On our way out of town for Evan’s wedding, we saw our first male Bighorn Sheep in Gardiner Canyon. There are three of them in the picture, and my assumption (based on ignorance, of course) is that they are young males. Their horns are much longer than the females’ and are curved back on themselves, but are not as big at the base as ones I’ve seen from mature males. Anyway, we were excited to finally see them.
In the same general vicinity, Lorraine was able to get very close-up pictures of our local Pronghorn in the open area just inside the Yellowstone fence. He can frequently be found near here, and has been named “Solo” for his solitary nature. He is obviously not too afraid of humans – at least park employees.
Another new animal for us is the baby magpie out of his nest, but not yet ready to fly away. He is already a large bird, but doesn’t have the long tail that the adult magpies develop. The nest is a large, tightly-constructed affair with what looks like a cozy interior.
Lorraine took the picture of a beautiful rainbow at Mammoth while I was working. The window wall of the dining room looks to the east so all the dining room customers (as well as all of us who work there) watched it for quite a while. We do have some pretty storms here.
Now for some grizzlys. In the four summers I have worked in the park, I’ve only seen a few grizzlys and those were at a pretty significant distance. However last Thurs. and Fri. (our regular days off), we saw four more, and two of them at very close range. The first encounter was on the slopes of Mt. Washburn between Tower Junction and Canyon. We were stopped by the “bear jam” and quickly saw the bear off the road in some dead trees. It as already the closest view I’ve had of a grizzly. He started heading toward the road and the ranger who was already there started yelling for everyone to get back in their cars. We complied, and the bear ambled up the bank and across the road apparently oblivious to the excited tourists snapping pictures frantically. The bear then continued on the other side of the road still fairly close to us – which is where I got the last two pictures. It was far and away the best grizzly encounter for us to date. The bears are far more impressive in person than in photographs. The way the fur rolls across their shoulders makes them look very powerful, even if they are not huge by grizzly standards.
We continued to Canyon and got a few pictures of both the Upper and Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River even though it was a cold and gray day. The first picture is of upper falls (the shorter of the two) and shows the power of the water as it hits the rocks at the bottom of the falls. The next is of the top of Lower Falls showing the observation platform from which a young man jumped to his death a few days before we were there. It was sobering.
The third picture is of Lower Falls from a viewpoint on the west side of the canyon. It is beautiful and impressive, no matter what the weather. You can see that there is still some snow on the rocks to the left of the falls.
The picture I didn’t get was of the canyon from Inspiration Point. It would have been very impressive because I had gone down the 50 or more steps to the point in a hail storm which was very pretty in the canyon. However, after ruining one expensive Nikon camera in the rain, I chose not to take my current one with me in the hail. The temperature was in the low 40s and there was actually slush on the windshield as we were leaving the area.
Thursday evening (the day after our 42nd anniversary) we went to the K-Bar in Gardiner for a pizza and beer celebration. The picture shows good friends and all but two are returnees from last year. We had fun. Lorraine is missing because she took the picture.
The double rainbow picture was taken out the front door of the K-Bar. It was the brightest rainbow any of us had ever seen.
The sky was really beautiful as we went back up the mountain to Mammoth. The first picture shows the very last piece of the rainbow under the cloud, and the second I took just because the colors were really pretty.
On Friday we had our second and most exciting grizzly encounter. We ran into the largest bear jam either of us has every seen, and as we stopped we saw a young elk running out of the trees with a bear in hot pursuit. I’m amazed that I actually got the picture of them together, because Lorraine was screaming and the elk and the bear were running right at us. The fear evident in the elk’s eyes was justified, as he had only a minute to live. As they both turned and ran to our right I got a couple of pictures of the grizzly in full gallop. It was very impressive, and illustrated the fact that you can’t possibly outrun a grizzly.
It turns out that there were actually two elk and two grizzlys there, and both of them made a kill. In the last of the pictures you can see one grizzly on the left standing over one kill and another on the right on another kill. We didn’t actually see the kills, but we saw them feeding after the fact. Nature is hard!
After all the excitement, we continued down the lower end of the Grand Loop Road. We stopped at Midway Geyser Basin mainly to see Grand Prismatic Spring, which is the beautiful blue hot spring that is shown in lots of pictures. While it was covered with steam and we couldn’t get high enough to see it like the pictures show it, it was still impressive. It causes the runoff that you see in the vertical picture. I don’t remember how many gallons of hot water per minute the spring puts out, but it is a lot. The edge of the spring is the orange color from the deposits the water leaves behind. There are also bacteria, called thermopiles, that live in the water and contribute to the color. We really couldn’t see any of the deep turquoise color of the water in the deep part of the spring because of the steam.
We also saw Eclipse Geyser, which now looks more like a hot spring with jagged edges. Its eruptions blew out the hole that it now occupies. It also had a lot of steam, but you could at least see the pretty color of the water. It has been dormant (as a geyser) for a long time, but there is always the potential of new eruptions. I don’t think I want to be on the boardwalk when the next one occurs. The final picture from Midway Basin is Opal (I think) spring, which shows the pretty color of the water without a lot of steam.
I will leave you with the obligatory picture of an eruption of Old Faithful – from the balcony over the entryway. It is ever faithful and beautiful.
We picked up young savages (employees) James and Hillary at Old Faithful and gave them a ride to Canyon, where they work. In our olden days at the park we went everywhere by hitchhiking and that is still the mode of transportation for those without autos of their own. They have their own blog at http://jellystonejournal.blogspot.com. Check it out to see the park through younger eyes.
We look forward to the visit of friends Phyllis and Jerry on Thursday. We’re hoping for good weather.
