Yellowstone National Park

On my day off this week I had the opportunity to tag along with a group of guests on a tour of Yellowstone National Park. Mountain Sky is holding a special program called “Visions of Yellowstone” where everyday the group goes down into Yellowstone with different guides and different focuses. The first guide was Jim Evanoff, the Environmental Sustainability Coordinator for the park. Although I wasn’t able to go on his tour, I was able to listen to his presentation the night before. Jim is a bigwig with green initiatives and quite possibly the most informed person on Yellowstone. He was the guy to initiate the reintroduction of the wolves to Yellowstone, a very successful and highly controversial issue for Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. He has introduced a massive composting program for the waste created by the park’s annual 3.3 million visitors, which in turn has diverted 75% of the waste away from landfills. He spoke about the history of Yellowstone and hopefully where the future is headed. Yellowstone is the United State’s first national park and this initially meant that the Calvary was charged with the task of protecting the natural resources, with no regard for visitor enjoyment. With the creation of the park service in the early 1900s the focus radically shifted to the visitor’s experience, largely at the expense of the natural resources. There was a golf course at the northern entrance, bath houses diverted the geyser ’s hot water into shallow pools, open dumps encouraged wild animals such as bears to become habituated to humans for show, and the most shockingly, all animals considered predators were killed off. Thus the distinction of the wolf from the park. Only animals that could be petted or habituated were tolerated. Even the pelican was killed off because they were eating too many trout and taking away from visitor’s fishing experience. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the park service again shifted the balance to focusing more on the preservation and defense of the wilderness area, something the park still struggles with today.
Mammoth Hot Springs... this square mile of springs creates over 50 tons of new rock every day!

My guide for Wednesday, however, was Tom Murphy, a renowned and world-class nature photographer. He’s on the books for National Geographic, Time, and Life, to name a few. In his mid-60s, graying hair, tall and wiry from his daily hikes and ski trips into the parks, Tom was the perfect guide for my first trip to Yellowstone. He repeatedly spoke about the importance of the history and of the story behind each photograph he takes. With no short answer, Tom explained the geothermal features in just as much detail as he explained bison behavior and photographic tips. He moved to Livingston over 30 years ago and has made a point of spending at least 100 days out of every year in the park.
Tom and I becoming best friends.

An Elk (right next to the road) in velvet.

Yellowstone is spectacular. You travel from valley to valley, go over and follow raging rivers, and summit mountains – and this is only 20 miles into the park! Although Yellowstone is unique as a national park because it has four entrances and more roadways than most parks, you can only see 6% of the park if you stick to the pavement. Which I really like actually, its nice to think that 94% of the park has maintained a truly wild nature. On our trip we saw practically every animal one associates with Yellowstone. Right off we saw a black bear mother and cub, being approached by a very curious bull bison (the bison are about three times the size of the bears). Followed by three buck elks right next to the road way and in velvet, the stage right before they shed their winter coat (their antlers look soft and fuzzy for example). Not to mention the antelope, the big horn sheep, and the endless number of bison and elk with their calves and colts. The most exciting animal sighting, however, were two wolves feeding on a bison carcass, either their own kill or one they took over. These dogs are huge! And dangerous and so beautiful – basically wolves are badass.

Click to enlarge and see the wolf!

In 1995 there were no more wolves in Yellowstone or even in the regions surrounding the park. Now there are over 340. The elk population is back under control, which means vegetation in flatlands has been able to thrive again and the wolf is being seriously considered for delisting as an endangered animal. Cattle ranchers, however, now have to worry about the wolves as predators to their herds and complain that the elk population has been compromised for hunting. (Which isn’t necessarily true; the elk population has largely been re-balanced.) Between 1930 and 1996, the elk really didn’t have any major predators other than bears. The reintroduction of the wolf has forced the elk to revert to defense tactics forgotten by many generations and has reestablished a natural food chain. Ironically, those who used to complain that there were too many elk (so they could hunt more of them) are now the ones on the other side of the fence who complain there aren’t enough of elk so they should be allowed to hunt wolves. It’s a complicated issue.

Big Horn Sheep!

My first trip into Yellowstone was perfect. Tom was probably one of the coolest people I have ever met and we already have a hiking date in July! A week later a few of us were able to return to Yellowstone and do some hiking, truly the best way to see the park. I can’t believe I live so close to such a cool place.

I've decided I really like awkward animals... sheep (big or little), bison, moose, etc.

P.S. The nicer photos are curtesy of RC, the activities director, and his fancy pancy camera.