Yellowstone bear stories

There have been rumors in the Employee Dining Room (EDR) regarding bear maulings in Yellowstone (versus people or other animals). Most of the rumors, to gain validity, say they were overheard at the ranger station. Now, bears are in their hyperphagia mode so maybe they become more aggressive during this time. Bears, in general, want to avoid people, not attack or eat them. However, some incidents do occur, especially with young adolescents or females with cubs. This story was in the Helena Independent Record of Friday, October 5th, 2007.

Grizzly found dead near Gardiner

BILLINGS - A grizzly bear that attacked a Yellowstone National Park employee last month was found dead Thursday near Gardiner.

Ken Meyer, Yellowstone's safety officer, was hunting black bear near Little Trail Creek on September 9 when a female grizzly with cubs attacked him, injuring his back, leg, stomach and forearms.

Meyer told Yellowstone officials he shot at the bear three times and believed he hit it at least once.

On Thursday, the grizzly was found dead in thick brush along Little Trail Creek. The bottom part of its jaw had been shot off said Mel Frost, a spokeswoman for Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Park.

The bear's cubs have been seen in the area.

END OF ARTICLE

This isn't good news for the cubs who usually need a mother to survive during their first 2 years. There only chance is to be adopted by another mother which is a longshot but does happen. There's a mother bear in Yellowstone that adopted 2 cubs and has 2 of her own. She's bringing up four!!

Note that the man survived the mauling. If the bear really wanted to kill him, it could have. It was just protecting its young from a perceived threat. Once the threat deemed not a threat, she left the scene.

There are numerous, interesting books out about bear maulings. Here are a couple links to some that are sold in the gift shops in Yellowstone.

Mark of the Grizzly by Scott McMillion
Bears I have Known by Bob Murphy
Grizzly Years by Doug Peacock
Bear Attacks by Stephen Herrero

Adventures in Yellowstone N.P.

First off, Greg Cresswell pointed out a neat artist’s rendition of the North view of Yellowstone. If you’d like to orient yourself with the park, try either the artist's rendition or this map.

Laura and I generally get Monday and Tuesday off from working at the Old Faithful Inn. For us, it means recharge time. Day's off exploring are one of the main reasons we chose to come to Yellowstone. There are hundreds of options to choose from, but our main focus has been bear sitings. Wildlife viewing in the Serengeti inspired us, and we can’t get enough of the large predatory mammals. Our initial weekend took us to the Lamar Valley in the Northeastern section of the park. The valley is famous for its size, visibility, bears, and wolf packs.A large section of roadway runs alongside the river valley making for numerous sitings, just look for the traffic jam. That’s what we did and found a lazy grizzly bear taking a rest next to the Lamar river. He was incredibly far away, so the only way to identify him was via a friendly tourist’s spotting scope. Not exactly what we were looking for. We eventually found a trailhead that followed the Lamar river away from the road and hundreds of tourists. We thought it was a great opportunity to see the elusive bear or possibly wolves. Our travels found us numerous wildlife: pronghorn, badger, buffalo, coyote, and moose, but no luck finding either of the predators we were searching for.

During our first week at the inn, we met Bob, a well-read, experienced, Montana bear enthusiast. He’s had a number of run-ins with bears in the Bob Marshall wilderness of Montana. For weekend number 2, we decided to head to Pelican Valley, just north of Lake Yellowstone. Pelican valley is a densely bear-populated area where numerous bear sitings have occurred.

As we travelled into the valley along the trail, we were forced to get off. A local bison was using the trail and decided he wasn’t moving. It’s kind of like being on a 1-lane highway where you are the Volkswagen Golf and the other vehicle is the 18-wheeler.

We headed off-trail into the forested areas alongside the valley where Bob had mentioned bears would most likely frequent. We saw lots of signs: scat, ground diggings, claw marks, etc.

As with most off-trail experiences, you’ll find a lot of wildlife there, just not always what you are looking for. We found a great grey owl couple which allowed us to get phenomenally close (10-20 meters).

Throughout the valley, numerous patches of scat were awfully fresh. During one moment, Bob told us “Are you good at climbing trees? Make sure you’ve got one picked out.” Our walk took us through some eerie forest where you felt like you were being watched (and we probably were).

We were dragged out from the forest at one point by some loud coyote howls. We spotted him in the middle of the valley perched on a hill. Once he took notice of us, he left his perch and his majestic howl through the echoing valley was lost.

In the end, pelican valley caused numerous rushes of adrenaline, but a bear was nowhere to be seen. We walked away happy to see the great grey owl.

The following weekend, a Polish friend of ours, Piotr, was leaving the park back to Poland. He needed a ride to Bozeman. In exchange for the ride, he was willing to show us a hot springs-river merge where people could soak and swim, mostly soak.

The boiling river carrying hot springs water merged into the Gardner river really close to the north entrance of the park.

People have built up a rock wall (right side of photo) to hold the hot springs water (left side of photo). The merge of the hot and cold water with a perfectly placed wall makes for a great quasi-natural swimming hole for the whole year. Piotr enjoyed one last final Yellowstone soak before a successful return to the homeland.

We decided to spend our last free day at the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

This spectacular canyon contains the most popular waterfall in the park, Lower Yellowstone Falls. The trail that brings one closest to the waterfall is Uncle Tom’s trail.

Ten years ago, my parents and grandmother visited me in Yellowstone. My mother was the only one who was able to enjoy Uncle Tom’s trail. My grandmother’s legs weren’t strong enough and my father was just recovering from a heart attack. We found it quite easy to walk down the slippery metal stairs to the falls to get the spectacular view and sound of pure water force.

As with all canyons, the problem was coming back up.

In the end, the reward was worth the painful sacrifice! We've got two more free days left so we'll see where those lead.

The Upper Geyser Basin, Y.N.P.

Yellowstone is most known for its wildlife, endless backcountry, and hydrothermal features. The upper geyser basin, where Old Faithful is located, is one of three locations on the earth with a large concentration of hydrothermal activity. Magma is somewhere from 3 to 8 miles below the surface of Yellowstone and provides the heat necessary to create hydrothermal activity. When rain water and melted snow seep through the cracks of the earth, it gets low enough to be heated by the magma. Steam and pressure is created under the earth and something gives to release the pressure. The pressure is released in many forms. Hot springs have water that rises to the surface and either pours off the side or is cooled enough to return back below. Fumaroles are steam vents which constantly vent sauna-hot air. Mudpots have just enough water to form mud and the heat is released via the boiling mud. Finally, the most famous of the features, geysers have pressure build below the surface and once the pressure gets too great, a violent explosion of hot water and steam are vented. These explosions can be minutes to hours long.

There are two types of geysers, cone-type and fountain-type geysers. Cone-type geysers send a constant jet of water out when they erupt. Fountain-type geysers gush a bunch of water in numerous spurts and in various directions.

In Yellowstone, Old Faithful is the most famous of all the geysers.

It erupts an average of once every 92 minutes and lasts from 2 to 5 minutes in duration. It spurts water into the air anywhere from 106 to 184 feet. Its consistency is due to its plumbing system not being closely linked with any other hydro-thermal features. Its consistent performance and spectacular height, neither a common trait, have earned it deserved fame.

Although many will just stay long enough to see an Old Faithful eruption, there are many other thermal features in the upper geyser basin. The closest geyser to Old Faithful that I have seen go off is Lion Geyser, part of the Lion Group geysers. The Lion group consists of 4 geysers: Little Cub, Lioness, Big Cub, and Lion. Lion is a cone-type geyser with a large cone. It erupts approximately 80 feet in the air for 1-7 minutes. It showed off to me during sunset.

The park rangers predict eruption times for 5 geysers in the upper geyser basin. They are Old Faithful, Castle, Grand, Daisy, and Riverside. Castle erupts about every 13 hours to a height of 75 feet. The prediction time is typically plus or minus 2 hours so it can be a time consuming process to wait for it. The geyser is named for the sinter cone it has made over thousands of years of eruptions.

Grand geyser is the second most popular geyser in the upper geyser basin. It is the tallest predictable geyser in the world with eruptions up to 200 feet. Grand is very different from Old Faithful in that it is a fountain geyser. Water is shot out in spurts. This is Grand geyser when it is dormant.

This is Grand geyser when it is active.

Riverside geyser is next to the firehole river and provides unique scenery for a geyser eruption. It’s eruption is much longer than Grand or Old Faithful, lasting approximately 20 minutes. Riverside erupts once every 6 hours at heights up to 75 feet. It is a fountain-type geyser. Note the boiling hot water next to the river on the left hand side of the photo, that’s a dormant riverside geyser.

This is an active riverside geyser.

These are the only geysers we have captured on camera. Hopefully, this blog entry can be updated with shots of an active Castle geyser or Daisy geyser.

Although geysers attract the most people, many of the hot springs around the upper geyser basin provide incredible color and beauty. My personal favorite is Chromatic Pool.

Note the amazing number of colors in the hot springs. The colors are due to thermophiles, heat-loving algae, bacteria, and archaea. Lots of research is being put into understanding thermophiles and how they survive incredible temperatures. NASA is a primary sponsor of the research, so they can understand how to search for life elsewhere in our universe. The colors also help represent the temperature of the water at certain points. The sapphire blue is the hottest region. The orange-red is the cooler region. Sorry, but I can’t recall the temperature ranges.

Gem Pool has classic hot spring shape and color.

Sapphire pool is a large pool with incredible color. It erupted in 1959 blowing away numerous “biscuits” that had surrounded the pool.

To view all of these thermal features and many more, it was a comfortable 2.5 miles walk. Truly an amazing place on planet earth.