Golden Gate-entrace to picturesque ravine of "golden rocks"-Yellowstone Park, U.S.A.

Publication

Golden Gate-entrace to picturesque ravine of "golden rocks"-Yellowstone Park, U.S.A.

Description

You are looking back northeast along the road by which tourists come from the Park entrace and the Mammoth Hot Springs, three and a half miles away. The geyser basins and the lake are all farther up (south) behind you. The creek down there in the valley between the mountains flows away from you and joins the Gardiner River, a tributary of the Yellowstone. It is Terrace Mountain which rises in walls of solid rock at the left, 1,500 feet above the roadway; the partly wooded steeps at the right are the slopes of Mount Bunsen, named for the famous German scientist who originated the generally accepted theory about the cause of geyser action. The popular name of this mountain pass (it is sometimes called Kingman Pass comes from the yellow color of the rocks, on which there is a vigorous growth of golden moss. There are no railroad tracks within the Park limits-travel is altogether by coach, bicycle, or saddle-horse-so the "good-roads" problem is a serious one. Up to 1901 there was only an indifferent wooden bridge here where the full tide of travel has to pass; now that the Department of the Interior has spent $14,000 on a mile of difficult highway along here, building that substantial and beautiful viaduct, conditions are vastly improved. During the tourist season the road is sprinkled and kept in fine order. There are now nearly three hundred miles of good roads (exclusive of mere trails) within the Park limits, in the charge of Captain H. M. Chittenden of the Corps of Engineers, the author of the most complete book on Yellowstone history and scenery. That pillar standing up from the outermost edge of the road is "living" rock-a part of Terrace Mountain left standing when the roadway was blasted out. From Notes of Travel, No.13, copyright, 1904, by Underwood & Underwood.