Bears 'n' More

We are hoping to really see a lot of Yellowstone today.

As we started out Ray had to FedEx some documents to church. Then we called the horseback riding place and got a 1:45 time. Next we called the RV guy and got permission to replace the toilet, called Bob the RV repairman and got a Saturday, 8am time with him to install the new toilet, but he comes to us so that is cool. Great. Off to conquer Yellowstone.

Because our horseback riding place is in Tower-Roosevelt at the Roosevelt Lodge, we’ll explore the north loop today and do the south loop and Old Faithful tomorrow. We headed to Madison, then up to Norris. We saw numerous elk and bison (not buffalo). It is obvious that this area was ravaged by fire in 1988. New growth trees are popping up among many dead, fallen trees. As we head farther north passing Mammoth Hot Springs we prepare to take Blacktail Plateau Drive, a dirt road with great wildlife viewing opportunities, but it is closed with a sign reading “ROAD CLOSED DUE TO POOPY DRIVING CONIDITIONS”. Someone had change “POOR” to “POOPY”. We thought that was hysterical and had to take a picture.

We were almost to Tower-Roosevelt when we saw our first bear. A black bear off in the woods, maybe about 300 yards away. Of course we had to get pictures.

The trail ride should last about an hour or so. Our wrangler introduced herself as Susan then we saddled up. The younger children went up front. Preston was 3rd in line on “Crow”. Preston writes “Crow was the best horse there, he didn’t do anything wrong, and he liked me and I liked him. When I petted him he put his head on my shoulder at the very beginning. He liked to watch large things like rocks and bison”. Parker and I are about ¾ of the way back. I rode “Domino”. Domino was rotten. He pretty much did everything wrong. He tried to eat grass the whole way. He trotted when he was supposed to walk. He tried to bite the horse in front. He backed up into Parker’s horse right behind us. He got mad at the wrangler’s horse and jumped off the trail to chase him, then near the end of the ride he got spooked by a shot and jumped off the trail again. Parker rode right behind me. He rode “Spud”. Parker describes Spud. “Spud did not like Domino backing up into him and pooping on him. He didn’t want to pass Domino. He always stayed in line in his place and wasn’t scared of anything. I liked him a lot. He had the best name “Spuuuud” ”. Ray brought up the rear literally. He was 18th out 18 riding “Gotch”. Ray says “Gotch was an older Roan with a notch in his ear caused by frost bite. He was the best horse in line but he had to be in the back because he didn’t like being followed by any of the other horses. Even though I ate a lot of trail dust I liked being in the rear because I could see everyone in the line ahead of me and occasionally I got to trot when we had to catch up with the rest of the line. Gotch was well trained and well behaved, the perfect horse for a novice cowboy like me.”

The trail ride was really fantastic. In addition to Susan, 3 more wranglers rode with us. They were great kids, all in school doing this for the summer. One guy had just graduated with a degree in aerospace engineering from Virginia Tech and loved doing this for now. The ride took us through valleys where some bison roamed, over a few small bridges, up a fairly good size hill and back down a rocky path, then through a small river. The view was spectacular. The wranglers were informative. As we passed a huge bounder, we were told that it had been brought here by a glacier. They know that since that type of rock is not found in this area but 400 miles away.

The ride was well over an hour. We were a little stiff getting off. Off to find ice cream and coffee.

Back on the road. We headed out toward Beartooth Pass and the northeast entrance of YS. Jean Oakley said we shouldn’t miss Beartooth Pass. We were specially looking for wolves and big horn sheep but saw neither. On our way we did have our second bear sighting. Several people were stopped along the side of the road. The black bear was about 200 feet away. He turned and started walking toward the road. Now would be a good time to get back in your car! A ranger told us that one of the differences in black bears and grizzlies are their claws. Grizzlies have long claws for digging, black bears have shorter claws. But we were also told if you are close enough to see the claws you are too close. We are here to tell you this guy’s claws were very short! He crossed the road just in front of the truck in front of us no more than 25 feet away. He then ambled off on the other side of the road. Very cool!!!

We made a short potty stop in Silver Gate. Not much here so we retraced our path to Tower-Roosevelt.

We had our third bear sighting when we got back to Tower-Roosevelt. We saw an emergency vehicle turn off the road and head into a nearby field to join another vehicle. We had to find out what was going on. A Chuck Wagon dinner group had gone out for dinner and a grizzly was blocking their path back. The grizzly was a long way off but we could barely (hee hee “barely”) see him through binoculars. We walked around several places to get a better look. After several minutes he disappeared from view, only to reappear several minutes later climbing a nearby hill – a hill where several people had gone to watch him, only they couldn’t see him coming up the hill. Big drama. Everyone near us scrambled for their cars to head up the hill for a closer look at the bear. The people on the hill finally figured out what was happening and ran for their cars. When we got up the hill we stopped within 75 feet of him. We got some truly amazing photos of this beautiful grizzly silhouetted against a dusky night sky before a park ranger motioned for us to move on.

Now we are hungry as a bear (oh the humor!) Since we were headed to Mammoth Hot Springs due to our bear hunt we kept on going that way. We were fortunate enough to find a café that was closing in 5 minutes. We ordered burgers, etc. We were tired, hungry, dusty, and sore from the trail ride. That was the best hamburger I have ever eaten.

Time to head for our stable. By the time we finally got back to the RV (now dubbed “Old UN-Faithful”) it was 10pm. What a long day. We fell into bed exhausted but thrilled to have seen so much.