National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst.

~Wallace Stegner

Melissa had another of the museum ‘s amazing educator workshops to Yellowstone last month. This year, we decided to go out a week early to enjoy the park, hang out with friends, and scout areas for her workshop prior to the arrival of her participants and co-leaders. It was a week well-spent and included an awesome backpacking trip with friends to some backcountry patrol cabins.

On our first night in the park, we went out for a few hours and soaked it all in and were amazed at the number of Bison in the green valley floor of Lamar Valley. The next day we met our friends (both NPS employees) and backpacked to the Lower Slough patrol cabin. Ivan is the backcountry office manager for the park and inspected all the backcountry campsites along our route. It was a fairy easy hike up the Slough Creek valley with little elevation gain (good for my bad back/legs). The weather was perfect and spring wildflowers were dotting the landscape in abundance.

We spent 3 nights in the backcountry with our friends and it was glorious. Wildlife sightings included a couple of Black Bears, some Moose, the cranes and Coyote, and a Peregrine Falcon. Melissa also got a quick glimpse of a wolf chasing a Moose. After that, we headed to our lodging in Gardiner for a couple of nights, venturing out into the park each day.

One of the best things about this time of year in Yellowstone is the abundance of baby animals. It is a tough place to be a baby with so many predators out and about searching for food, and different species have different strategies for protecting their young. The mama Moose keeps a keen eye out for any danger, and will not hesitate to attack a threat (a point I kept trying to make to people out of their cars and approaching her). On a drive down the road to the Slough Creek campground, Melissa spotted a Pronghorn doe with a youngster on a ridge away from the road. As we slowed, the baby dropped down behind a shrub. From our angle, we could no longer see it. This is typical behavior of these swiftest of mammals. Young will hide among vegetation while the mother wanders off to feed, returning every few hours to nurse them. The babies behavior and color allow them to blend into the landscape very well. Years ago, I almost stepped on one before seeing it. It remained motionless, flattened to the ground as I walked away. And, in a true act of love and protection, mother Pronghorns lick the droppings from their fawns’ rear end as a way to reduce scent that might attract predators.

There have been a lot of Grizzly sightings reported this year so anytime we hiked, we carried bear spray and were paying attention to our surroundings. On one trail, we came across some fairly fresh Grizzly scat…that really makes you alert!

Driving into Lamar from the northeast one day, we saw a group of people at a pullout looking down toward Soda Butte Creek. They told us a Grizzly sow and cub (from the previous year) had just crossed the creek and had disappeared behind the ridge. We stopped at the next pullout and a group of people, chaperones and young students, were headed back to the parking lot saying “there are two Grizzlies headed this way”. I commend the leaders of this group for doing the right thing when they saw the bears – move everyone to safety and don’t try to get close for a photo!! In just a couple of minutes, the bears crossed the road.

As always in Lamar Valley, the Bison are the real stars of the megafauna, especially with so many “red dogs” (young calves) frolicking or sprawled out asleep in the grass. But we also witnessed a sad and yet fascinating Bison behavior – acknowledging the death of a member of the herd.

–A dead Bison laying next to the road (no doubt a roadkill from the night before) attracts a lot of attention from others in the herd. Rangers hauled the carcass off later that day to avoid chaos along the road due to the presence of scavengers and crowds of visitors

The most unusual wildlife encounter we had was with a bird, an “attack grouse”.

–This Dusky Grouse had an attitude and aggressively attacked people and cars that passed through its territory

On one trip down the Slough Creek dirt road, a car in front of us had its flashers on and was moving very slowly. We then saw a Dusky Grouse right next to the vehicle. These birds can be fairly tame so it wasn’t a huge surprise. But as we drove by, the grouse went under our car so I had to stop. Melissa got out to see if it came out and indeed it did, right at her. For the next few minutes she and the grouse did a dance with the grouse actually pecking at her a few times. Finally, she got away and back into the car. We saw this behavior a few other times as we drove down that road over the next day or two. Finally, someone wth the park put out two orange highway cones and a sign that read “Slow, congested area ahead”. Close enough, I guess:)

After several days, I drove Melissa to Bozeman to meet her teacher workshop group. I then headed back to the park for a few days on my own. My next post will provide some of those highlights.