"There is delight in the hardy life of the open."--Teddy Roosevelt

I’ve been hanging around the hotel grounds this past week because I haven’t had much time off work. But, I’ve had a few adventures nonetheless. A few days ago, some friends and I (Jillian, Angela, Emily) had a short excursion to Fishing Bridge at dusk to watch the sunset. Unfortunately, we got there too late and there weren’t any spectacular colors. We did see an otter swimming across the river, though! Looking back, I’m not actually weren’t sure if it was an otter or a muskrat, but it was cool anyways.

Then, on Monday evening, I went to an interesting seminar about bears that was given for the benefit of Xanterra employees. Evidently, there are a few different types of bear attacks. One is caused by surprised bears. This happens when a hiker or a group of hikers suddenly come upon an unsuspecting bear and it feels threatened so it charges the humans. Sometimes the bear actually physically attacks and causes harm while other times it does what is called a bluff attack. A bluff attack is when a surprised bear runs up beside a person, barks a little, hits the ground with its paw and basically makes a threatening, defensive, but ultimately harmless display. A surprised bear will quickly charge (with hardly any warning) those who have disturbed its peace. They told us it’s no use to run away from a bear because they can run at about 30 mph. So, with a surprised bear, it’s best to either stand your ground (especially if it’s just a bluff) or you should drop face down on the ground with your hands behind your head and your legs apart (so you can’t be flipped) if it looks like physical contact is going to be made. Another type of bear attack is the curious/predatory attitude. When a bear is curious or predatory, it’ll approach slowly, maybe circling around the person a bit. In this case, it’s best to make yourself look big and threatening to the bear so it’ll think that the effort to eat you will not pay off.

I had no work on Tuesday, so Angela, Emily and I snagged some open seats on a bus tour of the southern half of the park. I think the official name is the Circle of Fire or something. There was so much to see and our guide was great. Our round trip went from Lake to Old Faithful to Canyon with many stops in between and a tasty lunch at Old Faithful. There was a lot of wildlife to be seen as well. At the West Thumb geyser basin between Lake and Old Faithful, we saw some elk. They were all female and one of them had a splay legged calf which was probably just a day or two old. Our guide said they like to give birth in this area because their predators don’t like to be in places where there is so much human activity. The bus passed a part of the forest which had been destroyed by a fire in recent years. Our guide tried to explain how the fires actually help the trees reseed, but all I got out of it was that it somehow helps the cones release the seeds that grow into new trees. At Old Faithful, we decided to treat ourselves to “real food” and ate at the inn located just next to most of the thermal features of the park. It was delicious food and we were all very pleased to not be eating at the employee dining room. We didn’t spend any time exploring Old Faithful, but we did see a herd of bison and a large bull elk near the village. A few miles outside of Old Faithful, the bus stopped so we could all see another herd of bison in a field next to the road and they too had calves. These young were far more energetic than the elk calf I saw earlier—probably because they’re older. They were running and jumping joyfully throughout the herd while the older and less spritely adults kept a watch for predators. On the road again, we spotted two ospreys, more buffalo and more elk from the bus window. Our next long stop was at the Canyon Village where we were for about 30 minutes total. The view of the canyon is absolutely breathtaking! The park service built a sort of overlook that provides an excellent view of a huge waterfall in one direction, a winding canyon in the other direction, and a white water river far below. See the pictures on picasa for a better description. Long story short, the canyon is quite large and its colors are beautiful. After stopping at Canyon, we drove home to Lake, had dinner and then went to a seminar about wolves given for the park employees. It was an interesting seminar, but the speaker used technical jargon and it was pretty clear that his presentation should have been given to fellow professionals researching wolves rather than a bunch of common people who don’t know the first thing about these animals. Apparently, wolves were completely absent from the park for a lot of the 20th century because they were all hunted and killed off, but they were finally reintroduced in the mid 90’s. Since then, they’ve been doing fairly well and their presence has made considerable improvements to the park’s ecosystem as a whole.

The next day, Wednesday (today), I went on two hikes. On the first, Jillian and I and two friends went hiking at a spot a few miles east of the Lake Hotel. We didn’t really know how to get to this trail, where exactly it led, or how long it was, but we decided to try it anyways. It ended up that we were never really on the correct trail and when we finally completely lost any resemblance of a trail, we ended up climbing straight up the mountain. It was probably an 800 vertical rise over 20 horizontal feet. For more than half of that climb, we were using hands and feet to keep going! The lookout from the top of all the mountains was spectacular, though. And, to top it all off, we got to watch a lounging grizzly bear for 20 minutes! The bear was about 100 yards from the path that we were supposed to take up the mountain (which we did finally find at the top). There were other people around enjoying the sight as well. We watched the bear and then walked back down the mountain along the (paved) path to our car. Needless to say, the walk down the mountain on the paved road was far easier than the scrambling climb up the mountain on dirt and slipping rocks.
Later in the evening, Jillian and I joined a group of Yellowstone employees for a moonlit hike up a nearby mountain called Elephant Back. The full moon and sparse cloud cover provided for a beautiful trek up the mountain and a fantastic view at the top looking overlooking the hotel, frozen lake and distant mountains. It was a bit snowy and at times I fell into the snow up to my hips! My boots served me well, though, and I miraculously finished the hike with dry feet. At one point, we could hear wolves howling in the distance! We had a group of fifteen people total, so no wildlife came close to us because of the racket we made. This was both a blessing and a curse as it kept the dangerous animals away but it kept peaceful ones (ie-birds) away as well.

I must get some sleep now so I can enjoy my final day off tomorrow. Shalom!