The Boiling River | Yellowstone National Park
That day was sub-zero temps and never-ending slow falling snow, a reluctant rise in the small dark hours before dawn. Grumbled greetings to friends, and the trek begins. The drone of the diesel and the heater aims true, eyelids hang heavy, and the world slips from view. No need to keep your eyes on the road, it’s long been covered in snow. And the hands that hold the wheel drive by faith and not by sight, while the faithless sleep, giving up the fight.
You slide down snow shrouded banks to reach the icy river’s edge. Steam dances on a moving stage, and you dip an apprehensive fingertip to catch a mischievously warm drop from the current that flows at your feet.
You laugh at the absurdity of it all, balancing precariously on frozen toes and shivers race up your spine while you shed layer after layer to the swim suits hidden beneath.
Things are looking up now, you follow the other’s lead and into the water you go, kicking up stones. Heading upstream to where the boiling water runs right into the deep, a current of mercy where the boiling and freezing meet.
Thankfulness for soul stirring sights and sounds rises from your river-wrinkled skin, heavenward on a breeze right along with a cloud of steam.
Thankfulness for friends who push and prod you right out of town, to awaken you from your winter reverie thats got you down.
An hour and half later you climb from the cab, the morning sun comes early, blinding in all its glory. The cold shakes you awake, as you hike through the snow, winding between elk rising stiff and steaming from their beds. Herds of Buffalo as far as the eye can see, pay you no heed as you step beneath the Narnia-like trees.
You rinse the bed head from your hair, diving beneath the stream, and you can’t quite convince yourself it’s not a dream.
Hot chocolate in hand, the mountains playing hide and seek, and the world closes in snug like a long awaited hug. You marvel at the bald eagles and Canadian geese who glide and dip in and out of view.
Mysteriously hot water slips over your shoulders, and you feel the weight of an endless winter carried further downstream, and find you’re no longer dreaming of Spring.
When your heart lightens and tries to float right on up out of your chest that all this majesty exists; that you get to call home where horn, hoof and hide blur the snowy Montana/Wyoming divide.