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| Sniff, sniff |
Canadian colleagues were already concerned that our 19 year old many-patched Jeep wouldn't make it 5000 miles through the US deserts in summer. She might have heard them or, more likely, she was concerned for our welfare and knew she wouldn't make it in the real heat so on day 2 she bowed out gracefully. As the extremely kind Montanan mechanic explained, we could invest hundreds of dollars fixing the radiator to see if the engine was okay but, with sterner tests to come, we bid her farewell on a parking lot in Missoula. So with just a day lost, we headed off in our new (bizarrely Hawaiian plated) hire car, to Yellowstone.
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| They know they own the road |
Keen readers, or just my mum, will remember we visited the snowy expanses of the USA's first national park at New Year. Trying to catch up our schedule to our achieved-with-blood-sweat-and-tears campground reservations, it wasn't such a leisurely affair this time. A 4.30am start (don't worry, it won't be our earliest) ensured we didn't miss some magical wolf howling, traffic jams caused by 2 ton bison and the usual array of speedy antelopes and trotting coyotes.
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| Stinky stink |
The park is actually the caldera of a huge exploded super volcano and so is one of the most geothermally active places on the planet. This results in a good stink in some places, yellow stone (geddit?) and some awesome erupting geysers. We just had time for the main show of 'old faithful' and some bubbling mud before we headed on to our park number 2...
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| Classic Tetons shot |
The Grand Tetons range is still pushing up, while the area around it sinks (into 'Jackson Hole') meaning you get a rare view of an entire range rising from the plains. We were lucky to have a day of good visibility as all summer humongous forest fires have raged across this part of the States. But it wasn't all about the peaks, we had one clear objective; to see a moose. You might think living in Canada would have sorted this already but my constant questioning always resulted in "oh moose, well, they're just everywhere". Yep, everywhere and NOWHERE! It was allegedly impossible not to see a moose in GT so the hunt was on....
No. 1 recommended spot (yummy willow trees); no moose. Second choice (delicious boggy weeds); no moose. Place where nice visitor centre man saw three on his way to work; no moose. Place fellow moose hunter saw one an hour ago; no moose. My spirits were sinking. Our last chance was our overnight trip high up the mountainside...
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| He owns the forest and he knows it |
Armed with specific ranger taught brush observation techniques we set off with some trepidation. But it turned out the moose gods knew it was my birthday. A polite cough/grunt/neigh sound to our left revealed a set of palmate antlers... success! And then we couldn't stop seeing them: we followed a lady moose as she travelled amazingly quickly through dense undergrowth; watched a bull moose reclining in meadows and; as we ate our lunch, another bull walked straight across our path (a bit too close for comfort). So moose panic over.
We camped at a lakeside wilderness site (which means no north American staples like a picnic table, fire ring and pit toilets (in case you're wondering, you go in a hole and pack out the tissue, nice)). All very tranquil until at 8pm a large black bear nonchalantly approached the camp. Unlike BC bears he was undeterred by talking, shouting and clapping and only backed off after we banged rocks on the bear cache and Mark made a special, new poltergeist like bear scaring wail (our 6 neighbours seemed slightly perturbed by this development). But he didn't go far, just circled the camp until he disappeared into the dark trees...
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| Bit grainy, but you get the idea... |
Needless to say, little sleep was had by all, not helped by gale like winds which would have masked his approach (though huge padded feet make them pretty silent). But we survived the night and then bumped right into him sitting on the path as we left... When we later made our bear report to the rangers we discovered a hiker had his pack ripped apart by a bear in the same area that day so were lucky (more for not losing our dinner, black bears are rarely too dangerous). But then that's the challenge of spending time in prime bear habitat.
We left the next day, saying goodbye to the familiar mountains and forests of the north to the deserts and canyons of the south...
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