Saturday, August 27th

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Greetings once again from Yellowstone.  Spent this past Saturday in Bozeman, Mt. getting much needed haircuts, an oil change and most importantly, replenished our junk food stores. 
Large sections of the  2-1/2 hour drive to Bozeman follows the Gallitan River where, now that the river is flowing at more manageable levels, we encountered numerous float trips.  On our nearby Yellowstone, Snake and Gallitan Rivers you can book float trips ranging from 2 hours to several days.  Judging from the lack of packed supplies and gear this particular float appeared to be a day trip. 


We arrived back in the Park around dusk and took a few pictures of the Madison River looking northwest just inside the west gate at West Yellowstone, Mt. (I enjoy telling Park visitors from foreign countries that  the Madison River is named for Dolly Madison, our 4th president).  










In 1988, the driest year on record in Yellowstone's history, about 30 percent of the park burned from over 50 different wildfires. The moisture content of the trees at that time was around 7%, lower than that of kiln dried lumber. Over 22,000  firefighters and military personnel fought the fires for more than 60 days and what finally extinguished the fires was a mid-September snowstorm. Anyway, in this shot you can see sections of Lodgepole regrowth from 1988....not a single tree was planted by man.

Along the Madison we spied an American Bald Eagle's nest, about 8-10 feet in diameter, high in a dead Lodgepole Pine. It's not far from the eagles we pictured in an earlier blog and we think this may have been their nest. It's amazing the size of the tree limbs and sticks they use!






After we turned off from the Madison and headed south along the Firehole we encountered a pair of  Osprey that sat still just long enough for us to take a couple of pictures. Osprey are also called "fish hawks" and as their nickname implies they primarily live on a diet of fish. The 1988 fires were actually a benefit for the Osprey as they prefer to nest in tall, dead trees and their numbers are at an all time high.












On the road just a half mile from our dorm and the Old Faithful complex we came upon a huge "bear jam".  A young grizzly had just "ambushed" a gang of elk grazing just feet off of the road and was lucky enough to bring one down. Passersbys told us they witnessed the attack from their cars minutes before we arrived.  The griz dragged the elk down a small ravine and took it across the Firehole River.  It didn't take long for a large viewing crowd to form along with several park rangers.  We watched in awe as the bear sat/reclined next to its kill taking in a few gallons of water between meals!  We heard the next day this was actually an "orphaned" bear (the mother was lost a year ago when hit by a car) and the rangers were happy it appeared to have mastered the necessary hunting skills to survive on its own.  Life is brutal out here...something is always looking to eat something else!























During our bear/elk watch the rangers formed an imaginary line of safety that no one was allowed to cross. I asked the ranger closest to us if I could move forward about three more feet to catch a shot of some of the assembled crowd telling her I would be sure and include her in the photo. She responded to my request saying "I'll give you just one picture and ten seconds".  She was kind of testy but I guess none of them (the rangers) want it on their park service record that they allowed a tourist to be killed by a grizzly while they were posing for a picture. :)

A shot of Old Faithful which we are fortunate to see several times a day from our work.  Every 92 minutes 24 hours a day.

Finally, we're hearing more details about another grizzly bear attack and person's death this past Friday....the second this season. It happened just about 15 miles from us on the Mary Mountain trail and a couple of miles from the Mud Volcano area we showed in our last blog. Initial communications were that the 59 year old male might have died from natural causes and that a bear happened upon his body partially consuming it and then burying it to conceal it from other competing predators ....ugh. Two other hikers found the remains. Yesterday's autopsy report however showed the victim actually died from "massive trauma and blood loss from a bear attack".  Now rangers and other park service personnel have cordoned off several square miles along Mary Mountain trail and have set live traps in hopes of catching and identifying, through DNA tests, the suspect bear....which will then be euthanized as he/she now associates humans as an easy food source.
It's truly unfortunate this happened... the fellow was hiking and camping alone (which you should never do up here) and was not carrying any bear spray nor had bear bells. As we saw on Saturday, if a young bear can bring down a 400-500lb elk a person doesn't stand a chance.


All for now and our best to everyone.

Jim and Ann