Yellowstone History

I spent a bit of last week at Yellowstone National Park. I enjoyed my trip last year so much that I came home and made reservations to go back again this year. I'm glad I did as it was a very relaxing and worthwhile trip. If you have the opportunity to go, I highly recommend it.

One thing we were able to do this year was take the Uncle Tom's trail down to the bottom of Lower Yellowstone Falls. Last year it was closed and we were not able to experience it and so we were happy to do it this year. To call it a trail is rather generous; it is more like a really long staircase. It is 328 steps to be exact. Naturally going down is rather easy. The climb back up isn't.

My wife, daughter, and I happily descended the stairs and got some spectacular pictures of the falls before sitting a bit to get up the energy to climb back up. As I was climbing the steel-grated stairs, I wondered about the story as to who first created this trail. I could peer through the steps and see that there were several stairs chiseled out of the rock underneath them. All I could think of was how scary the original trail must have been.

I got back to my hotel room later that night and did a search to see if I could find out more about the history behind the trail. "Uncle Tom" was actually a real person who built the trail and would guide visitors to the bottom after ferrying them across the river, feed them lunch, and then bring them back up. The cost of the trip was just $1 and I imagine he made a pretty good living doing it until a bridge eliminated the need for the ferry.

Uncle Tom's trail is something of a marvel to me. I imagine all of the hard work that went into building the original trail and am amazed. I am further amazed by the new staircase that was built by the National Park Service. The maintenance required to keep the trail open is also astounding and I am glad I was able to use it this year. I am thankful that there are a number of resources I could use on the Internet to find out its history.