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The effect of hot water acting on the canyon ’ s rock provides inspiration for the name of the world ’ s first national park , Yellowstone .
for work on time . The drinking age was 18 , the Two Bit Saloon stayed open late and my friends and I were as wild as one-eyed Jacks .
Along the ridiculously curvy road between Gardiner and Mammoth was a special , magic place for which I now aimed the front tire of my bike . Boiling River was no longer a secret that only the park employees knew about . After having been trampled and run down and eroded , the spot was rehabilitated and regulated in the manner for which the National Park Service is famous . A parking area a quarter mile down the road had been built , and a well-marked trail followed the Gardner ( no “ i ”) River upstream to the site we used to stumble down a steep hillside in the dark to reach .
Ah , but Boiling River itself was still a world-class free hot spring , and my favorite in the whole world . The hot creek fed by the Mammoth Terraces burst from the hillside and tore down to mix with the cold , clear water of the Gardner River . At their juncture , a motorcyclist tired from 300-plus miles ridden the day before could position herself underneath a thundering hot cascade and receive a straight flush of hot water to massage sore shoulders . The odor of sulfur was heady , seductive . The view downstream