THE RUT

That night, the bugling seemed to last forever, making it impossible to sleep. By morning, the young bull elk was hoarse. He had been announcing his readiness to get it on with the lady elk in the neighborhood all night long and all he had to show for it was a sore throat.

Poor guy. His troubles were about to get worse.

Elk rut. Two tiny words that carry beautiful animals into the next generation. An annual ritual of procreation and elk lust. Normally bull elk either wander alone or with other bull elk. But during the Rut, every additional bull elk is just competition.

Here at Mammoth, the Rut comes at the same time the last mass of tourists are visiting and the Park’s high elevations are beginning to get colder. And when it starts getting colder, bear, elk and bison move down to slightly warmer environs. Mammoth is one of the lower elevations in the Park and it has an added draw – the historic lawn planted at the time Mammoth Hot Springs was the home of the US Army troop charged with protecting the World’s first National Park.

Elk, like other grazers, primarily eat grasses and leaves. During the Fall, as the natural grasses and leaves turn brown and no longer offer nutrition for the elk, the well-irrigated richly green historic lawns of Mammoth offer easily accessible food for the cows, their calves and then the bulls who will join them.

Right now, according to the Mammoth Rangers and Xanterra’s security guards, there are up to four bulls prowling the hills and grazing on the lawns at Mammoth. The trouble begins when one elk, usually the dominant older and more experienced elk, has gathered his ‘harem’, an indiscriminate group of cows who are coming into estrus. The cows are accompanied by their calves, many of whom are still nursing. The bull must keep his harem around him because it is the female, not the male, who calls the shots on when the bull can mount. He just needs to be in the right place at the right time.

It is often quite humorous to watch the frustrated bull as he continues to round up his wandering harem. The lady elk wander in search of even more succulent grass. The calves will often wander, too, prompting Mom to come find them at their plaintive call. The dominant Mammoth elk, an enormous 6x7 (6 point on one antler and 7 points on the other), sometimes must leave the proximity of the harem to gather up a wandering cow.

And when the bull leaves the herd, one of the other elk in the neighborhood, watching from up on the hill or around the corner of a building, comes courting, swooping down into the harem to entice some of the lady elk to trot away with him. If the dominant elk spies the intruder, the bull thunders toward the intruder, menacing him by brandishing his larger rack, curling his lips and grinding his teeth. He may even hiss at the interloper. And this plays out nearly every day on the green grounds at Mammoth.

A bull may interpret a nursing yearling bull, called a ‘Spike’ for his tiny growing points, as a threat and chase him away from his mother. The mother may then go after the yearling prompting the bull to leave long enough to herd the mother back to the harem. All the Spike wants to do is nurse. But the bull is generally indiscriminate – not only will he consider Junior a threat but he also doesn’t cull out the ‘healthiest’ or the ‘best-looking’ or the ones with 'family issues'. The job that Mother Nature gave him is to procreate – as many times and with as many cows as possible during the Rut. And he does not appreciate interference with the task he has been given.

I watched a bull frantically trying to keep his harem together from the safety of the Visitor Center with many other watchers, including several with very large telescopic lenses that identify them as professional wildlife photographers. Of course, there are always a few elk-obsessed well-equipped amateur photographers around as well. Some visitors even delay their visits to Yellowstone JUST to catch the elk action.

I swear the tourists don’t read the ‘DANGER; Do Not approach the Elk” signs posted all over Mammoth. Between them and the photographers who make their living putting themselves in dangerous proximity to nature’s most interesting beats, the Rangers and the Xanterra security guards are in constant motion whenever the cows gather on the lawns at Mammoth.

All this activity aggravates the bull elks, who are chronically short of sleep and sometimes food from their vigilant watch over their harem. One particularly active night, the Rangers had to divert traffic away from the lawns in order to keep people safe from one really pissed off bull.  As I watched safely from my dorm room window right across from the largest open patch of lawn at Mammoth, one of the younger but still many-pointed bulls, clearly agitated by all the people and activity, went for anyone close enough to warrant his attention or, alternatively, their cars parked perpendicularly to the lawn. I’m sure several of those vehicles are now in the body shop getting at least their grills repaired

The tourists and their vehicles are not the only ones susceptible to the elk bulls’ damage. One of the Rangers drove around Mammoth for several days with cardboard duct-taped to her passenger window, the result of inserting her vehicle between an angry elk bull and our visitors. One of my dorm mates was taking her nightly walk around the Terraces when a Ranger’s SUV screeched to a halt in front of her, throwing his passenger door open. “Get in now. A bull is charging you.”  Acting quickly, she jumped in the vehicle and the Ranger sped a safe distance away.  She hadn’t even made eye contact with the bull. He just saw her and decided she needed to be punished for being in his way.

Rangers do their best to keep the visitors apart from the elk but often the visitors are uncooperative. They walk toward the elk, wanting to get a picture of those massive antlers. Or they position family members in front of the herd in order to capture Johnny with the elk. Visitors crowd the cows and frighten the calves. They pull their cars up in the night, shining their brights on the sleeping cows and calves intending to…..well, I’m not sure what their intentions are for that stupid trick.  However, the night the bull went berserk that very same spell-bound crowd speedily raced to their cars during a moment of calm and moved them to safety. Sometimes actions speak louder than words. I was rooting for the bull.

So what are the cows during this time? From what I can tell, mostly grazing, calling to their calves and resting on the lush lawn. When they are ready, they will offer themselves to the nearest attractive bull in order to breed their next calf. They are in charge and the bulls are just their nervous suitors. Once the bulls have done their duty to the cows, the cows are done with them, perfectly happy and able to raise the calves on their own and let the bulls go off into the forest to play fight or do whatever the bulls do when they are not in Rut.

Why are we humans to fascinated by these animals during Rut? I’ve been thinking about this. Of course, there is the sheer size and magnificence of a 6x7 point bull elk. Our guy here in Mammoth is huge, perhaps near to 1,000 pounds. His muscles ripple when he charges. The others are also quite large just not as big as the 6x7. Generally, the number of points of a bull’s rack indicates the bull’s ability to find food- lots and lots of food.

It takes lots of good nutrition to grow such a fine rack. To do so, he must be hearty, healthy and smart. He must be able to avoid danger and predators. He must be able to do all this and still prepare himself each year for the Rut.  Is it possible that some primal part of our natures connect with the sheer power of a bull elk? Possibly. I know when I watch a bull elk thunder down the lawn I am fascinated with his size and power.  I can imagine a culture which grew up on football heroes must see an elk as the ultimate competitor – and the fact that he is competing for continuation of the species is also compelling.

I also find female elk fascinating because the sexual tables are turned for them. Our human culture has traditionally raised its females to dress prettily, act prettily, be pretty; traditional gender roles require the female to work really hard to attract a suitable mate. With elk, a female in estrus, ready to be impregnated, need only welcome the attention of the bull of her choosing and then she’s off to do her own thing until next year. Something quite free and independent about that. I can’t help but admire the lady elks, too.

Whatever the reason we are drawn to elk, we are drawn in droves. Even I can’t help but respond to this particular ‘call of the wild’. I generally believe staying far away from wild animals keeps them wild but I admit to bending my core principles when it comes to the Rut. Life, especially love, would be so much simpler if our choices were driven by pure instinct rather than sentience. Or would that take away all the fun of being human?

THE GHOSTS OF GRANITE

(Blogger's note: The end of my season is coming up soon. I am sorry I will be unable to post twice a week as I have been. I will continue to post at least once a week. If I lived in Yellowstone all my life I would still be left with places unseen and things undone. I want to spend as much time here experiencing Yellowstone as possible prior to my departure. I have not yet decided whether I should continue my postings. I'm inclined to do so since I have many places yet to see and many changes going on in my life. If you would like me to continue, please drop me a line. I appreciate my readers' attention over the last few months.)

The sun was dappling the ground through the trees. It was a clear day with an impossibly blue sky – one of those ‘Big Sky Montana’ skies. We were at the top of a mountain near Phillipsburg after a fun but interesting 15 minutes on a rutted dirt road. We got out of the truck and started walking toward the only remnants of civilization we saw from the hard-packed ground at the top where we parked my trusty truck YiHa.

 

Suddenly, we heard the squeak of a door and saw something in filmy white from the corner of our eyes. “Did you see that?” asked Dan, my son. “Yes, let’s go take a look.” I felt like Nancy Drew.

 

After a short investigation, we concluded the squeak came from the wind blowing the door of an old wood cabin and the white filmy thing was a very old remnant of a sheer lace curtain blowing in the wind. Or was it?

 

We were visiting the Granite Ghost Town. Granite is one of the largest mining remains in Southern Montana. Near Philipsburg (see my post Mountains, Mining and Microbrews), straight up to the top of Granite Mountain, Montana State Parks has developed a walking trail called the GGW “Granite Ghost Walk”. I’m glad we were there in full daylight. I might have had some heart palpitations if it were dark and not JUST because of the elevation at 7,320 feet.

 

On the way up, we pass the remnants of the old tramway that carried some of Granite’s silver ore down to the stamping mill at Rumsey, 1.5-miles down the mountain. We stopped for pictures and to get a ‘feel’ for what that tram might have been like in its day. (Ok, we’re kind of history nuts. We stop even at those cheesy ‘historic point of interest’ markers on the road. It’s like YiHa just knows where to go.) Some of the original frame still exists and it’s worth the quick stop.

 

Further along, we recognized more recent steel structures, modern storage sheds, and kept climbing. Figuratively, we were looking for the gold – the real deal – a Montana ghost town. And Granite delivered.

 

In its heyday, Granite boasted a citizen count of over 3,000 people. Two of the mine's mills were built very near the top of Granite Mountain and the town spread out to the south and west of these stamp mills. The ‘commercial section’ is relatively intact, having been constructed of rock and steel beams. The beautiful stone walls of the Miner’s Union Hall, the gathering place of the Silver Queen’s miners, still stand tucked into a wooded hillside that creeps ever onward into its interior.  The Granite Mine’s Superintendent’s house is also standing courtesy of Montana State Parks. Up the road (northerly) from the visitor kiosk (which is unfortunately NOT well kept up) and closer to the remnants of the mills, you can take pictures as we did of yourself standing in the steel-framed door of the General Store. Satisfyingly touristy.

 

A few wooden cabins exist, including that of the last remaining resident Mrs. Mae Werning, who remained in Granite as the caretaker until her death in 1969. Her cabin, like the remnants of others we saw, had a large hole in the floor. We couldn’t figure out why that might be – perhaps root cellars? Perhaps primitive secret storage? But if a lot of people had them, they couldn’t be very secret. 

 

With a population of over 3,000 people at its most productive, A LOT of rock foundations of other cabins exist in the forest. The forest seems to want to recover its own, though, and without additional preservation, these will most likely be consumed by vegetation over time. Kind of creepy.

 

The Ghost Walk actually takes off right behind the visitor’s kiosk, something we didn’t figure out until we had already walked over much of the upper mountain to the west and south. The GGW, a pleasant hike of about 2 hours, takes you past the site of the old school house (yes, miners had children and wives) and the old general store. Once you get to the aforementioned general store, you can already see the remnants of the huge stamp mills on the hills. The two mills above Granite town had 70 ‘stamps’, apparatus that ‘stamped’ the ore into dust which was then put through usually a chemical process to separate the gold or silver from the other minerals in the dust.

 

The entire mill section of the ruins sits high above with a panoramic view of Rumsey Mountain and Discovery Ski Resort – and, of course, the entire beautiful Anaconda Mountain Range to the south. And by the time you have hiked to the mills, you are ready to sit and rest a spell under the spell of such beautiful mountain scenery.

 

Montana Miners were relatively well-off by international mining standards. They were generally paid well (the fact one of the most imposing buildings was the ‘union’ building attests to that), quite often had ‘modern’ conveniences like electricity (well, they needed it to run the mills) and sometimes even running water.  The wages and living conditions attracted miners from all over the world. The Granite Mine must have been somewhat cosmopolitan with Welsh and Cornish miners from the British Isles, Chinese mine workers, Irishmen and miners from all over the mining areas of Europe.

 

However, the price of silver took a beating beginning in 1872 when Germany stopped producing silver coinage.  A Depression in Europe caused a further drop in the demand for silver but the US government, in an attempt to prop up the price of silver and stave off the effect of the world-wide depression on mining, enacted the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890, requiring the federal government to buy a certain quantity of silver at a certain price that would artificially prop up the silver industry.

 

Three years later, a serious depression in the United States caused President McKinley to seek the repeal of the Act. An interesting note here is the fact that much of the cause of the Depression was due to overbuilding and sketchy financing of the railroads which had occurred in tandem with the expansion of the US mining industry. Several of the Montana mining kings were also heavily invested in building railroads to service the mines.

 

When the Sherman Act was repealed, silver demand went into a tailspin. Miners literally walked off the job and the population of Granite dropped within a few days from nearly 3,200 to 140 (Legends of America). The reign Montana’s Silver Queen was caput.

 

The fallout was enormous for the region. The Philipsburg bank held most of the miner’s money and miners and their families lined up to withdraw all of their savings from the banks. The reserves of the Montana banks, like their counterparts elsewhere, were insufficient to meet the demands of the withdrawals. Panic ensued.

 

The story of Granite is fascinating but it is not the only story of boom and bust in America. America is full of dreams and dreamers. America is the place people come to from all over the world for the promise of a better life. In the case of the Miners of Granite, many were left with no jobs and no hope of jobs. The Chinese miners were left with no money to get home and, due to discrimination institutionalized by a government that would not allow these particular workers to bring their families over here, no families to help them. A story that has been repeated over and over in the history of the waves of immigration in our great country.

 

Walking in their footsteps as we climb out of our own recent economic downturn made me feel kinship with those who left their lunches on the table in order to get in line at the bank. A creepy place? Yes, and a place where the economic history of our world since Industrialization easily leaves us with a sense of loss for the productive miners of Montana’s Silver Queen. It is important we remember the contributions of those who provide the labor that fuels our economy. A visit to Granite is not just a ghost walk; it’s a pilgrimage.

MOUNTAINS, MINING AND MICROBREWS

You’d think I’d be used to the beauty of Montana by now.  My traveling companion and 24-year-old son Daniel and I are supposed to meet at the Anaconda exit off I-90 Saturday night to drive down to Georgetown Lake for a little camping followed by a drive down the Pintler Scenic Loop. He’s late (as usual). And when he gets there, he has a slight variation of the agenda in mind.

We picked Anaconda because it is to be our starting point for our day trip (only 64-miles but really did take us all day) along the Pintler Veterans’ Memorial Scenic Highway. Anaconda, just six miles south of the Interstate, is a historic mining town. While Butte has shafts and open pit mines and lots of mining history, Anaconda has the historic smelter.  The smelter still exists as do numerous beautiful old buildings typical of a town created during a time money flowed like water because of rich deposits of gold and silver in the area. Present-day Anaconda is a pleasant, well-kept small town nestled below the Flint Creek Mountains.

I thought we had agreed to drive around Anaconda looking at the historic buildings a bit, maybe get some dinner, but basically drive through the town to get to Georgetown Lake. Dan, upon hearing that the Montana Grizzly game would be on tv, had another idea. With the help of Yelp, he found a sports bar, gave the bar a call to ask if the bar would playing the Griz game. “Only on every TV screen in the place.” came the answer. Sold!

Carmel’s is about as neighborhood of a bar that you can get.  It sits one block from one of the two main roads of Anaconda (each one of them being a one-way leg of the main drag) and the owner lives in a tidy brick bungalow across the street. His name is Sean Schulte and his wife’s name is Kathy. Sean retired to Anaconda from Missoula after years of being a Teamster for Yellow Freight. As soon as he bought the bar, he deeded it over to his wife. “I want to go out of this life just like I went into it – naked and with nothing.” he likes to say.

Carmel’s is clean, the beer is cold and reasonable, the appetizers are tasty and the company is local. Just our kind of place. It has one thing totally unique that perhaps no other bar in the WORLD has, an authentic, regulation-length (that being a full 24 feet) American Brunswick shuffleboard table. American Brunswick only made 15 of these beauties in 1948 and only three are known to exist. Sean’s table is #3. Tables #1 (first off the line) and #5 still exist, the former in Chicago and the latter, Sean thinks, in San Diego. Sean says if his was #1, he’d think about taking the million dollar offer someone made to the Chicago owner of it. He’s been offered $61,000 for #3 but when a man has everything he needs in the world (a good bar, cold beer and a loving wife and partner) what more could he want?

Sean was awfully glad a couple of fellow Grizzly fans dropped in for the game. Anaconda is a little closer to Missoula but it’s not too far from Bozeman and Montana State’s Wildcats. Feelings for the rivals are a little divided in Anaconda. But for us Griz fans, seeing the Grizzlies mangle the North Dakota Sioux by nearly 40 points while sipping a local microbrew seemed like a lot of fun. I had a great time sipping my Open Cab Copper (a nice, smooth honey ale from Quarry Brewing in Butte, just a few miles to the east), cheering the many touchdowns the Grizzlies made.  However, it seemed prudent to call the game at the 2-minute mark. No use further humiliating a team obviously underprepared for the newly reconstituted Griz team. We even felt a little bit sorry for the Sioux. But the Griz needed the win.

It being nearly dark, we didn’t really want to drive up to Georgetown Lake and miss the views.  Anaconda’s most local camping is Lost Creek State Park just eight miles from the bar and not far off the Anaconda I-90 exit. Lost Creek has a bunch of comfortable pretty camping spots situated along both sides of a tight canyon of limestone cliffs, adjacent on the east side to yet another clear, sparkling Montana creek. Dan brought firewood and started a fire while I sorted through the gear I had quickly thrown into my truck. “Oh NO! I forgot the tent!” I squealed.

Looking at the sky, full of those low, dark clouds that could turn into rain likely as not, Dan said “We could just sleep out under the stars.” I’m actually a big fan of that so we made our somewhat bumpy bed in the bed of my truck so we could minimize the dew coming up from the already cold, damp ground. I reminded Mother Nature how tight we are and asked that she prevent a downpour just for the night. The clouds moved away and Sister Moon did not shine too brightly in the canyon so Dan and I could see the bazillion stars in Montana’s sky.

The next morning I could hardly wait to get started and Dan could hardly wait to stay cuddled up in his nice warm sleeping bag. Just after 8 am, I started packing up the truck, thinking I would start driving with him still sleeping in the bed of the truck. He has an amazing ability to ken when I’m just about to do something he will regret and woke up just in time to help roll up the bags and hop into the truck.

The Pintler, or Montana 1, loops 64 miles from Anaconda to Drummond through some very scenic high country – not that all of southwest Montana isn’t pretty damn scenic. The Pintler skirts the Flint Creek Range in a big loop to the other side and Phillipsburg.  Our first stop was Georgetown Lake, a beautiful 3,700-acre reservoir 6,425 feet above sea level with views to the gorgeous Anaconda Pintlers to the South and the Sapphire Range to the far west.

The lake, well known for its fishing, offers anglers some fine rainbow and brown trout and even some kokanee salmon. Cabins of all sizes and rental ranges hug the shoreline and I suspect a week there would feel like a bit of heaven.  If you are a budget traveler, several good National Forest Campgrounds are available. We stopped to fish for a while (or more correctly practice fishing), drove all the way around the lake enjoying its spectacular views and then headed down the highway toward Granite, one of Montana’s best ghost mining towns. Since I fully expect my Thursday post to be about Granite, I won’t say much here but will tell you to take the rather bumpy and narrow drive up. It’s worth it.

Philipsburg, founded in 1867, grew rapidly at a “rate of one house a day,” eventually reaching a population of about 1,500 residents. The late 1800s mining boom grew the town, including a bank where a lot of the miners had their money. (Watch for my future post on Granite Mine and Town). The town serviced its mine town neighbors like Granite, Kirkville with its Bi-metallic Mill, and Southern Cross.

You can learn a lot about a town through its museum. Philipsburg undoubtedly at one time had quite a bit of money floating around to build a swanky brick building like the hotel that now houses the Granite County Museum and Cultural Center. The Museum is a must-see for local history buffs with its very life-like ‘mine’ exhibit with a creepy soundtrack of picks hitting rock and metal in the ‘mine shaft’. You can also follow the story of the local Chinese miners who, after a wave of anti-Chinese sentiment in the US, were unable to bring their wives and children from China to live in this beautiful country where they had good-paying, albeit dangerous, jobs in the mine.

In Montana, you can almost always quench your thirst in the local brew pub - in this instance the Philipsburg Brewing Company in a quaint 2-story brightly painted building of one of the main corners right down the block from the museum. The ‘gift shop’ is housed in the old vault of the building which sometime in its past had been a bank. A somewhat forlorn shaggy dog named Bruce sat in the doorway waiting for the brewmaster, his companion, to come back from an errand. I knew I liked the place when I saw the sign “We don’t Serve Women Here; You Have to Bring Your Own.”

Small hand-written signs identifying the brews were hung over several brightly metallic vats behind glass walls next to the tasting room. The tasting room had a beautiful long bar and a menu that only serves brews. Dan and I had ‘samplers’ since we couldn’t agree on just two beers to share.  We sampled the Razzu Raspberry Wheat, an American Hefeweizen, Algonquin “Gonk” Amber (described as a German ‘Alt’ beer), Otter Water Summer Pale Ale and Pilsner Czech One-Two. My son, who immediately turned up his nose at the ‘fruity’ beer, discovered raspberry makes a strong brew just a bit tangy, not sweet at all. Proving once again you have to keep your mind open in a brewpub.

Using our very complicated rating system (what we like the most), we rated the Razzu and the Gonk 5 stars, the Otter Water - 4, the Hefeweizen - 4 stars and the Pilsner - 3. In looking at our ratings, it seems unusual (or possibly completely understandable) that our ratings follow the potency of each beer. The Razzu and Gonk, at 5.2% and 5.87% respectively took the highest ratings, with the Hefeweizen, at 5.56 not far behind. The Otter Water stands at 4.5% and the potency of the Pilsner, which had the least ‘kick’ and was the last we tried, we never did find out. By then we had ordered the Razzu and the Gonk and then maybe another one.

Being responsible drinkers, I pulled the short straw and had to be the DD (Designated Driver) which made sense since our odyssey was about over and all we had left to do was drive back to Anaconda where we left Dan’s car in front of Sean’s house. (Remember Sean and Kathy? They are very friendly folk who volunteered to ‘keep an eye’ on Dan’s car.) That meant Dan had not only most of the beer but a nice long sleep on the way back to Anaconda.

My take on the day? First of all I am so very lucky that my son is such a great travel buddy and likes the same things I like. It might be due to all those thousands of miles on the roads of America and other countries we traveled together when he was growing up. Second, the Pintler is definitely worth getting off the Interstate for. Lots to see and do. Lots of lodging if you want to rest a spell. And lots of that gorgeous Southwestern Montana scenery in which to do it.

AND A BEAR CAME TO THE DOOR….

Sometimes I feel like I’m living in that fictitious Alaskan village Cicely on the old TV show Northern Exposure. During the beginning sequence of the show, an enormous moose makes himself quite comfortable ambling right down Main Street. Same here in Yellowstone but it's an bull elk instead. Dr. Joel, the main character of NE, was often startled by bear or some other forest critter. Happens every day here, too.  I think I remember an episode about an enamored moose or elk and how determined it was to get some. Happens right outside my dorm window on a nightly basis right now with the elk in rut.

Meanwhile, south from here a bit, a bison died near the road and the Rangers, rather than moving the carcass, are simply monitoring the area to keep us stupid humans from interfering with it. They realize that a bison carcass represents perhaps dozens of meals for certain animals in the Park – wolf, bear, ravens and other carnivorous creatures. Unfortunately, the likelihood of a lot of wolf and bear activity draws perhaps the stupidest mammal in the Park – the tourist.

There are signs all over the place warning tourists of the danger of getting too close to the wildlife. They do it anyway. Stories of the tourist trying to place his infant on the back of a bison are everyday stuff here. I have seen tourists positioning their family members with their backs to the elk cows in order to get a picture of their loved one 'with an elk'. Even well-informed employees sometimes get in trouble during the rut, though. A dorm mate barely made it into a Ranger’s truck when a bull elk decided he wanted her out of the way RIGHT NOW! And she was just walking in the neighborhood.

Keeping safe from rutting elk is a serious business here at Mammoth. One of the dorms had a non-working handicapped access door pretty much all summer. After repeated requests to maintenance to no avail, that got fixed when security determined that the residents needed all exit and entrance doors to work the first time every time just in case a resident needed to run full tilt to gain the reasonably secure access of the dorm. Rutting bull elk can be pretty single-minded and go crazy if they perceive their efforts are being thwarted.

Occasionally, one of the protected huge mammals in the Park goes walkabout. That’s what is happening right now in Gardiner, the gateway village for the North Entrance and the ‘bedroom community’ for full-timers who work in the northern parts of the Park. Last week, I was sitting on the deck of the Iron Horse Saloon, overlooking the Yellowstone River, minding my own business, reading my book and having one of my favorite brews, Kettlehouse Cold Smoke. A few minutes before when I came into town to get groceries, I’d seen people hanging over the bridge which connects the north and south sides of the canyon that splits the tiny community. I looked beyond the bridge and saw what looked like a small black bush moving along the sides of the canyon. The black bush turned out to be a black bear, perhaps 3 or 4-years-old, munching his way down the banks, most likely on a quest to fatten himself up for his winter’s sleep. Plenty of rosehips and chokecherries along that bank.

Now I’m plenty used to putting the large mammals in the Park in the most important position on the totem pole. I stop for bison crossing the road (one of the bulls can crush a car). I’m careful not to intrude on the space of a elk cow and her baby (I know how touchy young mothers are). I’ve recently been awakened every night to the bugling call of the randy elk bulls announcing “Come and get it, ladies. I’m a fine, fine bull!” But this bear has caught not only my imagination but that of the residents of Gardiner as well.

To be honest, by now most of them probably wish the bear would figure out he needs to move right along. The more he stays the more likely he is to behave in a way that would cause concern among the community. Neighbors are not letting their dogs roam free in their fenced yards. One of the employees of the Park who lives right next to the Yellowstone in Gardiner was sunbathing in his very own yard and fell asleep only to wake up to the bear licking his toes. Now THAT can wake you up fast! Rumor has it that he may or may not have needed to change his shorts.

The bear seems quite curious, peeking into residents' windows, including my boss’s window and scaring the heck out of her kitty. Kitty began hissing and screeching, in turn scaring the bear so much he leaped right over my boss's fence and out of the yard. At least he’s sensible about cats. Right now, the residents seem pretty happy to leave the little guy to his foraging but if Fluffy comes up missing, the bear will get the blame. If a car or house is broken into, the bear will get the blame. And that will be the tipping point between their approval of or acquiescence to the bear’s presence and their determination to rid the neighborhood of the bear.

In the Park, if a bear is expressing him or herself in beary ways that could hurt the tourists, Rangers handle bear activity by closing the area to tourists and backpackers. Not ideal but a good way to let the bear be all beary without interference. In the spring, large swaths of the backcountry are off limits as ‘bear management areas’ until the bears have had a chance to wake up a little, get their cubs organized into a family unit, eat a little and generally get a little less grouchy. You know how it is those first few months of having a newborn.

There is one huge difference between large animals being themselves in the Park and awkwardly moving their gangly way through town or snacking their way up the banks of the village’s river. Here in Yellowstone National Park, the elk, bear, bison, mountain lions, wolves and all the other critters that may startle, scare or even maim are protected by a law that is well over 100 years old. No kidding. The Park was created when Ulysses S. Grant signed the legislation declaring Yellowstone a National Park in 1872 but it took another 22 years before the “Act to Protect the Birds and Animals in Yellowstone National Park” was passed. A young whippersnapper of a Congressman, Theodore Roosevelt, had worked tirelessly writing bill after bill after bill but it took a particularly grizzly act of poaching, and its wide publication in the ‘liberal media’, to turn the tide of Congress.

And so today the creatures in the Park are the number one priority. Rangers only wade in to Mother Nature’s business if humans are likely to be injured or killed. And even then, the Ranger is most likely to make noise, shout, use bear spray, use his or her vehicle to 'herd' the animal away from populated areas, place him or herself between the animal and the tourist – anything to keep the animals safe and alive. Every man-caused death of a large mammal here is reason for the Rangers to mourn. So, every time I walk out of my dorm, I know the elk standing in my way has the right-of-way and I need to turn around, walk back upstairs and down the other side.

Right outside the Park is another matter. A geopolitical boundary on a map makes a protected species a hunted one. There is no giant fence around this enormous 2.2 million acre wilderness. Protected animals leaving the Park and getting shot right across the border is a serious matter and there are lots of sides to this issue.

Hunters claim they have the right to hunt bear and other Park-protected species outside of the Park and are given permits to do so. Generally, these are responsible hunters who don’t shoot at pregnant females or juveniles. They mind the hunting regulations of the state in which they live. They most likely dress or have the meat dressed for their own or others’ dinner tables.

Others would point to the senselessness of an animal being safe on one side of a line on a map and immediately in danger on the other. There are even groups (kind of like those leatherback turtle rescuers) that work to keep the animals within the boundaries of the Park because a bear or bison right outside the Park’s boundaries can easily wind up in someone’s freezer at best or a trophy by some handsome fireplace at worst.

The fact is that every single person coming to Yellowstone yearns to have an interaction with wildlife.  And nearly every one of them is granted his or her wish. And every single interaction with humans makes it more and more possible that one of the wild large animals, leaving the Park, becomes even more likely to be hunted instead of protected. Inside the ‘safe protection zone’ recommended by the Rangers, seeing humans, cars and so forth teaches the animals they are safe around these two-legged mammals.

I can’t honestly take a side on this issue. I don’t hunt but I eat bison regularly and have found elk to be quite tasty. I eat fish a lot. But I prefer range (or forest) fed meat than that red-dyed stuff you find in your grocery’s meat section. I think it’s healthier and, certainly, a forest or wilderness habitat is more humane for what will become my dinner than most of the meat in the grocery meat section.

What I CAN tell you for sure is that every single interaction with wild animals makes them at least a little less wild. Every single interaction makes them less scared of humans and more likely to stay instead of run. I try to limit my interaction with animals because of this, watching them the very respectful distance of at least a half-football field. I bought a telephoto lens so if I wanted to get the detail, I could.

The issue of hunting game is an issue each one of us has to decide ourselves. I personally believe that anyone who enjoys eating meat is being illogical at least and hypocritical at most if they call a responsible hunter an animal killer. Yeah. So is the butcher that cuts up the overfed beef fattened up in an impossibly crowded feed lot then.

However, I certainly can understand a person choosing to not eat meat because it is the life of one species over another. I respect that. Especially after watching the wildlife here in the Park. Wild creatures are absolutely amazing. I am happy there is a Park where they can still be wild. But it takes our cooperation. Come, come to the Park. But bring a pair of binoculars and stay far away from the critters if you can. If you don’t and they are game meat, it could cost them their adorable lives.

HOT SPRINGS AND COLD BREWS

The little blond girl kept watching the eight of us, all employees at Yellowstone, in the tepid pool at Chico Hot Springs. We were playing ‘keep the beach ball in the air” (there must be a shorter name for that game but I don’t know it). The wind grabbed the ball and hurled it her direction. Leaving her Mom’s side, she leaped into the air and handily volleyed it back to our group.  “You’ve got a great arm, there,” I told her.

A few minutes later another gust blew our beach ball her direction again. Again she volleyed with precision. “Care to play?” I asked. She obviously wanted to join in this raucous game and I knew my fellow Xanterra employees would be mindful of her disadvantaged size. What I didn’t know is that she plays league volleyball at home and could smack that ball better than most of us.

Chico Hot Springs, a lovely historic destination resort in Pray, Montana, is a place where not only nature and old-time luxury come together but where people from all over the world relax in the hot pools, eat great food, dance to talented local bands (country of course) and meet and greet others who are doing the same. That’s probably the best quality of Chico – the willingness of guests to let their city reserve be pierced so they can enjoy Chico’s good old community party.

I had never heard of Chico Hot Springs until I decided to move to Yellowstone. A friend in Tucson knew about it and told me about it as soon as she heard I was moving to the Park.  My son had heard of it, though, calling it “Montana’s best” and declaring “everybody in Montana knows about Chico.”  As a student and then a struggling young political organizer in the wilds of Montana, he never had sufficient cash to visit Chico which is tucked into the mouth of a beautiful canyon in Paradise Valley 40 miles above Yellowstone. It was the first time for both of us when I booked a room in the Main Lodge (now my preferred lodging out of the greatly varied and numerous accommodation), two nights before I was to show up for my new job at Yellowstone.

Chico has been around a very long time.  The first written record of the existence of Chico was in Miner John S. Hackney’s diary dated January 16, 1865. By the late 1880s two wooden tubs in the small wooden building had been built to accommodate guests. By 1900, the ‘modern’ Chico was born when the Main Lodge, which still exists today, was opened for guests to the Springs. Over the next few years, a larger hot springs pool and several smaller ones, some for the exclusive use of the ‘ladies’, were built to accommodate Chico’s growing popularity. I’m guessing that the popularity of Chico closely followed the growing popularity of that ‘new National Park way out West’. It must have been the perfect place for the well-heeled first guests to soak off the dust and dirt of the more primitive Park.

Beginning with the last months of the World War I, Chico made substantial renovations. A large rectangular pool took the place of the smaller pools and the hot springs lobby (now the Saloon – an excellent establishment) was constructed.  Eventually a rounded roof was constructed over the entire complex which collapsed on 70 swimmers in the 50s. Only two swimmers were injured but because of the popularity of the now open-to-the-sky pool, the roof was never rebuilt. Today, a ‘shade’ roof extends over the smaller and hottest of the two contemporary pools, a benefit on those ‘hot’ (temperatures in the 80s are considered ‘hot’ here) dog days of Southern Montana’s summer.

The two pools offer distinctly different activities. The ‘hot’ pool averages 103 degrees year-round while the larger ‘swimming pool’ stays around 96 degrees.  Water heated to 96 degrees feels very much like skin temperature – it is not cold and not hot but perfectly suited to swimming lazy laps. It is also the place 'community' pool games are started which generally wind up involving the entire good-natured pool population in retrieving the pool beach ball for the earnest players. 

The hot pool invites bathers to drop their cares, relax their minds and muscles and tune in to the community ambiance that exists at Chico. Last night, while I soaked in the hottest part of the pool, I talked with two couples from Hawaii (the wives had the spa brochure tightly clutched in their perfectly manicured hands), heard one local talking about 'sustainable economic growth for Wyoming' with two bored-looking young women and watched young parents carefully introducing hot water to their infant with an older grandmotherly type urging them to 'be careful'. In another corner of the hot pool, a couple was expressing their love for each other very publicly (most likely fueled by the brews in the plastic cups they clutched in their hands).

Unlike other commercial hot springs I have visited (Banff comes to mind), Chico really IS a community asset.  Most Friday and Saturday nights locals flood the Saloon to dance to the tunes of local (and very good) bands. It is the community’s ‘swimming pool’ where the person next to you could be a summer resident, a full-time rancher or your waitress at the restaurant in Livingston. It is this critical difference – Chico’s importance as a community watering hole – that makes it so very different than your other commercial hot springs and spas. Just the sort of place that a young tween is invited to join in on an adult game of ‘keep the beach ball from touching the water’.

It's not all community, though. The mineral hot springs, with a long reputation for its ‘healing powers’ must have been a natural lead-in to offering full spa services including massage, facials, and mud baths, giving Chico the right to claim itself a ‘full-service resort’. The modern spa building sits on a hill overlooking the Main Lodge, just a few steps away from the Main Lodge and Lobby. You can have your private, self-indulgent moment at Chico.

The Main Lodge has a spacious, wood and trophy decorated lobby. Comfortable western chairs and sofas beckon weary city folk with the urge to sit a spell. The Main Lodge offers European-style rooms on the second and third floors with toilets in small rooms which are separate from the bathing rooms. These smaller rooms start around $53 and are worth every penny. Rooms with attached baths are also available for up to $93 in the Main Lodge. The rooms on the second floor lead right into a long hall which ends directly at a corner of the hot pool. These are my favorite; soak until you don't want to anymore and then drag your relaxed feet down a hall to your room where your comfortable bed is waiting for you. Perfect.

 Other lodging is available as well, including full luxury cabins and more modern rooms in other lodges. Prices run a bit higher than the Main Lodge, from $129 to the well over $200s.  Families can even reserve chalets and cottages, up on the hill above Chico's gardens for even more money. And during the summer, every single one of those rooms and cabins are booked 100% of the time. Like Yellowstone, everyone wants to go to Chico.

Even completely occupied, though, the only place you really sense there are a LOT of people is the Dining Room in the Main Lodge. The Chico Dining Room has been offering world-class dining for many years.  The locals use it for all kinds of special occasions. It probably has seen more engagement and bachelorette dinners than most establishments in the area.  The chef flies in fresh fish (the trout and salmon don’t have too far to go); all baking is done on-premises; the vegetables and herbs are often from Chico’s own beautiful kitchen garden (it’s in back of the Event Facility and worth visiting); and Chico’s wine list would satisfy the pickiest wine aficionado. The Dining Room is pricey and the service is impeccable. You need to make a reservation in order to avoid eating what might be fashionably late for New Yorkers but is way past their bedtime for most rural Westerners.

Never fear, though, if you don’t fancy spending $$$$ (the code in the guide books for get your credit card out), you can eat in the Saloon or pool-side Grill. My favorite meal is the Saloon’s Bison Burger and home fries chased down with on-tap Cold Smoke Scotch Ale from the Kettlehouse Brewery in Missoula.  I can usually walk away more than satisfied for less than $15 including the beer. The Grill has even less fancy options – it is the ‘fast food’ joint for the young ones.

Chico is a four-season resort. It offers horseback rides in the spring, summer and early fall. You can take a dog-sled ride in the Winter (and then warm up in the Hot Springs). Hiking, river-rafting or kayaking, fishing and even hunting could be arranged with local guides. I mostly take a good book, enjoy the Hot Springs and take little bitty walks around the beautiful grounds until I feel righteous enough to head once again to the Hot Springs.

If, however, you are looking for a marble-floored, high-class Ritz, don’t go to Chico. You just might not be able to get the hang of wearing comfortable clothing and forgoing your makeup. You might just not ‘fit in’ to the relaxed culture of the West. But if you want to hobnob with locals and people from all over the world looking for the same thing you are – a good time in a relaxing and beautiful setting at a fair and most reasonable price, Chico might just be perfect for you. And maybe you, too, might be urged to join in a game of ‘keep the ball from hitting the water’ in the tepid pool. Only, of course, after your muscles have had a long soak in the hot pool during which you kept cool with one of Montana’s excellent microbrews from the Saloon.  Yee haw!

SHIMMERING SHOSHONE

In the dawning light, I hear the coots in the lake below our campsite. Although Brother Sun has not yet breeched our forested campsite, I can tell the sky is clear and the morning holds much promise. I wriggle out of my warm sleeping bag and into my clothes. I am 10 miles in from the road at a backcountry campsite on one of Yellowstone’s most beautiful mountain lakes. The night before, cradled in the warmth of my sleeping bag, I heard elk bugling.  Shoshone shimmers below. This morning is perfect.

I grab my sleeping pad and head down to the shoreline. As I approach the beach, I hear the slap of paddles on the smooth, mirror-like water. A kayak comes into view with one lone paddler. The paddler greets me with “Beautiful morning.” I am in complete agreement.

Two nights before, I left Mammoth to meet Tucson friends at Madison Campground, near the road to Yellowstone’s West Entrance. Yesterday, we drove to the Lone Star Geyser trailhead for our trek in. Lone Star Geyser sits all by itself in a thermal field with steam vents and mudpots and hot springs down an old service road long since closed to vehicles. Patches of the pavement have deteriorated into rubble but the hiking is gentle. The five of us will hike ten miles today to camp on a quiet, solitary hill above the beautiful shimmering Shoshone for the next two nights.

At present we are focused on Lone Star.  Will we make it to the geyser in time for one of its famous eruptions? Lone Star goes off every three hours (approximately as punctuality is not a geyser’s strong suit). We have two chances to see the eruption; we will be returning this way. As we approach the basin, we see other geyser gazers waiting with cameras ready. We have made it at a perfect time. Lone Star is steaming and pressure is building under the surface.

While we wait for the eruption, we meet our fellow watchers. There is a local guide with a couple from Indiana and another couple from Australia. There is a younger couple and two older gentlemen. While we wait, the guide tells me about the wonders we will witness. We are all excited like little children. Not as flashy as old Faithfull, Lone Star is always a more private affair since watchers have to leave their cars and walk nearly eight miles round trip to experience its splendor. Its watchers are a more elite group – those willing to meet Yellowstone where Yellowstone shows best – a long way from the road.

Super-heated water and steam begin shooting out of the geyser as we stand entranced. It is a bit unnerving to know that right underneath us the Earth is a tumultuous cauldron. But on the surface, the geyser erupts and steams surrounded by a forest of stately lodgepole pine as far as the eye can see. Lone Star’s eruption continues for about 15 minutes as we take our requisite pictures and walk around it, trying to see the geyser from all its faces.

After the tower of water is finished, the steam takes over shooting nearly as high as the water. Then Mother Nature’s show is over and the rocket-like noise diminishes. It is mid-morning and under a spectacular blue sky, we don our packs and begin making our way along a narrow trail into the forest.  We have another six miles to go before we rest our heads. Not one of us has been down this trail before but we are all veteran hikers and only one of us is new to backpacking. This is the stuff we put our boots on for.

The trail takes us through another smaller thermal area with the smell of sulphur strong in our nostrils. Further into the backcountry, we meet a happy and relaxed couple from Florida who have been backpacking around Shoshone for a week. They suggest we take a detour around the large bull bison sleeping on the trail just ahead of us.

Alerted, we keep our eyes forward on the trail. Near the last campsite along this portion of the Shoshone Lake Trail, the bison lays in a sunny patch on the forested path. After we take pictures of our ‘road hazard’, we make our way around the bison, bushwhacking through the forest and meadow until we meet back up with our trail. An active geyser and a napping bison. Not a bad start for the day.

The trail is fairly flat for the most part except for a relatively short hilly bit where we gain another 250 feet of elevation crossing the Continental Divide at Grants Pass.  With heavy packs, we are happy to be done with the incline and look forward to the next trail junction with Bechler River Trail just ahead. Our path leads us past this junction, where we finally meet sweet, clear Shoshone Creek, which portends the beauty of the lake that bears its name. We follow the Creek, making several rock-hopping, heart-stopping water crossings.

A little over six hours after leaving our cars, we get to our final junction with North Shoshone Lake Trail and the spur to our campsite. We are very, very tired but very, very pleased with the spectacular view from our hill above the Lake. I can’t decide if my breathlessness is due to exertion or reaction to uncommon beauty. We immediately make ourselves at home so we can explore our surroundings.

Our campsite has its own trails down to the shoreline. A few ‘hand-propelled’ watercraft float around the lake – canoes, kayaks and even one sailboat of some type. But we feel quite alone, quite remote from our fellow solitude seekers out on the Lake. The Lake is over 8,000 acres and is vaguely shaped like a mallet, with our campsite being at the base of the handle. Even the ‘handle’ is huge and knowing what we see is only half the Lake is humbling.

To our right we see the steam of the Shoshone Geyser Basin, which we will visit in the morning. We all visit the shore, with some of us entering the cold, clear water. We also see a bright orange sign of some type on the opposite shore of our cove that we conclude signals the location of the landing beach for craft visiting the Geyser Basin. Having trekked 10 miles in, the next morning will be soon enough for us to explore further and we are early to bed after a backcountry dinner mostly from foil pouches.

I sleep deeply, as I usually do in the arms of the Mother. Dawn creeps across the unperturbed mirror-like surface of the Lake and I hear the Lake calling my name as I make my way down to the shore to enjoy a private yoga practice and meditation for nearly an hour. My fellow backpackers are respectful of my Sunday meditations and very quiet as they individually make their ways down to say good morning to the Lake. It is not difficult to decide a meditation mantra this morning. “I know Your greatness; I feel Your love” fills my mind and soul and heart. Even my monkey mind is briefly quiet this morning. Finally, I pull myself out of my meditation and join the others for breakfast before we hike over to the geyser basin.

The Shoshone Geyser Basin is surprisingly active with no less than four geysers named on the National Geographic Old Faithful quadrant map I have brought along. Its geysers, mudpots, hot springs and steam vents flow into and around Shoshone Creek, leaving copper, yellow, green, and orange algae trails on the banks. One particular geyser is very close to the footpath and erupts about every minute. Quick, powerful. We make jokes about its quick eruptions and give it credit for its rapid recovery. Four of us are women; we all chuckle at the double entendre.

The feeling of space and solitude is palpable. This side of Shoshone is remote, although not hard to get to if you are willing to hike 10 miles or pull your boat over 2.5 miles of shallow water in the channel between Lewis and Shoshone Lakes. Our presence announces our willingness to experience this remote space in any way Mother Nature offers.

Max, often my partner in my adventures, and I splash into the Creek to find a hot spot in which to sit and soak our tired muscles.  The others – Gloria, Nikki and Bev – choose to sit in the shade on the shore. It is a glorious day, made perfect by the companionship of people who crave being in remote places on glorious days doing nothing at all but enjoying the smorgasbord Mother Nature has prepared for us.

We return via the beach marked by the orange plate. It is indeed the beach at which boats are secured while their paddlers enjoy the Geyser Basin. We converse with three men, a son and father and uncle. They, too, remark on the perfectness of Shoshone and how it has drawn them back again and again. We all share the joy of seeing a grizzly mom with her three cubs – far enough away to enjoy the moment.

That night, back at camp, we Feast, a tradition among backpackers who want to reduce their loads on the way back to their vehicles. Everything we can eat, we do except for the food we will eat the next day. As the night creeps into the forest, we head to our tiny tent homes, knowing we shall be leaving the serenity of Shoshone in just a few hours.

The hike out seems much shorter than the hike in. Perhaps it is because we have climbed up to a higher elevation and now descend instead of ascend. It is also possible that every moment takes us further away from the serenity of Shoshone and the time seems too short for those who would linger in its silence and beauty. We promise the Lake we will be back, repeating the decisions of nearly all others we met during our visit to Shoshone.

The peace, solitude and tranquility of Shoshone leave us longing for more. Max and I are already hatching plans to bring a larger group up to paddle our way from Lewis Lake to Shoshone along the passage. Shoshone is a place where we can experience being part of something much greater than any one of us. Shoshone is a place people come time and time again. Even though we are visitors here, Shoshone has welcomed us with warmth and has promised to welcome us again at our next coming. And come again we will to shimmering Shoshone.