*Photo courtesy of National Park Service 

As I was biking up toward Cache Creek yesterday, I was passed by a covered wagon train and had to navigate around some "indians" on horses. And no, I'm not kidding. Every night during the summer, Jackson Hole visitors pile into the horse-drawn covered wagons and make their way to the dude ranch up the road for some down-home, old west cookin'. Face-painted indians on horses rush out of the trees with a whoop-whoop that gives the wagon goers a startle, but also allows them to visit those old west times, which are presumably a big part of the reason they came to Wyoming in the first place. It was a good reminder of how full of history this area is. The cowboy-and-indian visit comes to an end in the early evening and visitors and cowboys and indians alike go back to their respective modern day lives. But there are other, more permanent reminders of both long-ago and more recent historical Wyoming landmarks.

I was reminded of one in particular when I picked up the Jackson Hole News & Guide yesterday. I was only eight years old in 1988, but I can vividly remember the television images that were broadcast internationally, showing Yellowstone National Park engulfed in flames. It began on August 20, 1988 and has gone down in history as Black Saturday, the day that one of the largest and most consuming forest fires since 1910 took hold of Yellowstone. Presumably started by lighting strikes, the fires burned into September until rain and snow finally began to squelch the flames. All told, 36% of the park was scorched, 1.5 million acres were burned by fires started by 42 lightening strikes and nine acts of human error and 67 government and private buildings were destroyed.

As devastating as it was then, the fires of 1988 have gone on to spark (pardon the pun) debates on how to better manage our national forests and their fire policies. It forced an advance in technology that now allows Forest Service officials to better predict weather patterns and wind changes. The black char is now home to an abundance of wildlife and is said to be greener now than it was before the summer of 1988. And even the blackened tree trunks that remain standing add an element of beauty to the park's vast wildlands.

Yellowstone--the country's oldest national park-- still boasts the famous Old Faithful and hosts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year who come to see the wildlife that ranges from bison, elk and deer to wolves, eagles, coyotes, mountain lions and more. If you're in the area, make sure to visit the park on this twentieth anniversary of Black Saturday. Amidst the old stands of burnt pine and new growth, you'll see some ultimate Wyoming history in the making.