Lost in My Own Backyard
by Tim Cahill
Overview
From the Publisher
"Lost in My Own Backyard brings author Tim Cahill together with one of his - and America's - favorite destinations: Yellowstone, the world's first national park." Cahill stumbles from glacier to geyser, encounters wildlife (some of it, like bisons, weighing in the neighborhood of a ton), muses on the microbiology of thermal pools, gets spooked in the mysterious Hoodoos, sees moonbows arcing across waterfalls at midnight, and generally has a fine old time walking several hundred miles while contemplating the concept and value of wilderness.
My thoughts
My first impression of this book wasn't necessarily a good one, but I had just come off of reading Stargazing: Memoirs of a Young Lighthouse Keeper -- an excellent book written by a terrific author. I finished it in bed one night and immediately picked up Lost in My Own Backyard. Going from one book to the next, I was disappointed from the start. The writing styles were SO different. I'd compare Tim Cahill to Bill Bryson in writing with a sense of humor. Unfortunately there were a lot of details that were missing that I wish had been there.
Let me start by saying that I LOVE Yellowstone National Park. I haven't been there for years, but the first time I saw it I fell in love with it, and the following year I spent two weeks in Yellowstone and the Tetons. I remember walking the trails with tears in my eyes, feeling so fortunate to have seen the kind of beauty I was seeing. It was amazing. I didn't know I loved nature until I visited Yellowstone. Nothing has been the same since. I notice wildflowers. I notice wildlife. I listen, and I smell, and I touch when I'm "in the wild" now. My senses come alive!
Tim Cahill did an alright job with his stories of Yellowstone but I don't think he captured the magic of the National Park. Maybe you can't really. Maybe you have to experience it. In any case, the book is worth reading, but really, you should just book the trip to the park and see it for yourself! :-)
Favorite Passage
About four in the afternoon he spotted a grizzly feeding on the carcass of an adult bison. At sunset it began assiduously digging a hole. The muscular hump on the grizzly's back powered this steam-shovel action of its front legs. It took very little time -- a matter of minutes -- for the bear to bury the bison and cover it over with loose dirt. Tom knew his bear would dig the bison up the next day and feed again.
That night he asked me if I wanted to go back up to the park to watch this culinary whoop-dee-do. I did, I really wanted to see it, but bears scare me badly, and I didn't sleep at all that night. Not a wink...Tom and I walked toward this bear...we walked five miles, at a guess...then dropped and belly-crawled the last few hundred yards...our only cover was a stand of sagebrush, maybe two and a half feet high. We hid there, upwind of the bear below, and I trembled in my parka.
In this bear pit was a hole that looked like a big freshly dug grave. At sunrise the bear, which had been sleeping nearby, dug into the grave for a while, reached down, and with one paw -- one paw! -- flipped the bison up out of the hole and dropped it beside the grave. The carcass had to weigh well over a thousand pounds...Our griz ate for hours: he ate until his stomach became visibly distended. At about noon, in the heat of the day, he climbed into the empty grave, which must have been cooler, and took a nap.
Because I'd spent an entirely sleepless night, slumber beckoned...I myself fell asleep no more than 200 yards from a grizzly bear.
