At Yellowstone National Park’s West Entrance, the Ranger welcomes us with detailed maps and colorful pamphlets. “Yellowstone: Your Complete Guide to the Park” boasts that “Yellowstone contains more than two million acres of steaming geysers, crystalline lakes, thundering waterfalls, and panoramic vistas. Plus, 1000 species of native flowering plants, 67 mammals, and more than 320 bird species.”

 This is my idea of a wild welcome.

 One yellow flyer grabs my attention: “Warning: Many visitors have been gored by buffalo,” I read aloud. “Buffalo can weigh 2000 pounds and sprint at 30 miles per hour, three times faster than you can run. These animals may appear tame but are wild, unpredictable, and dangerous. Do not approach Buffalo.”

  I make a mental note: “Do NOT hug a buffalo.”  Suddenly the long line of cars entering the Park stops. Half a dozen massive buffalo emerge from the woods, surrounding our cars. They stand and stare in all directions, oblivious to the humans impatient to be on their way. Why should they care about our 70-mile drive to Lake Yellowstone Hotel? One huge fellow ambles next to our car window.

“Look at this giant wooly guy,” says Warren, rolling down his window. “He’s kinda friendly. Sharon, make a photo.”

 “Roll the window up before we’re gored to death,” I hiss. “Didn’t you hear what I just read?”

But face to face with the legendary creature emblazoned on millions of nickels, I can’t resist photographing this fiery-eyed, drooling, hairy beast. He looks like the ratty old brown blanket sprawled across our basement couch. That mesmerizing famous face: it projects power, tenacity, and a “Respect me or else” attitude that’s hypnotic. He’s actually is quite welcoming. In an Alpha Male kind of way.                               

 Sensing my thoughts, the bodacious beast snorts and tosses his horns high in the air for extra effect. He turns away, bored with us now. The herd melts back into the shadowy forest.

Welcome to Yellowstone National Park.                

Our Expert Guide

We settle into cozy cabins next to Lake Yellowstone Hotel and attend orientation for our exciting Yellowstone Association Institute course. Leading the four-day, “Essential Yellowstone” workshop is Julianne Baker.

“My love affair with Yellowstone began in 1991,” recalls Julianne. “I took three Yellowstone Association Institute courses and was hooked. Summers revolved around the Institute’s Wildflowers Llama trip into the Beartooth Mountains, where I volunteered as a backcountry cook. I wanted to stay in  Yellowstone forever.”

During the rest of the year, Julianne taught Outdoor Environmental Education to elementary school students in Michigan. She brought her students on an “Expedition Yellowstone” program to see bears, wolves and the world famous geysers.

“If you were to ask those kids what they remember, they’d tell you of the grizzly bear that we drove up on, as it looked in the windows of a Subaru. It ran off across Swan Lake Flats, silver tipped fur rippling.”

 “Looking back, my life has been a funnel, with all experiences leading me to this place at this time. The West has always drawn me, and for years, I felt pulled apart-my feet in Michigan, my heart in Yellowstone. It took 30 years, but in March 2002, I drove out of my Grand Rapids driveway, headed toward a new life and a new job in Yellowstone.”

 Julianne served as an instructor with “Expedition Yellowstone,” an interpreter/naturalist in Norris Geyser Basin, and an instructor with Yellowstone Association Institute “Yellowstone on Skis” program. She is a graduate of the National Outdoor Leadership School and a Wilderness First Responder.

“With my husband’s support, we permanently moved and in 2004 I became the first resident instructor with the Yellowstone Association Institute. I thought I’d died and gone to Heaven.”

With such a passionate and enthusiastic guide to show us the wonders of Yellowstone, we’re ready to explore Julianne’s Heaven.

Our Yellowstone Tour

We’re a hardy boisterous group of outdoor lovers, ranging from ages 15 to 80. During the next four days, Julianne will drive us in a minibus to spectacular locations throughout the Park. Our rigorous schedule, beginning some days at 6 a.m., will enable us to experience the Park intensely, watching wildlife in the Hayden Valley, walking the rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and witnessing Yellowstone Volcano. We’ll also visit the famous West Thumb Geyser Basin.

Like the beloved children’s storybook character, Pippi Longstocking, Julianne sports long red pigtails, freckles, a huge smile, and mega amounts of energy, humor and confidence.

Her knowledge of the Park’s history, management, geology, flora and fauna is extensive and enthusiastic.

We’re fascinated to learn how Yellowstone became America’s first national park. In June 1871, Dr. Ferdinand V. Hayden, Director of the U.S. Geological & Geographical Survey of the Territories, set out from Ogden, Utah with thirty four men, seven wagons, and $40,000. His group included landscape painter Thomas Moran and Omaha photographer William Henry Jackson. Their paintings and photos documented the region’s grandeur. Their artwork, along with a 500-page report, convinced Congress and the public that these 22 million acres deserved to be protected forever. Hayden and his team’s efforts paid off: on March 1, 1872, Yellowstone became the United State’s first national park.                                                

WILD GEYSERS

Every year, millions of wildlife and nature lovers journey to witness the world’s largest collection of geysers and hot springs. Of the 10,000 thermal features in the park, no two are exactly alike. In their book, “In Pictures: Yellowstone, The Continuing Story,” authors Sandra de Yonge and George B. Robinson poetically write, “Each of these geysers’ throaty bursts serve as a well-timed reminder of the internal fires lurking within the earth.”

 Julianne takes us to West Thumb Geyser Basin, a surreal place of steaming hot springs varying from turquoise to emerald to ochre.

 “I love this area,” Julianne says, “it feels so primordial. Yellowstone is really a giant research lab, where all life forms-geology, water, plants, and animals are connected.”

Walking down the boardwalk, Julianne leads us to “Fishing Cone,” a geyser puffing steam through the surface of Lake Yellowstone.

“One story is that mountain men caught trout in this Lake, swung their pole around, dipped it into this boiling pool, and cooked their fish right on their line,” Julianne tells us. “There are historic photos of Park visitors dressed in a cook’s hat and apron, having their pictures taken at the ‘Fish Pot’ as it was called,” she smiles.

“But since the temperature of the cone’s water averages 199 degrees Fahrenheit, I suggest you cook your fish safely at home,” she laughs.

No problem, Julianne.

As we continue our West Thumb Geyser Basin tour, two chipmunks and a snowshoe hare pose for photos in a field next to a cobalt hot spring. An elk browses in the woods.

Steam billows into the sapphire sky like dreams searching for reality. Glittering Lake Yellowstone is framed by the Absaroka  Mountains. No photo could capture the magnificent wildness imprinting onto our souls this day.

“I could live here my entire life, learn something new daily, and never begin to know it all,” Julianne says, her Pippi Longstocking pigtails waving, eyes shining. “ Geology, hot springs, geysers, ecology, elk, wolves, grizzly bears, bison, predator and prey…. My soul is renewed with every trail I travel.”

Julianne’s Geyser Basin Trail tour ends with a bit of drama. Pressed into the soft mud near a sparkling periwinkl pool is an enormous fresh bear paw print. Perhaps a wise old grizzly watches from the forest nearby.  Perhaps he’s falling under the spell of the Girl Who Loves Yellowstone.

 We are.                   

When You Go

Julianne Baker, M.A, is one of four resident and 10 seasonal instructors with Yellowstone Association Institute. YAI also contracts with 90 instructors, like National Park Service wolf biologist, Doug Smith. The Institute offers “Lodging and Learning Programs,” “Private Tours,” and “Field Seminars, in a wide variety of subjects. Winter 2008-09 coursesi include: “Winter Wolf Discovery,” “Yellowstone on Skis,”  “Family Winter Holiday,”  “Wildlife Watching on the Northern Range,” “Wilderness First Aid,” “Winter with a Photographer’s Eye,” and “Top Ten Events in Yellowstone History,” to name a few.

To become a YAI member, receive a course catalogue, and learn more, visit www.YellowstoneAssociation.org or call 307-344-2294.

 c2008 Sharon Spence Lieb/All rights reserved

Photos c2008 Warren Lieb and Sharon Spence Lieb/All rights