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, the 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

at the events that led to the preservation

of this magical place.

Sometimes I think

about the things I'm gonna miss most when I finally

have to walk away.

Not just my family that I'll think of,

but it'll be the books I never read, the music I never hear

and sometimes the stories that I wished I would've known.

Most of us walk through life and myself, admittedly,

I do the same thing,

without really getting below the surface.

When I was younger, I saw pictures of Yellowstone

and I thought, Could there be a place like this in the world

where these rivers cut through these mountains

that were so high and

the animals,

you'd see them by the thousands?

I remember when I got my first glimpse of the mountains.

I had to take a breath.

I began to understand what was so special about it.

And when I read what it took for Yellowstone to be here

so that we could all enjoy it, I realized

that this was a story that I suddenly wanted to share.

I think everyone in their life at some point thinks,

I wanna change the world

but it's rare to actually come across a true story

of people who did.

This was a time in America where all people cared about

was what they could extract from the land,

what they could get out of it.

But these pioneers, they came up with an entirely new idea,

a new way of finding value in the land.

I wanna see what they saw.

I wanna see what changed them.

You know, I heard it was the 150th anniversary

of Yellowstone National Park.

First thing I thought was, how's a park have an anniversary?

What actually happened here 150 years ago?

So I started to look into it.

It's just an amazing story.

Back in the early 1870s, all this land you see around here,

it's being claimed up by miners.

The stories about this place

started making their way back east.

Eventually, Congress caught wind of it.

You guys ready?

Congress commissioned Ferdinand Hayden

to go investigate Yellowstone.

He recruited some of the best geologists, cartographers

and zoologists in the world.

He also brought along a photographer

and a painter to document their findings.

And the 32 men headed west.

Their mission was twofold, the search for mineral exploits

that could benefit the American people

and to find a path to build a railroad

that would connect the Mississippi River

to the Pacific Ocean.

They weren't here to protect Yellowstone.

They were here to tear it to shreds in the name of progress.

But something happened during that three month journey.

This place, it did something to him, got inside him

and slowly but surely started to change their minds.

And that's why it's still here.

Yeah, she's still here.

The Hayden Expedition resulted in the creation

of the National Park system, Yellowstone being the first.

Now there are over 4,000 worldwide

and over two million square miles

of pristine nature that are protected from destruction.

Those are some big boots to fill,

but I'm walking in the shadow of the pioneers,

following the trail they blazed

as detailed in two journals kept

by members of the expedition

and 10 letters that Hayden himself wrote.

Does Yellowstone look the same today

as they described in these journals 150 years ago?

Let's find out.

The explorers' first look at Yellowstone

was on the morning of July 16th,

collecting fossils on one of the mountain peaks

of the Gallatin Range.

They looked south and saw the Yellowstone River

winding through its valley in the distance.

They knew they'd arrived.

Fed by runoff from the snowy mountain peaks,

the Yellowstone River is the lifeblood of the park.

Nearly 700 miles from end to end,

it's the longest free flowing river in America.

No dams have ever been built on it,

leaving the Yellowstone every bit as wild

and untamed as it was when Hayden first saw it.

The Yellowstone moves east and south

through this part of the park,

before branching off into a 40 mile long tributary

called the Lamar River.

This leads straight to the fertile valley

that is the mecca of Northern American wildlife.

Lamar Valley is often referred to as the American Serengeti.

The abundant tall grasses and endless supply of fresh water

is everything the prey species in the area could ask for.

And as they flood

into a one mile wide and 20 mile long wildlife court,

they're followed by predators of all shapes and sizes.

The wildlife in Lamar Valley seemed to have an impact

on the Hayden Expedition.

On one hand, the journal entries still refer

to the viability of mining the area, but on the other hand,

they wrote about the abundance of elk and deer

and more frequent run-ins with Yellowstone's alpha predator,

the grizzly bear.

Over 700 live within the park's borders today.

It's a healthy population and it takes 22,000 pounds

of meat each day to keep them all fed.

These elk aren't volunteering for the job

but this hungry bear doesn't care.

The herd has the advantage of speed

and the bear can't keep up his chase for very long.

But in the chaos, a calf gets separated from the herd.

The calf opts to hide,

and the grizzly searches.

If she moves, she'll be an easy meal for the grizzly.

She wins this round of hide and seek.

Mom calls out to find her offspring.

This is life in the Lamar Valley.

Hayden and his men weren't here for wildlife watching

so they had to move on, pushing further into the unknown.

Sometimes I think about the spirit of the great explorers,

you know, what it takes to be the first to do something,

to journey into the unknown.

I mean, these guys had a job to do

and that was to keep going.

But as they headed south,

they started to hear a roar in the distance.

Imagine making your camp right here,

having no idea what would be waiting

for you to come sunrise.

You know, when you follow a river for long enough,

you're bound to run into a waterfall.

The one that the Hayden party found

on their way was a monster.

At 308 feet tall, over 60,000 gallons

of waterfall over its lower falls every second.

You know, the sheer sight and sound

of the cascading water was almost too perfect

for the lead geologist to put into words.

"Standing there, I thought

"how utterly impossible it would be

"to describe to another the sensations inspired

"by such a presence.

"A grander scene was never witnessed by mortal eyes."

Now, how in the hell are we gonna get down that?

The morning of July 27th,

Albert Peale wrote in his journal,

"This morning, Elliott and I started for the falls

"with the intention of descending

"to the bottom of the canyon,

"a thing which all hunters and trappers say cannot be done."

The men were given a warning, but they did not heed it.

They didn't have fancy climbing gear, no harnesses,

no carabiners, just ropes made of elk hide

that were known for snapping when they got wet.

That, and the insatiable desire to explore.

So they tied the ropes around their shoulders,

crossed their fingers

and made the 308 foot descent in just over two hours.

When they finally reached the canyon below,

Peale wrote,

"All was silent except the roaring of the water

"as its waves dashed upon the rock at our feet."

"Far above us,

"the trees along the edge seemed like a line of grass."

They had arrived in the canyon,

and what a magnificent canyon it is.

Carved by the river for the last 160,000 years,

the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone is a work in progress.

Today, it's 24 miles long,

1,200 feet in depth, and 4,000 feet wide.

Tomorrow, it'll be a little bigger.

Every day, it gets deeper and wider

as hydrothermal activity weakens the rock that lines it.

That rock is rich in iron deposits, which oxidize over time,

giving the canyon the stunning yellow colors

that swirl inside its walls.

The Minnetaree tribe named the river Mitseadazi,

which means Yellow Rock River.

When trappers and fur traders came, they interpreted

that as Yellowstone.

Renowned American painter Thomas Moran

was part of the Hayden Expedition.

His job was to capture the sites they witnessed.

When Hayden sent Moran's renderings of the falls

and the canyon back east to Congress, they were speechless.

These golden canyon walls give the park her name,

and that painting hung in the US Capitol for 80 years.

At the edge of the canyon, the hills rise up

and drop back off into a sprawling basin.

Everything you see here was once underwater,

trapped for centuries beneath the flood waters

of the melting Ice Age glaciers.

When the water finally drained,

it left behind 50 square miles of sub alpine grasslands

that would come to be named after the pioneers.

This is Hayden Valley,

a stunning open range to behold

and home to one of the most iconic animals in US history,

the great American bison.

Weighing up to a ton and standing six feet tall at the hump,

these are the largest mammals in North America.

And the Yellowstone herd are the only pure descendants left

of the Asian bison who migrated across the land bridge

to North America 400,000 years ago.

And in July and August,

right when the Hayden party

was making their way down these hills,

dust fills the air in the valley.

The bison run is underway.

Female bison tend to mate with the most dominant bulls.

This wallowing behavior by the males

is a display of power and aggression.

During the mating season,

each bull will lose around 200 pounds,

dedicating all his time and energy

to performing for the potential mates.

It's an interesting ritual, but highly effective

because in Yellowstone, the bison are thriving.

And every year,

more and more of these wooly giants roam the valley.

Fortunately, Mother Nature has her own way

of balancing the ecosystem.

And while the bison here are formidable, in Hayden Valley,

the Wapiti Lake Wolf Pack runs the show.

And bison steak is on their menu.

At 19 wolves strong,

the pack is of force to be reckoned with,

and they've fought off numerous attempts

from other packs to steal their territory.

With a flourishing population

of over 500 wolves currently living

in the Yellowstone ecosystem,

it's certain that they'll be challenged again

and a new pack will reign supreme over the valley.

It's all part of the natural

and inevitable ebb and flow of life.

I mean, these guys, the time they got here,

they must have known they'd found paradise.

How could you not?

You know, wild game everywhere, geology everywhere.

Maybe it was right here where they started

to change their mind about this place.

Why in the hell would you build a railroad

through all of this?

During the expedition, Hayden was sending letters back

to the North Pacific Railroad Company,

just giving them updates, but at some point his tone changed

and his communications became less about logistics

and more about the beauty all around.

Maybe it was a day just like this,

right here in this spot that got to him.

Whether the seeds of doubt had crept

into their minds or not,

Hayden and his team were determined

to explore as much of this alien world as possible.

So they headed in further, following the river

to the lake that feeds it.

20 miles across and 14 miles wide, Yellowstone Lake

is the largest high elevation lake in America.

Its 110 miles of coastline

provide unlimited fresh drinking water

to every species in the park during the summer.

In winter, the liquid water

is trapped below a sheet of ice three feet thick.

Holes in the frozen surface mark spots

where warm water gushes up from below its geysers

and hot springs rage beneath the lake's peaceful surface.

It's the result of Yellowstone's active geology.

It's what gives life to all the park's geothermal activity.

It's why this alien world looks

like no other place on earth.

And the curiosities it offers are endless.

Black Dragon's Cauldron, a boiling mud pot

that burst through the ground in 1948,

once blasting mud up to 20 feet in the air.

The cauldron has since cooled

to a steady bubble along the surface.

Mammoth Hot Springs, formed over thousands of years

as spring water traveled underground through a fault line

and then cooled as it seeped out of the limestone,

depositing calcium carbonate.

Algae in the warm pools turn the stone shelves

in the travertine terrace red, green, brown, and orange.

The Grand Prismatic Spring is the single feature

that took up the most space

in the Hayden Expedition's Journals.

A mesmerizing site where water bubbles up

from the Earth's crust.

At 189 degrees in the center,

it's too hot for anything to live,

giving it the deep blue color of pure water.

As the water spreads across the surface, it cools,

allowing thermophilic bacteria to flourish.

Each ring of color is a different type of bacteria

that thrives at a different temperature.

But bacteria aren't the only life forms

that have adapted to the unique geology here.

Bison migrate to the thermals in winter

where heat melts away the heavy snow,

exposing the grass below.

Cliff swallows come every spring

to make condos out of the pocked sandstone mounds left

behind by the dormant hot springs of the past.

The ever morphing geology of Yellowstone built these homes.

All they have to do is move in.

It must be nice.

You know, it's amazing how much they all knew so long ago.

They must have all felt the ground moving,

heard the rock slides in the distance at night falling.

They all knew something was pushing from down below.

It took another 100 years to figure out what

was really going on down there.

Kinda wish I didn't sometimes.

We know there's a volcano down there

and a magma chamber 37 miles long, 18 miles wide

and extending five miles down into the earth's crust.

Scientists estimate an eruption could send thousands

of cubic miles of rock and molten glass into the atmosphere,

creating a cloud of dust and debris so thick

that no one on earth would see the sun for years.

That worst case scenario isn't meant to be terrifying.

It's meant to quantify the power

of the underground boiler

that sits right below the surface of Yellowstone.

That volcano has only erupted three times

over the last two million years, so it's unpredictable,

but the awesome heat it generates powers one

of the most iconic landmarks in the US,

one you can set your watch by.

People come from all over the world to stand

with eyes wide and mouths hung open.

It's the most visited feature in Yellowstone.

This is Old Faithful.

Named for the consistency of its eruptions,

Old Faithful is a crack

in the earth above an underground reservoir.

And Yellowstone's searing geothermal heat keeps

that water steaming hot 24 hours a day,

filling the chamber with steam pressure,

pressure that builds and builds,

and roughly every 90 minutes.

After months of exploring, the Hayden team

had seen some of the most dazzling sites in the world

and their journals were filled with attempts

to detail the mind blowing phenomena

that lay right in their country's backyard.

They knew immediately this was a special place,

but then they came across two prospectors

who'd laid claim to the entire area.

They were gonna dig for gold, build a hotel

and market the water as some sort of magical healing potion.

And the thought of it must have just crushed Hayden.

He knew that it would be destroyed soon,

that his children's children would never see it

unless he did something about it.

"It requires no stretch of the imagination

"to see this place in the near future thronged

"with invalids drinking this water

"and bathing in it for their health."

He knew that if he could protect Yellowstone,

if he could find a way, that it would rank

with any natural curiosity the world can produce, his words.

Imagine the pressure Hayden ,

Hayden must have been feeling, gold interest,

Congress,

railroad barons,

powerful people wanted this land for themselves.

He knew the fight would be uphill

but he also knew that when you have an idea

and you believe in it strongly enough,

you can change the world.