MUDSLIDE!

Before I left my office I heard the news. Drenching rains had caused a mudslide on Highway 89, the only direct route to the towns of Livingston and Bozeman from Mammoth Hot Springs near the North Entrance of the Park and the only direct route to the North Entrance of the Park.  In essence, unless you were willing to spend four hours driving down to West Yellowstone for the purpose of coming into or out of Mammoth, we were stranded.

Many of my full-time coworkers live in Gardiner or further north along Highway 89 all the way up to Livingston, about 40 minutes to the north of the Park. The mudslide was between 8 and 9 miles north of Gardiner, literally blocking off the way home to those who live in the tiny communities of Emigrant, Pine Creek, and Pray and the larger town of Livingston, about 40 minutes to the north.  Like the residents, the many visitors leaving Yellowstone for points further north were also stranded. A dorm mate came back late from Gardiner telling of long, long lines in restaurants and bars as everyone waited out the dig-out.

On the other side of the obstruction, campers and visitors to Yellowstone were prevented from getting to their long-held reservations in Gardiner, Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel or points further south. Some of these visitors found housing in Livingston, but Livingston was having troubles of its own with residents reporting nearly three inches of water gushing from the skies in a little over an hour. Many visitors cancelled reservations in Gardiner which others, with the tide of folks leaving the Park for points further to the north and now stranded in a town with not enough hotels for the size of the horde, immediately claimed as they settled in for what could be a long night before access was restored and their vacations could continue.

The slide occurred when rain water, rushing through the watercourses of the Absaroka-Beartooth Mountains, gathered silt and boulders in a moving mass of mud, depositing tons of debris on the near side of the 2-lane road and then well over into the farside lane.  Upon hearing of the slide, we all assumed the slide must have occurred in Yankee Jim Canyon with steep cliff-like hillsides leading up to Dome and Sheep Mountains as well as Monitor Peak further to the east. But the slide occurred in a wider section of the valley, south of East River Road, a reliable, paved road that carries traffic from the junction near Point of Rocks Ranch back to Highway 89, just south of Livingston. Having occurred to the south of its junction with Highway 89, this minimum access country road was of no help to the stranded residents and visitors.

Locals who always know the ‘back way’ attempted to get past the giant obstruction by taking a 4-wheel road named Old Yellowstone Road up from the recreation area Carbella but the heavy rains in the valley made the 1-lane mountain-side dirt road slippery and incredibly dangerous. Authorities closed this road, too, as cars became stuck in the deepening mud. With all routes closed, access north was possible only when the mound of debris could be lifted off Highway 89 by a loader or bulldozer and moved off the road.

So the locals did what locals in most rural communities do. Visited friends, shopped a little, ate dinner in a local eatery, hung out at the Two Bit Saloon or one of a dozen other bars in Gardiner, flooding tiny Gardiner while waiting it out. Many of the visitors did the same, while others decided to make ‘camp’ at the lone rest area along the highway.

The Yellowstone pace is catching after awhile. Perhaps some of those visitors were irritated by the wait but after you’ve spent twenty minutes waiting for a bull elk to get out of the road and been completely fascinated by the fact this is happening to you, right in front you!, your heart opens to possibilities and your watch starts ticking a little slower.

This part of Montana is very much a rural environment. Everybody knows everybody. As the slide area was being discussed by the locals at the office, I heard one locate it by announcing that it was right across the road from Joe’s house. Because everyone knows everyone, many of the locals had choices not available to the visitors. Since several of the residents live in Livingston and others shop at the stores there, there were families that ‘traded houses’ for the night, the Gardiner family staying in the home of a stranded Livingston resident while the Livingston resident stayed in the home of the stranded Gardiner resident. That’s what can happen in small towns with little crime where you can leave your key under your doormat.

Today, the road was clear but greasy and life returned to normal. But the weather and the landscape here in Yellowstone and the Yellowstone area is always headline news here – if there were newspapers and television stations. People constantly keep their eyes on the horizons, watching and moving with the rain, the snow, mudslides, animal obstructions…and they take it not only in stride but I’m convinced they kind of like it. Way more interesting than waiting four stoplights at an intersection. I like it too. The pace is slower; people don’t get their knickers in a twist if something prohibits them from doing what they expected to do. And their friends, family and employers also expect plans to change at the last minute. That is what happens in an area that is largely wilderness dotted with towns that are so tucked into the landscape they look like they are only here because Mother Nature granted them the license.

In my blog, I keep coming back to the different pace here at Yellowstone. I think it’s a more natural pace. It’s not that my coworkers and I don’t work very hard, we do. But when Mother Nature gets ready to throw the next ball in, the residents here, myself included, drop what we are doing, put on our cashier’s mitts and get ready for the game.