i hasten to add is my all-time favourite nature programme and MUST be viewed in HD), I was therefore eager to see as much of the park as possible.

First stop was the famous "Old Faithful" geyser. When i arrived, my heart sank as i drove past the Old Faithful Hotel, two Old Faithful restaurants (cafeterias) and a huge Old Faithful gift shop before reaching the Old Faithful hypermarket carpark. The geyser area was surrounded by a half-circle of aluminum benches, four rows deep and stretching roughly the length of a football pitch. Soon enough, the great geyser lived up to its name and delivered an almighty gush of volcanic steam, eight stories high, to a cacophony of nasal. "Gee, Hank, will ya look at that!". It certainly was impressive, more so than anything i saw in El Tatio. But before the show was over, the arrival of rain dispersed the crowds with the sort of chaos and anarchy you would associate with a natural disaster movie. I couldn't understand it. This was a wonder of nature performing its duty like a loyal workhorse only for these fair-weather tourists to abandon the scene and race for the hamburgers. It irked me mostly because I had a strong feeling this was the shape of things to come.

Rejoining the convoy of vehicles around the circuit, the next stop was Mammoth hot springs, where high concentrations of sulphur and the symbiosis of micro-organisms have over millions of years colored the rock yellow and green. There was a warning sign next to the spring that said 'Dont put your hand in the water' whose only purpose in life was to be disobeyed. The water was indeed boiling hot. Here I observed the worst of my own kind. A troop of Hong Kong tourists, noisy and embarassing, armed with the types of zoom lenses designed for observing Pluto, taking still shots of rock from two centimeters away. What, for the love of Christ, were they thinking? Who do they imagine will want to look at their photos? Nikon and Canon have much to answer for, because they are both to blame for the rise of this new breed of unsightly bazooka wielders.

Further up, at a waterfall, overhearing a thirty-something couple complaining about noisy children running amok with ice-cream and ruining the experience for everyone, I decided to join in with a rapture of agreement. "Yes, children should be banned from Yellowstone. Why aren't they at the waterslide park. They have no business here." Politely, the couple smiled and walked away.

Throughout the circuit, i tried every possible counter-argument to convince myself that i was enjoying myself, but it was futile. By 3pm there was no choice but to acknowledge that I was having a terrible time. Part of me wanted to abandon the car and just walk in the woods, never to be seen again. There were of course some good moments, like the herd of bison coming right up to my car (photo to come) and the solitary elk which didn't runaway but couldn't quite bring itself to look me in the eye. And speaking of bison, I did manage to strike a conversation with one of the uniformed rangers in the park. She told me the true story of a tourist who tried to get a reaction from the animal by throwing rocks at it, and duly did in the form of a face-changing, ribcage shattering mauling. That's the best story I've been told in a long time, i said to her.

These were joyous moments, and the park's own 'Grand Canyon' was quite spectacular, but this was not the Yellowstone that was so brilliantly captured by the BBC. You would have to live here in the depths of the wilderness for two years to see that kind of nature.

I apologize if this post seems like a rant. I had (and still have) too much respect for Yellowstone to let this experience spoil my image of it. Far from being saddened, i was elated by a rare moment of clarity. The girl at MacDonald's was spot on, although I would change the wording just a little. The 98% of Yellowstone tourists (myself included), DON'T DESERVE to see more than the 2% they get. Smiling again, I concocted a new plan, completed the tourist circuit, exited the gates, and drove south.