Browse Map

Explore away

Explore Map Collection

Check out our basemaps

Print a Map Plus

Generate a high-quality PDF

Field Guide

Discover local flora, fauna, geology, and more

Local Flora & Fauna

Learn the ecology of your area

Local Geology

Learn the geologic formation at your feet

Get Started or Sign In

Welcome

Continue with Apple

Already have an account? Sign In

MAP

Topo

Measure

Topo

Ecoregions

Public Lands

...

BASEMAPS

Default Weather

Temperature

Smoke

...

WEATHER

Wahb Springs

Named for the Fabled Grizzly “Wahb”

Hot Spring in Wahb Springs Thermal Area on Cache Creek in Yellowstone NP, Rocky Mountains near Silver Gate, WY

Print Map

Generate High-Quality PDF

Commercial

Allows Bathing

In 1899, Ernest Thompson Seton, a founding member of the Boy Scouts of America and also the modern school of animal fiction, wrote the children’s book The Biography of a Grizzly. Although the illustrated story is fiction, actual places and events shaped the tale of a grizzly named Wahb.

In 1898, Seton had visited Anderson’s Palette Ranch in the upper Greybull River Valley of Meeteetse, WY, which is prime grizzly bear habitat for the cub’s birth. Also, prolific writer and grizzly bear hunter Colonel William D. Pickett ranched the same valley. Pickett penned one story about an 1882 hunt, where a grizzly sow defended her cub to the death, with the cub surviving to freedom. Perhaps Seton was aware of Picketts’ story and fashioned a similar scenario for Wahb. (Pickett 1913, 2020-21; Seaton 1889, 25)

Old Colonel Pickett, the cattle king, was out riding the range … Bang! and Mother Grizzly felt a deadly pang… Wahb, terrified and stupefied, ran . . .

— Seaton 1889, 25

Seaton stayed at Yancey’s Hotel in the Yellowstone area, that includes Death Gulch during his visit in 1897. Here the silvertip mountain monarch’s tale ends quietly 20 years later, in a small ravine with a hot spring laced with lethal amounts of hydrogen sulfide or carbon dioxide gas. Today, the locals know that hot spring as Wahb Springs. (Christiansen 2007, 17; Edgar 1978, 40-41; Pickett 1913, 220-21; Jaggar; Johnston; Seaton 1889, 147; Traphagen 1904, 632-34; Whittlesey 2006, 82)

A rush of his ancient courage surged in the Grizzly’s rugged breast. He turned aside into the little [Death] gulch. The deadly vapors entered in, filled his huge chest and tingled in his vast, heroic limbs as he calmly lay down on the rocky, herbless floor and as gently went to sleep, as he did that day in his Mother’s arms by the Graybull, long ago.

— Seaton 1889, 147

Sources

Christiansen, R. L., Lowenstern, J. B., Smith, R. B., Heasler, H., Morgan, L. A., Nathenson, M., Mastin, L. G.,

Muffler, L. J. P., and Robinson, J. E., 2007, “Preliminary assessment of volcanic and hydrothermal hazards in

Yellowstone National Park and vicinity”: U.S. Geological Survey Open-file Report 2007-1071, 94 p.

Edgar, Bob, and Jack Turnell. Brand of a Legend. Centennial Edition. Basin, WY: Basin Republican Rustler Printing, 1978.

Jaggar, T. A. “Death Gulch, a Natural Bear-Trap.” Popular Science Monthly Volume 54, February 1899. Wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volume_54/February_1899/Death_Gulch,_a_Natural_Bear-Trap.

Johnston, Jeremy, and Burt Bradley. “On the Trail of a Bear Named Wahb: Two Professors on a Bear Hunt.” Points West, Buffalo Bill Center of the West, August 13, 2015. https://centerofthewest.org/2015/08/12/points-west-on-the-trail-of-a-bear-named-wahb/.

Pickett, William D. Hunting at High Altitudes: The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club. Edited by George Bird Grinnell. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1913.

Seton, Ernest Thompson. The Biography of a Grizzly. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1889. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/25023/25023-h/25023-h.htm.

Traphagen, F. W. “Death Gulch.” Science 19, no. 485 (1904): 632–34. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1630870.

Whittlesey, L.H. Yellowstone Place Names. Second. Wonderland Publishing Company, 2006.