The Discovery of Yellowstone Park: Journal of the Washburn Expedition to the Yellowstone and Firehole Rivers in the Year 1870 (National Parks)

I just finished this book tonight and now all I want to do is to go back to Yellowstone and trace the journey as close to the diary as I can get. Although this was published 40+ years after the journey, and it is not known just how much may have been edited (for political or personal reasons) before the manuscipt was printed,the story reads very true to the experience of others who would follow shortly after the first two expeditions. Mr. Langford openly admits that he took pains to keep the story intact and added footnotes with later observations and omitted some personal comments that he felt were not in keeping with a published diary to be read by the public. The narrative is a positive story of wonder and awe, where at every point of the journey they are confronted with such marvels that they felt they could hardly be believed if they "told the truth of the story". It reads easily,and if you read the diary entries as they correspond to the modern landmarks it would be a journey back in time. I wish I had known of this book when we saw Yellowstone...so now I must go back to "see it as it was".