Original subtitles

- They didn't expect to see what they saw

and when they saw it,

they could never forget it.

Ferdinand Hayden was hired to lead a team

into the Northwest Territories.

And the 32 men headed west.

They weren't here to protect Yellowstone.

They were here to tear it to shreds

in the name of progress,

gold interests, railroad barons,

Congress.

Powerful people wanted this land for themselves.

But something happened during their three month journey

and slowly but surely,

their mission changed.

So as we celebrate the 150th anniversary

of Yellowstone National Park,

we take a look back in time

and at the events that led to the preservation

of this magical place.

I was hoping to get a look at some wolves this morning.

- No. You?

- Ah.

Well, I better say something brilliant then, huh?

Wolves or no wolves,

it's still a pretty nice way to spend the morning.

It's quiet.

It gives you time to think.

- I spent a lot of time thinking about

what Hayden and his men did here,

what they experienced.

But they actually weren't the first outsiders

to lay eyes on Yellowstone.

A man named John Colter beat them by 65 years.

Colter grew up in Kentucky

which in the late 1700s was the western frontier of the US.

So when Lewis and Clark needed a few good men

for their western expedition,

they went straight to Kentucky knowing that that's

where the most rugged of the rugged live.

It must have been the way Colter looked

or the way he shook a hand that inspired confidence.

But they signed him on

and for the next 28 months,

they explored the west together.

You could fill a few volumes

with the stories from that trip,

but it was only a chapter for Colter.

When the expedition was over,

the group headed back to St. Louis to debrief

on everything they discovered.

That's when a chance meeting changed history.

A few days out from St. Louis,

they ran into a group of fur traders

who had a dilemma.

They wanted to set up a fur trade with the Crow Nation.

But the Crows had already returned to their winter camps,

territory where no outsiders had ever set foot.

After more than two years in the wilderness,

Colter had a decision to make:

a warm bed in St. Louis or the cold unknown.

Some creatures just aren't built for captivity.

So Colter asked Lewis and Clark

for an early dismissal, unheard of.

They said he'd been so crucial to the expedition's success

that they had no choice but to set him free.

America's first mountain man was released into the wild.

He spent the next three years

canoeing the rivers and traversing the peaks.

He made trade deals with the Crow

and faced certain death when he came upon hundreds

of Blackfeet warriors

just outside Yellowstone's borders.

After the trapper he was traveling with was dismembered

right in front of him,

Colter was stripped naked and told to run.

It was a chance for the young Blackfeet

to prove their manhood by killing Colter.

So he ran.

Feet caked in blood

and lungs drowned in fluid,

he managed to stay ahead of the warriors for 21 days.

Ironically, the very animal

whose fur he sought saved his life.

He managed to elude the young Blackfeet

by hiding inside a beaver dam.

When he arrived at Fort Manuel days later,

he told the incredible story

and a few others.

He told tales of exploding geysers,

bubbling mud pots,

rainbow-colored pools.

No one believed him.

They said he'd lost his mind or called him a drunk.

It became a joke

as people sardonically labeled this place, "Colter's Hell."

Colter never got the last laugh.

He died five years later,

long before the rest of the country would come

to know that Yellowstone region was very much a real place.

I guess the last laugh was Colter's

getting to see Yellowstone with his own eyes,

at least I hope so.

Okay, here we go.

This is going to get good.

The people who question what John Colter saw

may have referred to it as Colter's Hell,

but in reality

it was sacred ground.

According to their oral history,

the Kiowa people didn't have a home land

when the earth first was created.

Instead, they had to earn one.

Their god told them to travel to a harsh, unforgiving land

where water boils out of a thundering cave

and if anyone was brave enough to jump into the water,

the land would be theirs.

One young man did.

And when he climbed back out,

the land around them had turned lush and beautiful.

The Kiowa called the hot spring "To-sal-dau".

Today it's known as Dragon's Mouth.

Hidden deep inside its cave

gas and steam form pressure bubbles

that explode against the cave's roof.

When they pop, the sound echoes out

like the growl of a beast.

Steam drifting upwards like the hot breath of a dragon.

Dragon's Mouth and other remarkable sights and sounds

of Yellowstone had been experienced

only by Indigenous tribes

until John Colter arrived in the area,

the first outsider to see them.

Soon others would follow.

America was growing in the 1800s.

Westward expansion was on the march.

Gold strikes sent people past the Mississippi River

into uncharted territory where there was plenty of land

but not enough railroads.

So in 1853,

Congress passed the Pacific Railroad Survey Bill.

They wanted to chart the west

and find potential railroad routes

from the Mississippi River

to the Pacific Ocean.

The best and brightest scientific minds

jumped onto the project.

One of them was a geologist named Ferdinand Hayden

who in 1871 set his sights on the Yellowstone region.

No one had mapped the area

he had heard so many seemingly tall tales about.

Hayden wanted to be the first to do it.

He assembled a 32-man dream team made up of geologists,

mineralogists, botanists, and zoologists.

He also brought along a photographer

and a painter to memorialize their findings.

It took 27 horses,

21 mules, and five wagons to transport Hayden,

the 31 men who joined him,

and their gear across the country.

Two journals that were kept during the trip

and 10 letters sent by Hayden himself lasted through time,

providing us with vivid insight

into the team's historic journey.

They traveled for days

through jagged canyons

and lush valleys.

And on July 21st, 1871,

they finally entered Yellowstone itself.

And soon after

they arrived at the spot that immediately let them know

Colter's Hell was very real.

A giant complex of hot springs on a mountain of travertine.

Mammoth Hot Springs was created over thousands of years

from cooling water spouted from below.

Over two tons of calcium carbonate flows into Mammoth daily.

And its Terrace Mountain is the largest

of its kind on earth.

The photographers on the expedition had a field day here

and still today,

it's one of the most photographed places

in all of Yellowstone.

Hayden's men camped nearby

and studied the feature for two days.

They met two squatters who had big plans

to cash in on the unique geology.

JC McCartney and HR Horr

had laid claim to 320 acres

and established a ranch and bathhouse near Liberty Cap.

They planned to market the water as having healing powers.

Hayden knew they would destroy the area,

but he didn't know how he would stop them.

For that plan to solidify,

they had to push deeper into the strange land,

see what else it had to offer.

They continued their march into the pristine valleys.

Instantly, they were floored by the abundance of wildlife,

particularly the massive population of elk.

The elk herds are a stunning sight for the tourists today.

But to Hayden's men,

they were a steady source of food.

Long days of trekking over difficult terrain

had the men thinking with their stomachs often

even when they encountered the park's most feared predators.

Hunting is strictly prohibited in Yellowstone today,

but it takes a lot of food to keep 32 hungry men motivated.

And even grizzly bear was on their menu.

The pioneers had to eat and they had to sleep,

making their camps at night in canvas tents

hoping for a good night's rest.

But in the wilderness, sleeping isn't always easy.

Boy, am I glad I chose to set my tent right under a tree

that houses the loudest owl

in the continental United States.

And always, always bring earplugs when you go camping.

That's a tip I wish I'd remembered.

I was doing some reading

before I got my 17 minutes of sleep.

This is Albert Peale's journal.

He was a mineralogist on expedition with Hayden.

"This morning about one o'clock we had quite an earthquake.

"The first shock lasted about 20 seconds

"and was followed by five or six shorter ones.

"Duncan who was on guard says that the trees were shaking

"and that the horses that were lying down

"sprang to their feet."

I've been through my fair share of earthquakes,

but one that lasts 20 seconds,

that's a big one.

I can't imagine anyone going back to sleep after that.

That was the first recorded earthquake in Yellowstone.

Now we know there are as many as 3,000 a year.

Some small,

some massive

like the one in 1951.

It was so strong

that a 25-mile long section of the park was pushed up

40 feet in elevation in just a few seconds.

At a magnitude of 7.3,

it is Yellowstone's strongest earthquake

at least on record.

Evidence of its destruction can still be seen today

at Quake Lake.

A 170-foot deep body of water that formed

when a crumbling mountain tumbled

into the nearby Madison River.

Today, legions of ghost trees dot the lake.

A stark reminder of

how quickly the face of Yellowstone can change.

Earthquakes, underground volcanoes,

entire mountains rising and falling,

and here I am getting rattled by an owl.

Despite the sleep deprivation

the team continued on their mission.

And on July 25th, they reached another stunning site:

Tower Falls.

A 132-foot drop

flanked on either side by eroded pillars of volcanic rock.

Two days later they reached the Upper Falls

of the Yellowstone River.

Teetering over a 109-foot drop,

the precipice of Upper Falls marks

a dramatic geological shift in the Yellowstone riverbed.

It's where hardened, water-resistant lava flows

give way to softer rock,

a boundary set by volcanic eruption over 450,000 years ago.

Hayden's team was humbled by the spectacle in front of them.

But waterfalls were not what they were seeking.

They were looking for the source

of the mighty Yellowstone River.

And six miles upstream,

they found what they were after.

On July 28, they arrived at Yellowstone Lake.

At 7,732 feet above sea level

and covering 136 square miles,

it is the largest body of water in Yellowstone.

In late July, Hayden and his men set up camp by the lake.

They could see the islands in the distance,

but they didn't have a boat.

When you're an explorer, your job is to explore.

You don't have something you need, build it.

You don't know how,

you better figure it out pretty quick.

And that's what they did.

They used a fallen pine

as the base

and carved oars out of branches.

Then they rigged up one

of their blankets as a sail and named her Annie.

They placed Annie in the lake

and crossed their fingers that she'd hold.

It's the true spirit of an explorer,

figuring things out on the fly,

forging ahead with no safety net,

no guarantee of success.

When I was younger,

I wanted so much to be on a lake by myself

going somewhere

that between the ages of 7 and 18

I built three different canoes,

and they all looked horrible.

They were all handmade.

But I took the last one I built down some of the rivers

that Lewis and Clark went down,

because it just spoke to me out loud.

I was determined to be out there.

To experience the kind of thrill

Hayden and his men must have felt,

just get in a boat and go.

What Hayden found as they sailed the Annie

was an island they described as a jungle

full of wild game.

Want to know the best part about being an explorer?

You get to name things after yourself.

Jim Stevenson was the first one off the boat,

so naturally they named it Stevenson's Island.

Hayden raved about their discovery

in a letter to the Smithsonian.

With a seaworthy boat at his disposal,

Hayden wanted to explore and map the entire lake.

The team sailed the Annie to six other islands

naming each one after themselves or family members.

After they finished mapping the lake,

Hayden and his team pushed deeper into the strange land.

They continued their mission

of mapping a potential route for the railroad

and collecting geological samples,

some of which gave the team a sense that even John Colter

was not the first to come here,

not by a long shot.

One of the geological samples that Hayden collected was

an insanely sharp hunk of geological glass called obsidian.

That's what these spearpoints are made from.

I can touch these, right?

- [Staff Member] Yeah.

- Obsidian was used by ancient peoples as weapons,

because it can be made to be sharper than any modern razor.

This one was found in New Mexico,

and this one was found in Utah.

And this one,

this one was discovered in Ohio

1,800 miles from here.

You know what all these have in common?

They all came from a single outcrop of obsidian

that's right here in Yellowstone.

Obsidian is formed when lava reaches the surface

and cools rapidly.

It usually breaks apart during this process,

which is why it's typically found in small fragments.

But Obsidian Cliff in northwest Yellowstone

is a 200-foot tall outcrop of pure obsidian.

It's a geological anomaly,

and the mother lode for hunter-gatherers

in need of some new spears.

Some of these spearpoints are 11,000 years old.

Think about that.

11,000 years before Hayden was even born

Indigenous Americans were using this land.

I try to picture it, try to imagine

what the first Indigenous people must have thought

when they arrived here thousands of years ago.

Bison as far as the eye can see.

Wooly mammoths.

The earth rising, breathing.

All the obsidian you could carry.

Pretty cool.

The wooly mammoths are gone

and roads and boardwalks have been built.

But in so many ways,

Yellowstone is very much the same place that it was

when the first humans found it 11,000 years ago.

That's because at some point in August of 1871,

Hayden and the 31 other men that followed him

started to realize their mission to exploit the region

was the wrong path.

The samples they were collecting would have a new purpose,

documentation of a one of a kind place

that needed to be preserved.

They filled 45 large boxes with

over a thousand specimens of minerals,

plants, and animal pelts.

They shipped them off to the Smithsonian

to be organized and cataloged.

Hayden was starting to build a case

to convince the powers that be.

On August 28, Hayden posted a field report

announcing the completion of his survey.

They'd finished their journey into Colter's Hell,

conquered the terrain,

and scientifically studied every inch

of the Upper Yellowstone.

But Hayden knew his greatest work was still ahead of him.

He had to convince Congress

and even the President of the United States

to do something that no one anywhere

in the world had ever done before:

protect a huge piece of land.

Preserve it for future generations.

Don't let them mine.

Don't let them build.

Just let it be.

The phrase "a picture is worth a thousand words"

wasn't unleashed into the ether until the 1920s.

But I think Hayden knew what it meant long before that.

He knew that all the words in the report

that he was planning to present

to Congress were just that, words.

So as he made his pitch to preserve Yellowstone,

he saturated members of Congress

with the photographs that William Henry Jackson had taken,

watercolors that Thomas Moran had painted.

Suddenly, Colter's Hell wasn't just the work

of one mountain man's imagination.

It was all very real.

And enough members of Congress

and the Senate saw the beauty in this place

to pass the Yellowstone Park Bill

in record time.

It was signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant

on March 1st, 1872,

and the planet's first national park was created.

Today, about 4 million people visit Yellowstone each year.

And in the 150 years

since Hayden did what he did,

422 more parks have been created in the US

spanning 84 million acres of pristine land.

Countries all over the world

looked at what was done here and thought,

"Hey, that's a pretty good idea."

There are now 4,000 national parks worldwide.

15% of the earth's land

and 10% of the waters are protected.

The National Park Service has been deemed

America's best idea,

but really

it seems like the world's best idea.

I think we'd all like to dream

that we can leave the world a better place than we found it.

This is the story of some people who did.