Nature’s Grandeur and the Queen on the money – 18 & 19 June 2010

The Bear Necessities – 18/06/10

We slept in this morning at our hotel (Yellowstone Inn and Suites) and had a wonderful complimentary breakfast that really doubled the value of the room. Lots of places here offer complimentary breakfast but this was really good.

Before long we were re-entering Yellowstone Park through the West entrance. As we drove up the long road to Madison, we were incredibly lucky to see a small pack of Wolves in the same valley where we had seen a herd of Bison the day before. The Wolves are very secretive and still in small numbers so most visitors don’t get to see them. On the same piece of road, we saw again the eagle’s nest we had seen the day before. We were told that it was abandoned and it’s not surprising because it’s visible from the road and these are the most private animals of all.

It should be said that to really see a lot of Yellowstone would literally take months and years. It is massive. But to drive all the roads and do the easier hikes takes a few days only.
Yesterday, snow and all, we had seen much of the southern portion of the park so we decided to try and do the northern section today.

Before we began, we booked ourselves into the last remaining campsite at the Madison campground. The weather was sunny and warm and we were hopeful of an evening above freezing.

We began by hiking around some more of the thermal wonders of the park. The Painter’s Pots and the Norris Geyser basin. These are truly otherworldly landscapes, they would compliment the South Dakota Badlands beautifully.

Then we stopped for an early picnic lunch at a heartbreakingly beautiful spot (where nobody else stopped) called Virginia Cascades. We ate on the riverbank just above the top of the falls.

After this we drove through Canyon Village and headed north up Mt Washburn. Right in the saddle, where the road runs, we saw a small group of people gathered and vehicles parked along the shoulders. In Yellowstone, this usually means an animal sighting. So we stopped and sure enough, a couple hundred meters up the hill, was a mother Grizzly Bear and her two cubs. We stood and watched awhile and were horrified to see a hiker appear over the ridge, upwind of the protective mother, and only about 50 meters away.
As he started walking straight towards her, ignorant of her presence, we all began to whistle at him and motion him away. He stopped but would not leave the area. We were all fearful for his safety. If the Bear charged, he didn’t stand a chance (a Grizzly Bear can run 3 times faster than the fastest human). Before long, we saw why he procrastinated: A second, then third, then fourth hiker appeared from over the hill.
By this time they had seen the Bear, but stayed up there to take photographs. Someone called 911 and a Ranger came and ordered them through the megaphone to clear out. But not before the Mother Grizzly had approached them and voiced a warning of her own. They took the hint.
Just for a moment though, it looked as though we would all witness Darwinism in action: The survival of the fittest.

Grizzlies are also very secretive and most park visitors are lucky to see them. So we felt extremely blessed. The park also has a small number of Black Bears, but they are so few and secretive they are seldom seen by anyone. One ranger had told us the night we first stayed that they were the hardest animals in the park to find, even including the Bald Eagles. But the day wasn’t over yet.

Next we headed up to Tower Falls, another of Yellowstone’s great icons. They are really stunning. We saw them from the lookout on the opposite cliff and also from the ridge above the falls themselves. Spectacular.

We had chatted to a couple in the morning at Painter’s Pots who were keen nature watchers from Long Island. They told us that they had seen a den of wolves and a Golden Eagle’s nest near it, at Slough Creek in the park’s northeast. So we headed up to the area and struck up a conversation with a nice couple from Texas who were regular visitors at the park. They live in the Texas town of Katy, which we had driven past on our early travels and they vacationed at a time-share in Cody, Wyoming, where we had driven through to get to the east entrance of the park. After a chat about travelling, he pointed out the Wolves’ den and the Golden Eagle’s through a powerful spotting scope he had. There was nobody home at either, though and if there had been, it was so far away that you wouldn’t see with the naked eye. They sat there for a week getting glimpses from a mile away, through a scope and we realized how lucky we had been to see the Wolves that morning.

From there we should have headed back to the west, but based on the recommendation of the nice couple from Texas, we headed further east, into the Lamar Valley. This is a stunning giant of a valley, with a fast, cold river, broiling noisily through a wide, flat, grassy valley, with steep mountains to either side. The road runs right through it, lengthwise and you fully expect to see Woolly Mammoth herds grazing there, alert for the presence of Saber-Tooth Cats or worse, early Men. It is a prehistoric landscape.
The huge herds of Bison that are actually there, are hardly less amazing.

Eventually, we did head back toward the west and near the horse ranch at Roosevelt, the incredible happened: We slowed at the usual signs of nature’s majesty, a bunch of hastily parked cars and people with cameras milling around. We slowed to a crawl. And drove straight past the park’s most reclusive resident: A black bear. We passed within about 30 feet or 10 meters of him. It was awesome. It really makes you feel amazing to see such wonderful creatures in the wild.

A couple miles up the road, the utterly unbelievable happened. We were on a section of road with a steep bank on the right (remember, we’re driving on the right side) and the tops of the trees are just above the level of the road.
We slowed because the cars in font of us suddenly stopped and as we looked into the treetops to see why, we saw movement. Another Black Bear was in the very top of a dead tree, about 25 feet up and no more that five meters from us. We watched him climb down and walk away through the woods. He wasn’t the slightest bit interested in us. Amazing. Twice lucky.

From there, we headed west to the Mammoth Hot Springs which really have to be seen to be believed. Mostly not active anymore, the spectacle is the structure that the springs have left. Eerily beautiful. Yet again, it is a sight that looks like it’s not from this world.

From there, we headed south, up into the high meadows and back down to Madison. It was 8:30 pm by this time and the light was beginning to fade. We set up a really lovely camp and spent the night by the campfire, before going to bed late, hoping for a warmer night than two nights ago.


Eagle Eyes and Trucker’s Miles – 19/06/10

We got up at 7:30 this morning. That is very good. Last night scarcely dipped below 40f and we were much warmer. We slept like babies.
We got underway by 8:30 and were wondering, as we headed for the West Exit again, what, if anything, we might see in that valley today. Pia made the comment that she would like to stop and see the Eagle nest again. I said that I had heard that it was abandoned but we’d stop anyway.

Good thing we did. We were both very excited to see that the nest wasn’t abandoned at all. Empty-looking the last two days, this morning there was a juvenile Eagle sitting up there on the edge of the nest, as proud as can be.
We weren’t sure if he was a Golden Eagle because he was a brown colour with a blackish head. But my hopes raised when the wind ruffled his feathers and showed white ones beneath.
We started to wonder if Bald Eagles (the holy grail of North American wildlife-watchers) were brown in their youth. We waited and waited, hoping that a parent might show up. And they did. As I was snapping yet another picture of the youth in profile, Pia excitedly said “INCOMING” and, resisting the urge to leap into a ditch, I saw the mother land right in the nest with the youth and amid fluttering of big wings, feed her young one.
It was stunning on every level. As much as we have tried to spot wildlife throughout the trip, we had never dared to hope to see a Bald Eagle in the wild. Period. They are so legendarily elusive and solitary. We were ecstatic.
As the mother flew off, Pia got some pictures.

Once we were out of the park, and into Montana, we turned north and drove straight up to a lovely little old west town called Ennis.
We stopped in Ennis to get gas, have a drink and buy an eyeliner brush which I ‘skilfully modified’ for Pia to use to clean some dust from inside the body of her camera.

On the road again, we drove through miles of countryside that looked to me like the Scottish Highlands, at 70 MPH on a two-lane blacktop, that eventually led us back the I90, which we had followed across South Dakota a few days before. The speed limit raised to 75MPH (124.5 KPH) and we stayed on the highway running west clear across Montana. The further west we went, the lovelier the scenery became. The mountains became steep and fir-covered and there were valleys with magnificent rivers everywhere. There were few and small settlements. If you took away the highway, it would look just like the scenery from the movies the Lord of the Rings.

It struck us today that there are landscaped here in the USA, even with a population of 320 million people, that are almost as remote as anywhere in the Australian Outback. And we have crossed some of these most remote parts of the US on this journey. It is a privilege.
I am reminded of a conversation with an older man in Yellowstone this morning. He asked about our journey (almost every day, somebody does) and when I told him about it so far he looked surprised and said, “You’ve seen more of America than I have, and I’m American.” It’s not the first time we’ve heard this.

The scenery only became lovelier as we passed into Idaho, still on the I90. The highway climbs and drops and twists and turns. It is a road for spirited driving. It was a blast. We turned north at the city of Coeur d’ Aleine, and after another hour or two, we left the United States for the second time. About an hour across the border, we stopped at a lovely campground near the town of Creston, British Columbia.

The view from the campsite is like something from a National Geographic IMAX film. Jealous much?

Today we crossed the Continental divide for the sixth time (we crossed it 4 times in Yellowstone and the first time New Mexico on Route 66) and we crossed back into US West Coast Timezone, so we’re 17 hours behind again.
Total miles today: Just shy of 600 (1000 Km). Trucker’s miles, and every one a blast.

US 95 through Idaho

Oh the majesty!

Bald Eagle leaving the nest

Bald Eagle chick waiting for food, little did we know what was to come

Tower Falls

Mammoth Hot Springs. The colors, the shapes, the textures - an artists dream

Just minding his own business. Right infront of our car mind you.

Mark and Pia at Painters Pots, taken by Long Island, NY couple

Black Bear, just seeing what's available

Now, how do I get down from this tree?

Amazing site number 1, black bear. Drive by photography strikes again.

Lamar Valley, oh the grandeur.

Get away from my babies! Mumma Grizzly lets the stupid hikers know that they are in her territory.

In the distance, a seriously secretive wolf

Cascade side picnicing

Norris Geyser Basin

Painters Pots