April 2016: Yellowstone and Stupid People

Bob

I didn't blog at all in 2016.  This trip to Yellowstone may be the reason.  We headed up at the end of April, which is one of our favorite times to go.  Typically during this time of year the majority of the license plates you see on cars come from Idaho, Montana, Utah and Wyoming.  All people who should know better.  These people don't usually stop for elk or bison unless there are babies or a couple of bulls that want to beat each other up.  These are the people who come to Yellowstone to see bears, wolves and bears.

This is also the time of year when you see people with expensive cameras and two foot long lenses that cost as much as a car.  Anytime in April or May, when you see one of those lenses on a tripod, you know you should stop to see what they are seeing.  Typically it ain't a Canada Goose.

We normally hit the hot water events early in April because the crowds are small and the geysers and mudpots all seem more liquid and active.  But by the end of April and to the end of May, we're hunting bears.  We decided to head to the Lamar Valley in hopes of seeing a few Ursa Majors.  We headed north from Madison Junction and within a few miles we saw a line of cars along both sides of the road and a lot of really long lenses on cameras.  This was along the Gibbon River near Gibbon Falls.

These are the people who should have known better.

There was a sow grizzly with three very young cubs on the hillside.  The professional photographers were having a heyday with these bears.  The problem was that the sow was trying to take her cubs to the river and the photographers had created an impenetrable wall of humanity that wouldn't allow her to pass.  I think she wanted to take her cubs for a drink and teach them things, but I don't speak bear very well.  What I do know is that she was very agitated.  She would approach the people with her cubs and when they didn't move, she turned and walked back up the hill.  The cubs followed very closely.  If the cubs were any older, they'd have been off playing and climbing trees.  These cubs were so young they stayed with the mama the whole time.

She'd get a safe distance up the hill and then head south ten or so yards then head back down the hill, hoping to cross the road.  The photographers refused to part and she'd get agitated again.  My thought is that if the cubs had been any older and she hadn't felt the need to be so protective that there would have been a few dead photographers.  We watched this for awhile and when she got to where we were, we left, hoping to give her a spot to cross.  Pretty sure the people behind us filled in as soon as we left though.  For the next hour we looked for a ranger to try to let him or her know what was going on to help the sow get her young to water.  We never found one.

Bears approaching the wall of humanity

Frustrated, moving south

Another attempt

Heading to water

Why won't these people move?

Heading south again

Looking for an opening, see the car in the foreground

This sow was getting agitated

Heading south again

Looking for an opening, not finding it

Heading south yet agan

This went on and on

Trying again

Bringing her cubs with her

Heading up the mountain

Looking for an opening

Heading south again

This is about the time we left

We continued on our way and headed toward the Lamar Valley.  On the way, we saw an osprey, stopped for the annual, obligatory climb up Sheepeater Cliff, saw a few waterfalls and visited with a black bear.

Osprey

Bison, think they own the place

Annual climb up Sheepeater Cliff

My brother the raven

Rustic Falls, full of spring runoff

Undine Falls, the same

The black bear

We just hung out for awhile

rested

had a good time

Blacktail deer

The title of this blog post is "Yellowstone and Stupid People."  We saw the stupid people with the grizzly bear at the beginning of our journey, then we headed into the Lamar Valley and saw some more.

There is a bridge over the river just as you enter the Lamar Valley, and when we crossed, we saw a magnificent bighorn ram with a full curl reposing on the hillside, surveying his domain.  He was awesome.  I pulled over and took a bunch of photos of him.  He was unconcerned by me.  I had my 250mm lens on my camera and the photos I'm going to show are not cropped.

Here's why I said there were stupid people in Yellowstone that day.  We were the only car that stopped to take photos of this incredible ram.  I guess it's because he wasn't a bear or a wolf.  Sometimes people irritate me.

The most magnificent animal in the park that no one saw 

There were migrating bison on the hillside

The ram was checking them out

We were just hanging out

Bison and pronghorns living in harmony, mass hysteria.

We headed home and wouldn't you know it, the sow and her cubs were still trying to get across the river.  Hours later.  It was ridiculous.

Still trying to get across the road

Those cubs look thirsty

Straggler

What the heck?

Giving up

Sometimes people are stupid.

Yellowstone While The Cat's Away #2

Open your eyes, Boy!  My sons at Sheepeater Cliff

So, the Hot Chick had a convention to go to last week which meant the three of us were going to be bachelors for a day.  So we did the most natural thing in the world, we went to Yellowstone.  I had picked up an app for my phone that predicts several of the geysers in the Upper Geyser Basin.  We decided we'd give it a try.  We had to be home early, though because there was a wedding reception we needed to attend.

Leg #1:  Mesa Falls
There are two ways to get up to Yellowstone from where we live.  One way is about fifteen minutes faster and it goes up the Ashton Hill.  The Ashton Hill is the flanks of the largest volcanic caldera in the world.  The second way is to go on Scenic Route 47 down through Bear Gulch and past Upper and Lower Mesa Falls.  Both ways are pretty, but the Bear Gulch way is much prettier.  When we aren't in a hurry, I almost always default to that route even if we aren't stopping at the falls.  Typically, we see Mesa Falls in the evening.  Last time we went the Hot Chick said we ought to see it in the morning sometime.  Challenge accepted.

The boys and I left our home at about eight o'clock, and headed up to Yellowstone by way of Mesa Falls.  We wanted to see it with morning sun.  Mesa Falls did not disappoint.  There is a turnout for Lower Mesa Falls that is perched on the canyon rim and the falls are about a quarter mile away.  It's a great photo op.  Upper Falls has a trail and a boardwalk down to the brink of the falls.  The early morning sun was just hitting Upper Mesa Falls when we arrived and it did not disappoint.  There was a rainbow over the falls.  Stunning.

First pic of the day.  This guy was completely unconcerned by us

Lower Mesa Falls from the vantage point

Rainbow at the brink of Upper Mesa Falls

Open your eyes Boy!

Rainbow over Upper Mesa Falls

Upper Mesa Falls

Open your eyes Boy!

Boys always see stumps, have to stand on them

Leg #2:  Upper Geyser Basin
We drove on into Yellowstone and headed for the Upper Geyser Basin.  As we passed Seven Mile Bridge, there was a traffic stop.  Cars lined up on both sides of the road.  I thought, "Bison." and was prepared to drive on by.  Then I noticed the majority of the license plates were from Montana, Idaho and Wyoming and the people were out with big lenses and spotting scopes.  This was bigger than a bison.  People from Idaho, Montana and Wyoming don't often stop for bison.  Too common.  This had to be a wolf or a bear.  Turns out it was a large grizzly bear.  It has been decades since I saw a bear in between West Yellowstone and Madison Junction.  Three decades or more.  It just doesn't happen.  But there it was.  Very cool.  Someone said it was a black bear.  I beg to differ.  Hump, longer neck, ridge over the nose.  This was a grizz.

Grizzly bear just after Seven Mile Bridge

We continued on our way and saw a couple of trumpeter swans on an island in the Firehole River.  They were preening.  Most of the time, people want to get pictures of the swan with it's head high because that's when it's at it's most elegant.  I had never seen the preening behavior beyond an occasional peck or two.  These swans spent a very long time just preening.  Later, when we passed by again, they were in the river with their heads held high in the classic position.  The preening was much more interesting to me.

Swans preening

A more classic look

More preening because it was cool.  One of them has a tag

So, the purpose for this trip was to go to the Upper Geyser Basin to watch geysers go off.  I got a free app for my phone that predicts the next eruption of six different geysers in the Upper and Lower Geyser Basins.  I wanted to use it.  It has dawned on me that in all the years I lived in West Yellowstone and the last fifteen years I've lived in Idaho, I have really only spent time with two geysers in Yellowstone.  Sure, I've seen a stray eruption here and there by chance, but for the most part I've seen Old Faithful in the Upper Geyser Basin and Echinnus in the Norris Geyser Basin.  It's time for me to see more geysers.  For the last several years, we've been more interested in the cold water of Yellowstone, namely waterfalls than we have the hot water.  I want that to change.  The app can be found here.

We got to the Upper Geyser Basin and I checked the app.  Daisy Geyser was set to go off in the next couple of minutes so we hurried and headed down a trail to the geyser.  The trail was too long and we missed the eruption.  We had to avoid a big bison on the trail back to the car.  The app said the next geyser to go would be Old Faithful, but we've seen that one alot of times.  After that, the next scheduled eruption was going to be hours away, it was going to go off at about the time we should be leaving the park to get home.  Time to change our plans.  Next time, I'll check the app before I leave the house.  I'm not deterred, I will see these great geysers erupt.

Bison on the trail

I asked the boys what they would prefer to do, stick around the Upper Geyser Basin and wait for hours to see something or head to the north and look for animals.  They chose animals.

On our way back to Madison Junction, we saw a majestic sandhill crane.  Then, on the road, we were stopped several times by bison who think they own the place.  They sauntered down the road, not noticing or caring that there were some of us that had places to be.  It's always cool, though when a herd of bison walk past the car within arms reach.  Makes us remember our place in the world.  I love bison.  I think they are the coolest of the ungulates in Yellowstone.

Sandhill crane

unconcerned 

by my presence

Bison

think they own the place

Leg #3:  The North End
We were headed up to Mammoth to get a burger and noticed Sheepeater Cliff was open.  The boys opted to go climb the cliff.  One of their favorite things to do.  I like it too.

We went on to Mammoth and had a less than exciting meal at the grill there.  The boys said their burgers were just so-so, and my bison bratwurst was about the same.  Protein, that's basically all though.  Edible, just not spectacular.  It fulfilled the measure of it's creation, though so no big deal.

One of the boys on the cliff

The other boy on the cliff.  Can't tell if his eyes are open or closed here

Some violets in bloom at Sheepeater Cliff

My favorite feature of Sheepeater cliff

We were behind a very slow moving vehicle with nowhere to pass, and that always annoys me, so I pulled over to see Undine Falls.  It's one of our favorites and we've hiked over to the brink of the falls.  It's a three tiered waterfall that drops about a hundred feet in total.  Pretty spectacular.  I also wanted to stop because last year I "discovered" pasqueflowers there for the first time.  I wanted to see if they were there again.  I was not disappointed.

Undine Falls

Cluster of pasqueflowers

Closed bud

Open

All the way

As you can tell, I like pasqueflowers

a lot

Open your eyes Boy! For crying out loud

I was there too

Next we headed over to Petrified Tree because we often see bears there.  We didn't see any bears, but we did see a couple of blacktail deer.  A doe and a buck.  The buck's antlers were growing and still covered with velvet.  It was pretty cool.

Blacktail doe aka Mule Deer

Blacktail buck

We headed over to Tower, but the road was closed.  I asked a ranger if it was closed for bear activity and he said yes.  Bummer.  After that we headed to the Lamar Valley but time was drawing to a close and we didn't have much time after that.  Had to get back for a wedding reception.  We did see some baby bison, though.  On the way back we stopped for another bear jam.  This time it was a sow black bear and two cubs.  We didn't see the cubs but we saw the sow.  She was not very cooperative though.  Every time I got in position to photograph her, she moved or turned her back to the camera.  I didn't get any shots of her.

Bison cow and calf

Bison calf

I have seen ten hundred million billion bison in my life, so I usually don't seek them out for photo ops, but I'll stop for baby bison.  We really like them.  The boys call a big bull bison "BOB" which stands for "Big Ole Bison."  They call babies "IBB" which stand for "Itty Bitty Bison."  Otherwise, I take pictures of bison when they are in my path, on a trail or when they block the road.  I still think they are cool.

Even though our day did not go as planned, we still had a great time together.  It was fun to just hang out with my boys in Yellowstone.  We drove home without incident and got home in time to see the Hot Chick home from her convention.  We went to the wedding reception and saw alot of old friends.  It was a good day.