Yellowstones and Salt Lakes

I may have been a bit premature when I called my last post 'Leaving the Mountains', and happily forecast warmer and drier climes.

Yellowstone National Park, it turned out, was still very much in the mountains, cold and rainy. But still somehow completely different to the Canadian Rockies.
For me, the highlight of Yellowstone was the bison. Bison were hunted to near extinction in the 19th century, but some herds (somewhere - I couldn't find out where) survived. The same thing went for wolves. In 1997, both were reintroduced to Yellowstone, and are thriving populations today. I knew this, but you never know the true meaning of the word thriving in these contexts, so I still wasn't sure whether we'd actually see any of these creatures.

However a bison weighs around 2000lbs (don't get me started on the imperial system - that's about 900kg), and that makes it difficult for them to hide - and sure enough, on our first morning driving around around the park, two bison came trotting around the corner in front of us. I think they were actually running away from the car behind them, but the road was at a narrow point, so they had nowhere to go.

For our first two or three bison sightings Kate and I couldn't understand why nobody else was stopping to gape at these incredible animals. By the time we'd seen a herd of a hundred of them grazing beside a campsite, we weren't stopping anymore either. I'll need to delete about 400 excess bison photos from my cameras.

The glut of bison also got me thinking about the strange criteria that make for an exciting animal sighting. The bison are so numerous that they don't even stop traffic anymore, as are the elk - unless there are young involved. Moose will still draw a few glances, even without calves. Mountain goats are a favourite for many Americans, which is odd, because mountain goats live on impossibly steep cliff faces, and you never get within 500 metres of one. Yet where ever there is a mountain goat, there will be an RV pulled over to the side of the road, its owners eagerly staring through huge binoculars. To me, that seems less interesting than seeing them on TV.
One of the star attractions in Yellowstone is a big-horn sheep. The one big horn sheep we saw caused a scene on the road, with 20 or more cars and campers pulled over and eagerly snapping away. This time we couldn't understand it for the opposite reason - in Canada the sheep are everywhere, and you are told to be wary of them because they have ticks and won't leave a campsite if they manage to get some food. No one is interested in the sheep. But in Yellowstone they are rare, and their appearance causes a minor sensation. And that is the crux of the matter - the only thing that really gets people excited about animals is scarcity. If its rare, its exciting.
Its odd, because its not really related to the appearance of the animal at all. Even a sighting where you can't make out any detail at all (like the mountain goats) is something people get excited about. A bighorn sheep looks alot like a normal sheep, but with big horns. A moose and an elk are hard to tell apart at a distance. While I began to recognise this, I was certainly not immune to the trap. At one point I thought I saw a beaver, and was very pleased to have seen such a rare creature. If I hadn't returned to the same spot the next day and seen that the beaver hadn't moved, and was in fact a log sticking out of the water, I would have gone home completely satisfied that I'd seen a beaver. I might even have put a photo of it on facebook.

Two thing everyone agrees are is the excitement of seeing a bear, and that of seeing a cub / calf of any animal. So a bear cub is like the holy grail. On our last day in Yellowstone (shortly after watching the Germany v Australia game - good day?) - we found the holy grail. Found is the wrong word. It is hard to miss when there is a traffic jam that makes the Pacific Highway on a Friday afternoon look fast flowing. Usually there is some decorum as to where you pull over and leave the car, but for a bear cub, its all forgotten. He was cute though.

The other thing I liked about Yellowstone was that it must be one of the world's best examples of managing the balance between human use and conservation. It is a huge wilderness area that it would take about 5 hours to drive around. There is only one real road through the park, which forms two scenic loops - like a big figure eight. They have managed to keep the area healthy enough that they can reintroduce extinct species, and within a kilometre or two of walking you can be completely alone. Yet the park welcomes over 3 million visitors a year, and surely is the most important resource in Wyoming's economy.

From Yellowstone we headed further south, and we've now arrived in Salt Lake City, Utah. Still more mountains, but, finally, it has gotten warm. Yesterday was our first day in North America without rain, and today the temperature reached the 80s (Fahrenheit - the only thing more absurd that the imperial system - its about 25 degrees)

Salt Lake City is of course the home of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - or Mormons as we know them. We took a tour of the main Temple complex today. When I say we took a tour, we just walked into the complex before we were approached by Sisters Rathburger and Main. When I say Sister, you are probably picturing old nuns in the Catholic image. Not so - these sisters were around twenty, wearing normal clothes, on their year of service, which the church mandates for its members - and, at least for Sister Rathburger, well, lets just say it seemed a waste.

The sisters explained the basics of the Mormon theology and history to us. Basically, they are Christians, and believe all the same things about Jesus and God and the Bible. But they also believe that there is a third testament, to add to old and new, which is called the book of Mormon. As the book of Mormon tells it, after Jesus was resurrected, his apostles (new ones, I think) appeared in North America and began spreading his word amongst the native Americans, long before Europeans got there. The book of Mormon was passed down through about 1000 years of prophets (each to their son - it was a family thing) until it got to Moroni. Moroni didn't have a son, so he buried the book - apparently time for sharing the message was over. Many centuries later, in 1820, a boy named Joseph Smith was trying to decide which of the many churches in America he should join, and Moroni (now in Angel form) appeared to him, explained that the other churches had deviated from god, and showed him where the book was buried, and how to translate it.

Joseph held onto this knowledge for a while, but eventually completed his translation and shared it with the world. The church museum houses the manuscript of his original translation (no word on the whereabouts of the original book, I noticed). Whatever else you might say about Joseph Smith, he must have had charisma, because by 1840 or so, he had a few thousand followers, and they set out to create Zion - a community in harmony with God. However, religious persecution being all the rage in those days, the other churches soon drove the Mormons out of New York. At first they reached Illinois, but the persecution continued, and Joseph Smith was assassinated.

At that point, the Saints, as they call themselves, decided they needed to get right out of existing society, if they were ever to be able to worship in peace. Under the leadership of Brigham Young they marched thousands of miles, over several years, until they found a safe place - their journey eventually coming to and end at the great Salt Lake valley, where they founded this city.

The sisters offered to send me the book of Mormon. At first I thought getting the book might be the discreetest way out of this conversation, but when they made clear that some of their fellow missionaries would drop it round in person, I backpedalled. It took some serious convincing before they believed that I had no permanent address at the moment, and didn't know when I'd be back in Australia (which is actually true). I did curse myself afterwards for not having the presence of mind to give them the address and phone number of a friend in Sydney. I think Ben would have particularly enjoyed their visit.

You can think what you want about their beliefs - it seems to me that at least it partially addresses the staggering arrogance of the old world churches that believed Christianity applied to all people, including Native Americans, but God didn't bother to tell them until Columbus, Cortes and Pizarro arrived - but it certainly makes a good story, and the settlers that marched here from the East coast must have had a heck of a journey.

Today Salt Lake City is a standard, mid size city. Its in a nice location, with some great architecture, and few overt signs of the Mormon culture (apart from the temple in the middle of the city, which is no different to the cathedral in any other city). There seem to be a lot of misconceptions about Utah and Salt Lake City. Contrary to what I have heard, it is perfectly simple to get a drink, and in fact we had lunch in a bar today with about the biggest beer selection I've ever seen. Then there is the big misconception that it seems almost everyone has. About the only thing I knew about Mormons before I got here was that they practice polygamy. This is not true. The Mormons outlawed the practice of polygamy over a hundred years ago. Just goes to show that once you get a reputation, its hard to shake (like the German soccer team - see the world cup blog ;-))

As we've started covering some serious miles now, I've attached a link to a map of our journey so far. Click here to see where we've been.