sandiego.com Blogs

I rose at 5am, got dressed and made a cold ride into the rising sun to Norris Geyser parking lot where I met both Frank S. and Mary Anne in different cars. I rode with Frank S. to a side road parking lot near Canyon Village and Alum Creek on the eastern side of the park. There I met a second Frank W. ; both Franks were from nearby Livingston; Daryl G. from Milwaukee; Jakefrom San Francisco-in-transition-to-somewhere-else, and his dad Lonnie, from somewhere in northern Michigan.

As living proof that the Internet creates relationships, the two Franks, Darrell, Jake and Mary Anne all met online through a chat channel dedicated to Yellowstone. It was a great group…everyone with knowledge of the park and of hiking and all very pleasant and sociable. I could easily see why they chose to find good hikes to do together.

We loaded up and crossed the road to start the hike, but not before a large bull bison came sauntering down the path while we waited. He went onto the side of the road and kept walking and we started our hike at 7:40. We entered a large plain, framed on each side with pine trees. Immediately, hundreds of head of bison could be seen dotting the fields in front of us. The Yellowstone herd was part of a critical effort that prevented the extinction of the species. The Smithsonian paid for a fence in 1895 to help build the herd. The other herds in the park provide feeder members to herds from in adjoining states.

The nation’s first national park so designated by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1872, Yellowstone is also the headwaters to five major rivers.

As we walk, Mary Anne is trying to find a road that was used by the Army to transport wagons to the east. Several times, we have to hold up or take a different route as pods of bison move around. We can see the dust clouds rising from all over the plain as the bison first kick out a wallow and then roll around in it. Dotting the plain are these large bowls in the ground. Mary Anne said the bison were in the rutting season, as we watched as several cows were each chased by two or three bulls.

People think that Bison aren’t very bright with their massive bodies and heads formed to scooped snow out of their path. The two locals, Mary Anne and Frank, spoke of cases where tourists had been crazy enough to place a child on a bison for a photo. They said there are incidents every year where people are hurt. In another case, someone tried to push a herd off of the road to get through. The animal kicked the door in of the lead car. In the narrow roads around the park, there are what Mary Anne referred to as “bisonjams”. Each touring car stops “for just 30 seconds” to take a photo of the elk or bison that often occupy the roadside. The cumulative effect is to back up traffic for sometimes hours.

As we neared the plain’s end and started toward the trees, Mary Anne and Jake had taken a higher route and were the first to see a Grizzly feeding on the carcass of something.

There are two scenarios that are the most dangerous for encountering a grizzly…one is a mother with her cubs and the other is a grizzly protecting his food. We brought the rest of the party up the hill and kept walking. As soon as the wind shifted, the bear ran into the woods. We guessed that he had caught our scent and wanted to avoid us or that a larger bear had chased him off of the kill. It might have been that our larger group was intimidating.

We continued up the mountain. As we walked, Mary Anne spoke of the history of the park and of this particular trail. As we walked through a corridor of trees for what had been a road, we were surprised by a mother and her cub. She made a squealing sound just as she saw us and she and her cub moved so fast we were fortunate she decided to avoid us instead of charging. Four of our party were carrying pepperspray, but it was the general consensus that it would have been difficult to get it out of its holster, remove the safety and use it at the speed the bear had traveled.

As we walked we occasionally, ran into lone bison. Most just watched us walk by. Often the older bulls are shoved off from the herd once they no longer dominate. There are piles of their massive bones all through the area where they finally met their end. Many go to the hot springs to die, being warm at the end.

We walked 10 miles to Mary Lake where we found a National Park Service cabin and a small lake. Nearby we found another trail marker that we almost walked by. It led up the hill toward Signet Lake.

As we walked the trail is marked with small red metal panels that are nailed to the trees. But from earlier days, there is an “I” carved into the tree. These “blazes” were converted from the original simple wood chop scrapes that trappers and others would leave to mark the trail for those following. When the National Park Service was created, it is thought that the I blaze was used to symbolize “Interior” for the Department of the Interior the runs the Park Service, but more importantly, it is meant to look man-made for easier location.

We continued on down the mountain through an impossible road that the Army was said to have used for wagons headed east. We finally reached the flat where a giant meadow spread off to the distance. We found a sign commemorating the capture of the Cowan family by the Nez Pearce Indians who were encamped there at the edge of the meadow. From then on, the walk was relatively flat and passed in an out of the trees until we entered mostly forest as we followed first magpie creek and then Nez Pearce creek.

Finally, at about 9pm after 22 miles and we got to the car that was left the night before and rode back to where we had left the cars that morning. Frank and Mary Anne and I rode back to the Norris Geyser parking lot for my Harley. They did the 90 minute drive to the north, Mary Anne to her converted Train Depot in Emigrant and Frank to his place in Livingston. I rode to West Yellowstone, moving real slow as I imagined the darkened shapes of bison stepping onto the empty road and compensating for what I guessed would be my tired and slow responses.

I arrived in West Yellowstone and, while first headed to the hotel, I decided to stop in at the Iron Horse saloon for a couple of pints of Moose Drool (a beer from Missoula) after spending the day drinking water and dining on power bars.