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.

May 2016: Yellowstone/Grand Teton National Parks--Archival Post

Lodgepole Pines with new snow on them in May

I took a year and a half break from blogging.  I don't know why, but I did.  I did not take a year and a half break from Yellowstone or other travelling.  Sometimes a guy just gets busy.  But now I need to play catch-up.

This blog post details a trip up to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks that the Hot Chick and I made near the end of May last year.  We love Yellowstone at any time of year and are always looking for excuses to drive up and see the park.

Last May, toward the end of the month we had a free Saturday and we went up.  We figured, May, should be fine, the weather should be good.  Then when we got to Island Park, the weather started to turn.  The further north we traveled, the worse it got.  We were starting to second guess our decision to go to Yellowstone, but we soldiered on anyway.  By the time we reached Mack's Inn (22 miles away from Yellowstone),  we were engulfed in a blizzard.  We weren't sure if we had packed warm enough jackets for this trip.  But we went on anyway.

Blizzard on the Henry's Fork of the Snake River at Macks Inn

The ducks didn't like it either

After we crossed the Continental Divide and the state line into Montana, the weather cleared up a bit.  It was still cold but at least the blizzard stayed on the Idaho side.

We had gone up to Yellowstone without an agenda.  We wanted to go but didn't know what we wanted to see.  Because of the weather, though, we decided it was going to be more of a 'see what we can from inside the car' day.

One of the first things we saw around Madison Junction was a very cold bald eagle sitting in a tree.  We took the Firehole Loop Road and saw the falls.  The water was quite muddy with the spring runoff.  Apparently we were going to Old Faithful.

Because of the cold and the fact that we were unprepared for it to be cold, we did not stop at any of the geyser basins between Madison Junction and Old Faithful.  I did stop for a trumpeter swan, though.  It was near Nez Perce Creek, and the swan was on an island just preening itself.  I watched for quite a long time and took a lot of pictures.  Suffice it to say, I had no idea a swan's neck was that maneuverable.  I could post a dozen pictures of the swan's neck in different contorted positions, but I won't.

When we got to the Upper Geyser Basin, we pulled in just in time to see Castle Geyser in full eruption.  Castle is one of the great geysers in Yellowstone and it's eruptions can last twenty or thirty minutes.  It's quite the sight.  We had a decision to make at this point.  Do we sit out in the cold and watch Old Faithful?  Do we turn around and go home?  Do we pay twice the regular amount and buy a winter coat inside the park? or do we head south and go home by way of Grand Teton National Park?

We've seen Old Faithful ten hundred million billion times, and while it's really cool and we never get tired of it, we decided not to sit in the cold and wait for it.  We had intended to spend the day in the park, and had already committed the time and the gas money to be there, so it seemed a waste to just turn around and go home.  There is no way I'm going to spend the money to buy my clothes in Yellowstone.  I love the park, but the stuff in the shops is too expensive for my tastes.  So Grand Teton it was.

The Bald Eagle, who seemed as cold as we were

National Park Mountain at Madison Junction.  Below this site, a hundred and fifty years ago or so, the explorers who were investigating the claims of this part of the country, camped and dreamed up the idea of setting Yellowstone apart as a national park so everyone could enjoy it.  This was a revolutionary idea because there had never been a national park before, anywhere on earth.  I'm glad they did.

So I'm packing my bags for the Misty Mountains, where the spirits go now, Over the hills where the spirits fly now, ooh.  I really don't know.

Firehole Falls, the muddy version

One of the tamer poses of this swan

Castle Geyser happening now.

We headed towards Lake and south to Grand Teton National Park.  On our way, we stopped to see Lewis Falls and Moose Falls.  Not surprisingly, the further south we went, the better the weather became.

Yellowstone Lake

Yellow Bells, why is everything yellow in this park?

Snow covered hill 

Lewis Falls

Looking down the canyon

Moose Falls

From further away

This guy considered us to be uninvited guests

I've always loved old bridges

The weather started getting better and there was less snow, so we continued on our journey.  As we drove through the northern part of Grand Teton National Park, we saw a large grizzly bear.  We also saw a pelican swimming in Jackson Lake.  When we got to the Signal Mountain Turnoff, we realized we had never been there, so we headed up.  It was a very spectacular view of the whole valley.  While we were up there, we surprised a dusky grouse and her husband.  I'm not sure they were excited to have us in their living room.

While we were up on Signal Mountain, we saw some strange looking wood piles.  They were underneath the forest canopy and were piled up as if they were going to be made into tepee fires.  Then we saw burnt fire circles.  This was a mystery until we discovered a sign.  These were made of fallen timber and were an attempt to clean out the fuel on the forest floor to mitigate the damage in case of a forest fire.  In other words they were doing controlled burns to try to avoid the big one like they had in Yellowstone in 1988.  I'm not sure how I feel about that.  We thought the fires of 1988 were devastating for Yellowstone.  We left in 1988 and went to the east for six or seven years, then we ended up in the Seattle area for another six years.  When we came back, we were amazed at how healthy Yellowstone had become as a result of the fires.  Forest fires are an integral part of the life cycle of a healthy forest.

The Teton Range with cloud cover on Jackson Lake

More cloud cover

Da Bear

Da Bear again

Pelican

View from Signal Mountain

USGS Survey marker on Signal Mountain

Incredible view

Another incredible view

The dusky grouse 

And her husband

More view

Strange tepee fire thingys

The rest of the trip was punctuated by glorious views of the cloud shrouded Teton range.  It was really pretty.  The west is a land of superlatives.  I don't have words to do the scenery justice here.  That is the domain for the great poets I think.  So as a lesser poet, I think I'll finish by showing pictures.

Lily-pads on a small lake or pond

Clouds shrouding the majestic American Alps

More clouds, more alps

It was difficult to have to be exposed to such beautiful scenery all day, but we managed to survive

We had to drive on this road

Who said clouds could be so low?

It was really quite amazing

Can't get enough of this

As you can tell

It was really pretty

Last shot of the day

We drove home through Jackson Hole after a really beautiful day in two national parks.  We love living here.