I grew up with Yellowstone National Park in my back yard. That isn’t literally true. To get to the North Entrance was a 90 mile drive from our town. It took over three hours to get to the Northeast Entrance if you went around outside of the park. The shortest route to that part of the park was actually driving through the park which was the only access to that area in the winter. But my father flew regular fire patrols over the park every summer and the park was only about a half hour away in our small airplane. I think we drove to and through parts of the park every year of my life. We loved winter trips and often stayed at a hot springs outside of the park and took day tours to view the animals. I drove dozens of guests through the park as a teenager and when I was older flew over the park myself in our airplane.

The nation’s first National Park is a wonderland of unique features, wild animals, and natural wonders. It is touted as “the most extraordinary collection of hot springs, geysers, mudpots, and fumaroles on Earth.” More than 10,000 hydrothermal features are found in Yellowstone, of which more than 500 are geysers. There were plenty of hot springs outside of the Park as well. Two of them in our county had public pools and we could ride our bikes to one of them. Yellowstone, however, is not exclusively hot water and steam. There are incredible mountain vistas, glaciers, and streams and rivers with ice cold water. There are places where hot water and cold water mix and you can find just the right temperature by moving around in the water.

Of course many of the thermal features of Yellowstone are so extreme that they are dangerous to humans. More than 20 people have died from scalding in hot springs, at least nine of which have occurred since 2007. Hundreds have been burned and survived, some with life altering injuries. In addition to the dangers of scalding water, many of the features of Yellowstone are acidic enough to burn holes in clothing. It is possible to get a thermal burn and a chemical burn at the same time from the same pool of water.

The hot waters of Yellowstone are not empty of life, however. Microorganisms called thermophiles, make their homes in the features of Yellowstone. These organisms are too small to be seen individually without a microscope, but exist in trillions and often appear as mats of color. Knowing that there are organisms that not only survive but thrive in the extremes of Yellowstone is a reminder that even if human caused global warming creates climatic conditions that are not conducive to human life, life on this planet will go on. The capacity of non human life to adapt to extreme conditions virtually guarantees that life will go on.

Human caused climate change is unlikely, however, to produce the conditions of Yellowstone on a widespread basis. The alteration of the climate will result in extremes of weather, but the heat of Yellowstone’s features comes not from the atmosphere but from the geothermal activity beneath the surface. Despite relatively heavy snowfall in the winter at Yellowstone, it is a relatively dry part of the country. Even prior to the catastrophic fires of 1988 that burned 1.4 million acres in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, there were a lot of dry days in the park. I can remember walking through the trees with dried pine needles crunching under foot and the wind capable of drying and cracking the skin of my face and lips. As our planet warms, there will be other types of heat that make some areas barely inhabitable by humans.

There may be a bit of an indicator of the planets future in the areas of geothermal activity that are located in tropical rainforests. There the intense heat combines with intense humidity to create extremes that make it difficult for people to study the ecology of some regions. Temperatures in the area of Peru’s Boiling River, for example reach over 110 degrees Fahrenheit. The steamy climate not only creates challenges for researchers, but actually decreases the vegetation in the forest understory. Trees that grow to giant sizes in other areas of the rainforest are shorter and les vibrant in the area near the natural hot springs.

The effects of heat and chemicals on trees is evident in Yellowstone. There are areas near geothermal features where the bare trunks of dead trees stand as testament to the changes that occurred when the underground heat reached the surface. Plant life responds to changes in climate very quickly and places that once were forested are now bare of plants. At the same time, areas that were burned by the dramatic fires of more than three decades ago now have vibrant and diverse plant life that regenerated naturally. It has been amazing to watch Yellowstone regain its balance after those fires. The intensity of those fires had a direct relationship to human involvement. We flew fire patrols and reported fires as soon as they occurred. Smokejumpers were dropped onto the fires and fires were quickly extinguished. A few decades of intense fire fighting resulted in the overproduction of plants in the forest that made more fuel for the large and uncontrollable fires that followed. Had natural fires been allowed to burn and extinguish naturally the scenario might have been different.

The bottom line is that all human involvement with this planet is part of a large experiment. We do not fully understand all of the dynamics of this complex ecosystem. We make guesses about what might happen, but often are surprised by the resiliency and adaptability of life on this planet. While we can predict some alarming consequences of human overconsumption and greed, we do not fully know all that will happen. Change often comes more suddenly and quickly than we anticipate.

We live in a time when paying attention and observing closely is critical. I no longer live near Yellowstone, but I do live in the unique ecosystem between the North Cascade volcanoes and the Salish Sea. The skills I learned growing up and observing Yellowstone are helping me to get to know this new home. Indeed there is much to learn.