Wyoming became a state in 1890, but especially along its mountainous western flank it retains a Wild West attitude. When explorer John Colter came upon this region of steaming geysers and tumbling waterfalls he nicknamed the area "Colter's Hell." That same locale would become the world's first national park: Yellowstone. Traversing this landscape, we blur our vision for a moment and imagine nomadic tribes combing the foothills for buffalo, mountain man Kit Carson riding into a trading post with beaver pelts stacked high on his saddle, and desperado Butch Cassidy lurking in the shadowed canyons to avoid capture. At Yellowstone we heard many different languages spoken among our fellow travelers, all of us trying to comprehend that we were standing atop a giant underground volcano! We slipped into Grand Teton National Park, with its sawtooth range dominated by peaks rising as high as 13,000 feet. Onward through the open range cattle country south of Jackson we pushed until we reached the gateway to our next adventure: Utah!