Hilary and Theresa's Road to Nowhere: On Safari In Yellowstone

Yellowstone surprised and excited in so many ways. This was my first experience in the United State's first National Park. I knew that people came from all over the world to see this gem. But I hadn't heard that it was called the "American Serengeti." I would quickly understand how apt the description really was.

We drove to Yellowstone from Butte Montana in beautiful 78 degree temps. It was so warm that we stopped at a beach along the Madison River just outside of the west entrance to the park. It wasn't long before the eagles started soaring overhead. First a pair of adults and then a juvenile. We had hiked about a quarter of a mile along the only narrow path leading to the beach, and once we were there we felt very isolated. I couldn't help thinking about the grizzly bear maulings that had occurred a couple of months earlier at a campground outside of Yellowstone. Were we close? I wasn't sure. Humans are rarely attacked and killed by grizzlies. Yet it had happened.... My concerns were heightened when Louis Leakey, I mean Hilary, discovered the skeleton of an elk just off the path that was our only escape route. Yikes! Yellowstone was the real deal. We made our way back to the car, warding off potential attacks by singing songs to alert any lurking predators. Hilary instructed me that once attacked, however, I shouldn't run or make any noise at all. Rather, I was to lie face-down with legs and arms spread. Why? Hopefully to save at least a limb or two. Comforting thoughts as I picked up the pace.

The advantages of seeing Yellowstone in the fall included fewer crowds. But we didn't know that fewer crowds meant fewer opened campgrounds. And because it was late it the day (it seems we are chronically late for everything,) our options were pretty limited. So our campsite was not ideal. It was exposed to the rest of the campground, it was close to the road, and we were surrounded by RVs the size of Muni buses. To make matters worse, our air mattress deflated in the middle of our first night (we suspect Layla) and we ended up sleeping on the very cold (30 degrees,) very hard ground. I felt 100 years old getting out of our tent the next morning. And the sound of those f___ing RV generators... But we eventually settled in and even after the nicer campsites opened up, the trouble of re-locating didn't seem worth it. We were bonding with our neighbors and the elk regularly walked through our campsite. All in all, "it was the best of campsites, it was the worst of campsites."

On our way to get a new air mattress, we stopped to watch a herd of elk and chatted up a ranger who told us about a grizzly and her cubs that were in the opposite direction of the sporting store we were headed towards. Screeech. Stop the presses. We turned the car around and had a new mission. And that's pretty much the way it went for us in Yellowstone. We'd get a hot tip and we'd go for it. On that particular day, we never found the griz (please note the local vernacular) but we were directed to the Lamar Valley where wolves were supposed to be eating the carcass of an elk. We were all over it.

When we arrived in Lamar Valley coyotes were on the carcass, but we didn't have to wait long for the wolf to return. She hit the scene at a full run and the coyotes were, in the words of Duane Kuiper, "outa here." This wolf was beautiful. She was a grey wolf, though her coloring was a tawny red, similar to that of the coyotes. But she was much taller and much bigger. We were told that she was the alpha female of the Lamar Canyon pack, a newer pack that included two darker male brothers and four pups. Apparently, the "group" had just become the "pack" because they had reproduced (there are people in this park who are truly obsessed and know everything about these wolves.) She ripped away at the flesh of the unfortunate elk while the coyotes hovered in the background. What a sight! We high-fived each other for such excellent luck oduring our first 24 hours in the park.

Back on the home front, things would temporarily take a turn for the worse. We had abandoned our plan to get the air-mattress in order to chase bears and wolves. So by the time we got to the stores, they were closed of course. Damn. We were going to have to sleep in the car. Oh well, it would be a character builder, right? And how bad could it be after sleeping on the ground the night before? Actually, it wasn't that bad for me, but Layla shared Hilary's side of the car and apparently it wasn't as good for him. We bought a new air mattress first thing the next morning.

Lamar Valley is where most of the action takes place in Yellowstone. Unfortunately, our campground was almost an hour and a half away, so we did a lot of driving. But driving is really the best way to see the wild-life at Yellowstone and we never knew what we might see around the next bend. This was a true safari. We saw herds of elk and stampeding buffalo. We saw pronghorn antelope with exotic tribal markings and the healthiest and most beautiful coyotes I've ever seen. We saw eagles, albino red-tail hawks, trumpeter swans, river otters and more. But we were in "big game hunter mode" and we wanted to see the bad-ass grizzlies.

It took a couple of days. And the false alarms were sooo disappointing. Once, I was so sure I'd spotted a bear, I was literally jumping up and down on the side of the road. And then I saw a tail move. F__ing buffalo again. This happened more than once. But just when we accepted that our bear adventures were a thing of the past, there they were - two grizzlies at one time - one chasing the other up the hill at full speed. There is something that's both comical and beautiful about these huge bears running. It was close to thirty minutes before we lost sight of them and moved along to follow the next hot tip.

We were told that a really big grizzly had been on a bison carcass earlier in the day. By the time we got to the scene, there were only ravens on the carcass. But we were told that the bear, and maybe even wolves, might be back at daybreak. So we got up at 5:30 in the morning and headed off. There were already about 20 cars lined up when we arrived and dozens of people with scopes, some the size of a small house. This was a very good sign. As I adjusted my binocs, I asked the man next to me what was going on. I'll never forget his response. In a thick German accent, and with the "Moonie eyes" of someone who'd just seen God, he said "a bear and seven wolves."

We had already seen the National Geographic television series a couple of times. But this was the National Geographic movie. The biggest grizzly that most watching had ever laid eyes on, was standing over the bison carcass while the Black-Point wolf pack circled it. They were all grey wolves but two were actually black, and two were a tawney color. One of the black wolves would try to grab a bite of the carcass and the bear would paw at him and he'd quickly move back. The largest grey wolf, the female leader of the pack, would nip at the bear's leg and he'd turn around and do a face-off until she'd back down. The wolves circled and harassed the bear like this for over an hour, but the bear never left the carcass. We were later told that this bear was a very "experienced" bear. A less experienced bear might have chased one of the wolves, allowing the pack to move in and surround the carcass, making it difficult for the bear to return. But this big boy stayed put. Even when he was full, rather than leave, he actually took a nap on top of the carcass. Even seasoned Yellowstone experts said they had never seen anything like this before.

Then it got even better. A second grizzly, a beautiful cinnamon colored bear, appeared on the scene. While the wolves couldn't make the big guy budge, they were able to move as a pack toward the cinnamon bear and chase her back into the woods. They did this twice. The cinnamon bear was obviously an "inexperienced" bear. When the Ranger showed up and was filled in on the details, he paused for a few seconds and summed it all up with an accent that was pure Montana, "Well that sounds like quite a show."

We hadn't had coffee yet, so we drove to Cooke City, now infamous as the scene of the earlier grizzly maulings. The locals were understandably upset by this unfortunate event. It was a horrible tragedy all the way around. One man was killed and two others were injured when an undernourished female grizzly marauded a campground. To make matters worse, business was suffering because all of the campgrounds in the immediate area were closed and tourists were generally staying away. We seemed to sense a little resentment towards the wolves. I knew there was a raging controversy surrounding the restoration of the wolves into Yellowstone fifteen years earlier. Elk hunters didn't want any competition and farmers were afraid that the wolves would wipe out their stock. But some of the locals seemed to think that the bears had become more aggressive after the wolves appeared. They suspected that the grizzlies had less to eat because the wolves were competing for the same food. Not so, according to representatives of the Wolf Project, the group that initiated and still closely follows the restoration project. They say the grizzlies are healthier than ever before. They point out that wolves, unlike grizzlies, are excellent hunters. But once the wolves kill an animal, the grizzlies can easily muscle their way in and take over the kill. So the bears are actually getting more food than they did before the arrival of the wolves. In addition, the wolves keep the coyote (their enemies) and elk (their favorite prey) populations in check. And the antelope population, previously close to extinction, has once again become abundant. According to the folks at the Wolf Project, the wolves are responsible for restoring balance to Yellowstone. By the way, I got most of this information by eavesdropping on "Rick" from the Wolf Project giving a lecture to a visiting class of high school students. Hilary joined me well into the presentation and when Rick asked the class if anyone could explain why the antelope population had increased after the introduction of the wolves, Hilary blurted out the correct answer (the decrease in the coyote population was responsible.) I'm not sure that the class appreciated the input, but Rick and I were both very impressed.

While we were in Cooke City, we were encouraged to drive along Beartooth Pass, a scenic byway spanning Montana and Wyoming and called by some the "most beautiful road on earth." Mountain goats and Bighorn sheep inhabit the cliffs, some as high as 11,000 feet. We saw dozens of perfect mountain lakes and the views were spectacular. Then, another hot (literally) tip led us to Boiling River, where thermal waters rise from the ground and then fall into the Gardiner River forming jacuzzi like pools of warm water. We let the waters carry us downstream to the warmer waters and it was very relaxing until we tried to get back upstream. The guy struggling along side of us said it was the hardest thing he had ever done. I'm a criminal defense attorney, so I have done harder things. But the currents were very strong and it was difficult to move back up the river with my bathing-suit bottom intact.

After 6 nights in Yellowstone we were ready to move on. It was one of the best experiences of our lives, but camping is really hard work, especially in the rain , and our enthusiasm was waning. We were starting to feel like farmers with a million early morning chores. Sometimes we were exhausted by the time we left our site for the day. Worse, I found myself growing envious of the RV crowd and all their "stuff." I''d grimace as they smugly drove their noisy, politically incorrect Munis past out campsite every morning giving us those "thank God it's them and not us" looks. Enough was enough. But we weren't quite ready to leave the wilderness behind. We had gotten a taste of Grand Teton National Park, Yellowstone's achingly beautiful next door neighbor on a day trip. But we hadn't found the moose that famously reside there and we wanted to give it another shot. And so it was decided. We would stay a few more days and stalk the moose in the Grand Tetons from the luxury of a new base camp - the Motel 6 in Jackson Hole.

* Hopefully, our friends with zoom lenses will forward us some of the more dramatic events that could only be seen with binoculars.