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.

August 2014: Specimen Ridge, Yellowstone

Petrified tree stump on Specimen Ridge

One of the best investments I have made over the years are several trailguides for Yellowstone and the surrounding area.  I took one with me on the trip to New York and in my spare time I located a hike that I thought I should take my family on.  It was Specimen Ridge.

I remember my brother taking us on the Specimen Ridge hike when I was a boy, but I really didn't remember much of it.  We were supposed to have seen a petrified forest but I have no memory of the hike other than being out on a hike.  I didn't remember anything else about it.

According to the trailguide, Yellowstone's fossil forest is one of the best preserved in the world.  In the trailguide it said there were two approaches to Specimen Ridge in the Lamar Valley.  We found both trailheads and we chose the second.  At the second trailhead, there was supposed to be an old elk trap that the park service used to use to thin the herds.  They would have a roundup and either ship the excess elk out of the park or shoot them for meat or just shoot them and bulldoze their carcasses into a mass grave.  When people found out about that, there was quite a furor and the park service stopped.  Also at that location, there were supposed to be ancient stone rings that were used in building the lodges for the Shoshone tribe that frequented the area.

We did not find the elk trap or the stone rings at the second trailhead, which means we'll have to do this hike again.

The trailguide claimed the hike was 1.4 miles with 1751 feet of elevation gain.  That's just over a thousand feet of gain per mile, in other words a brutal slog.  The first thousand yards or so of the hike were across relatively level ground which meant that the elevation gain was going to be compressed even more in a shorter distance.  This begs the question, "Why?"  The answer, and the only appropriate answer is, "Because it's there."

I don't typically take photos of elk anymore, but there were these two bulls that had been locked in deadly combat for quite
some time.  They were close to the road and this guy looked like he had a battle wound on his side.  It is the rut season now.

The trailhead to Specimen Ridge

The Hot Chick and the boys at the trailhead

That's me with the Hot Chick.  Notice I'm wearing my Cobalt Studios T-shirt

After awhile, the trail begins to climb.  I thought that was steep.  Turns out, this section is tinker toys compared to what was to come

As we made our ascent up the trail, we crossed several game trails.  I knew they were game trails because a herd of bison used one in front of us.  Bison don't understand the concept of right of way. They think they own the place for some reason.  So we had to wait for them to pass.

Since the Hot Chick and I are getting older and at least I'm not in the best shape, we stopped to catch our breath frequently.  Typically I pretend I'm not winded and use these opportunities to take a photo. Devilishly clever of me.  On one of those photo ops, we turned around and saw a beautiful oasis in the steppe.  There is an ox-bow turn in the Lamar River near the parking area.  On the far side of the ox-bow there is a flat area covered with grass next to a curved hillside.  I imagined what it would have been like to be one of the Native Americans who frequented this place.  That oasis would have been a great place to set up the lodge.  There was tall grass to picket the pony herd in and it had a great view of the valley so you could see when the bison were strolling through the valley.  I imagine things like that when I hike.

We progressed up the hill and it became steeper.  Sometimes a hike becomes so steep that it becomes almost like climbing stairs.  Somehow that seems easier to me.  Maybe that is paradoxical, I dunno. We reached an area close to the summit and the trail branched in two.  We had been told to hang to the right because we'd see more petrified wood that direction, so that is how we went.

Bison think they own the place

This bull brought up the rear.  He stared us down a bit before he finally passed.  His job is to make sure no riff raff gets to the ladies.  It is rut season after all

This is one of those times when I pretended to take a picture instead of admitting
how winded I was.  Note how steep the trail is at this point.  It got worse.

View across the valley

And the other direction

In the top right quadrant of this photo is the oasis I mentioned.  That appears to be a great campsite!

Steeper still

Illustrating just how steep this climb is

The boys at the fork in the trail

A mushroom in a non-petrified tree stump

And then we started seeing the wood.

We came across our first petrified tree stump.  And another and another.  We looked up the side of the mountain and saw a major one sticking out of the ground.  It was everywhere.  It was amazing. We'd get to one tree and think there couldn't possibly be anymore and then there would be another one.  It was some of the best preserved fossil wood I've ever seen, at least in place.  We kept hiking along the ridge and seeing more and more wood.

At some point the wind started to blow quite hard.  That became unpleasant.  After awhile, some of the members of our party started to suggest we turn back and go home.  I told them I didn't come all that way to see one tree and then go home.  It helped my case that we kept seeing bigger and bigger trees all the time.  Finally, I thought we surely must have seen everything there was to see up there and we turned back.

The boys on the first petrified tree stump we found.  Large tree but not the largest

The Hot Chick on the same tree

Top of the tree

Detail

Detail of another tree

Vertical petrified tree stumps were everywhere

Detail

Youngest son sitting on petrified tree, shaded by living tree

Like I say, it was everywhere

Then we spotted this boy

And saw this on the way

This one was quite spectacular

And everyone wanted to pose on it

Including me

Solo shot

Detail

Another stump

I love to see the rings

Then we started seeing the stuff that wasn't vertical

Some stuff was buried standing and other stuff was knocked over

Like this one

And this one

The trailguide said some of the trees were giant sequoias.  I think this must have been one of them.

End view

The stuff was everywhere

And very dramatic

The detail was stunning

The level of preservation was very good, enough so that people smarter than I am are able to identify the types of trees they used to be

This was the smallest vertical trunk we saw, only about 6" in diameter

Another fallen tree.  Don't know if it was knocked over during the eruption or if it had already fallen and was covered by ash after the fact.  Really doesn't matter, though because it's dang cool!

This was on the way down.  We kept seeing it

everywhere

we turned around

it was there

Detail of the top of a stump

One of the olde timey mountain men (Bridger I think) reported this finding in Yellowstone this way, "I saw a peetrified bird singin' a peetrified song in a peetrified tree."  I didn't see any peetrified birds, but I did see more peetrified wood in one place than I'd ever seen before.  Pretty intense.  It seems that when we started seeing the wood I forgot how fatigued my legs were.  Amazing how that works.

On the way down we had a standoff with a pronghorn buck.  It ended in a stalemate with both of us just moving on.  That was pretty cool though, it was the closest I'd ever been to a pronghorn without a car in between me and it.

After we got back to the car, we drove into Tower and hiked to the falls, but not until after we bought the boys some ice cream.  It seems that we can't go to Yellowstone without the obligatory ice cream stop. And I'm okay with that.

The Hot Chick on the way down

The view was tremendous

everywhere

Standoff with the pronghorn buck

Geraniums.  Love the saturated color here

Tower Fall

Heavily eroded mountain side near Tower Fall

Hoodoo that voodoo that you do to me

They ice cream payoff

It was a very cool trip up to Specimen Ridge.  I thought, "Well, okay, now I've done that, I guess that's that."  Then I got home and google image searched Specimen Ridge.  Turns out we should have kept going.  Turns out we saw less than a percent of all the petrified wood.  Turns out the stuff we saw was only fair compared to the other stuff that's up there.

We need to go back...