We opened the shades at first light this morning after turning on the heater and were startled to see movement on the ground – not the now-familiar moose moving through the campground, but a young man stirring in his sleeping bag out in the sage meadow. No tent, although nights drop to the 30s. We're amazed at the number of tents at this place in this season – more than we see at a typical California campground. People are tougher here.
Doing our laundry at Colter Bay campground, we met a pleasant gray-haired woman in an Obama T-shirt who spoke with a Texas twang as she unloaded clothes from a bicycle pannier. From Ft. Worth, she and her husband were recreating their honeymoon trip of 25 years ago, riding their bikes across the country. She’d just completed the 1,200 miles from Portland and had to get back to work, while her husband was going on to Virginia.
“You rode over Teton Pass? Over the mountains?”
“Oh sure, it’s not bad. We only go about 50 miles a day. If I can do it anyone can.”
“I don’t think so. And you carry your tent? Cooking utensils? Stove?”
“Yep – everything fits in the bags. It’s really not bad at all. The only bad day we had was trying to outrun a storm in Idaho, and we were bucking a head wind of about 30 miles an hour. Then the storm hit, with lightening and buckets of rain, and I got a flat tire and we were trying to change it in the rain. But a local came by and loaded us into his pickup and took us back to town.”
She was going to deliver clean clothes and the tent to her husband, who was going over a 9,000’ pass that day and they’d planned to meet up at the post office in Dubois (pronounced du boys). On a political note, she said she’d had positive response to her T-shirt, even from overall-clad farmers in Montana.
On a ranger-led hike yesterday we met a retired couple from Missouri who were tent camping (sleeping on the ground) in our campground, one of only two still open this late in the season.
“Staying warm at night?” we asked, and they replied that they do this every year. In another day, they would meet up with their ranger son for a five-day backpacking/canoe trip.
Many of the hikers we encounter on "moderate" (i.e., huff and puff) trails appear to be in their 80s, and they often pass us up. We are getting used to the 6,400' altitude.
Like the tourists from the east coast who came here in the 1880s and dressed up in silly cowboy gear at the dude ranches, we feel like softies. Our new solar panels keep the battery charged to power lights at night, the fan for the heater and recharge my laptop. (Although I still have to seek wifi outside the campground, favoring the Jackson Lake Lodge, where I'm currently sipping a beer and looking out over the mountains.) At night we listen to NPR out of Laramie and dine on roasted fig and Gorgonzola pizza made with pizza dough brought from home.
While bathrooms at California campgrounds are often steamy from showers and filled with women using hair dryers, hair gel and applying makeup, most campgrounds here (including ours) don’t even have showers, the bathroom’s a long hike away and you can’t even keep a water bucket outside because of the bears.
Still, it appears many have found how beautiful it is this time of year, and we're surprised at the number of campers -- Swiss and Brits in tents, Germans in rent-a-campers. We're happy in Happy. More pictures on another day.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
More Wildlife
Why did the moose cross the road? Same reason as the bison, the elk, the wolf … and although we missed it by two minutes, the grizzly: because it was there. Unfenced, unafraid and completely oblivious to traffic, the four-legged mountain wanderers meander at will. It’s absolutely glorious.
The day after waiting over an hour for a moose pair to stand for a photo opp, we spied a lone bull (the prized photo subject because of the iconic antlers) in a meadow as we drove down the road. By the time we found a spot to turn around and head in his direction, he’d covered two-three miles at a good clip and crossed the road in front of us.
We retraced our steps and soon saw a traffic jam ahead that meant only one thing: animals. A sizeable bison herd had decided to stroll across the road, led by a couple of one-ton bulls, ignoring vehicles and sometimes stopping in the middle or returning to the side they started out on. We rescued two bicyclists who wisely decided not to proceed, carrying them and their bikes in the back of the pickup as we slowly picked our way through the herd.
We’re told the Teton bison herd has increased from 23 animals in 1980 to 650 today, and they’re a fairly common sight. Unpredictable, bison can charge at speeds of 30 miles an hour and have gored visitors dumb enough to get out of their cars.
At dusk that evening, a wolf crossed the road as we returned to camp, confirming our earlier scat ID, and we were to see another the following day at Yellowstone. Only a bear sighting would make me happier.
Moose wander through the campground, and the wildlife expedition vans bring their customers here for sightings. The elk are still in the higher elevations of Yellowstone, and we had a large bull approach our stopped truck before crossing right in front of us yesterday. Several of the animals we’ve seen are wearing tracking collars, and one bull moose was wearing a large wad of bird netting in his antlers, a result, no doubt, of a garden raid.
Sightings are sheer luck and mere seconds can make a difference. We all cruise slowly, hoping we’ll be the lucky ones. And a grizzly is most prized of all.
A trip to Yellowstone brought sightings of black-tailed deer, more moose and bison, our first elk and almost a grizzly. Terry actually caught a glimpse of its hind end disappearing into the trees, as we jockeyed for a parking place in a line of cars that had rangers directing traffic, as people thronged the road.
The big bear had crossed the road in front of a lucky few, and the telephoto lenses were plentiful.
I asked one woman with two impressive cameras whether she’d managed to get pictures of the grizzly and she said yes, “good ones.” Any chance we could see them?
“Sure,” she said, opening the tripod of one camera and turning it on.
“I’m a professional writer and photographer and I’m doing a book on Yellowstone,” she said.
“Great!”
“You’re going to see some good work,” she continued and I called Terry over.
Camera on, message on screen: No memory card.
Chagrined, she grabbed her second camera: “That’s OK, I’ve got it on this one.”
Second camera: No memory card.
Trying to stay cool: “I’ve got plenty of pictures of this bear.”
Ouch.
Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/WildlifeBlog2#5250050878454602002
The day after waiting over an hour for a moose pair to stand for a photo opp, we spied a lone bull (the prized photo subject because of the iconic antlers) in a meadow as we drove down the road. By the time we found a spot to turn around and head in his direction, he’d covered two-three miles at a good clip and crossed the road in front of us.
We retraced our steps and soon saw a traffic jam ahead that meant only one thing: animals. A sizeable bison herd had decided to stroll across the road, led by a couple of one-ton bulls, ignoring vehicles and sometimes stopping in the middle or returning to the side they started out on. We rescued two bicyclists who wisely decided not to proceed, carrying them and their bikes in the back of the pickup as we slowly picked our way through the herd.
We’re told the Teton bison herd has increased from 23 animals in 1980 to 650 today, and they’re a fairly common sight. Unpredictable, bison can charge at speeds of 30 miles an hour and have gored visitors dumb enough to get out of their cars.
At dusk that evening, a wolf crossed the road as we returned to camp, confirming our earlier scat ID, and we were to see another the following day at Yellowstone. Only a bear sighting would make me happier.
Moose wander through the campground, and the wildlife expedition vans bring their customers here for sightings. The elk are still in the higher elevations of Yellowstone, and we had a large bull approach our stopped truck before crossing right in front of us yesterday. Several of the animals we’ve seen are wearing tracking collars, and one bull moose was wearing a large wad of bird netting in his antlers, a result, no doubt, of a garden raid.
Sightings are sheer luck and mere seconds can make a difference. We all cruise slowly, hoping we’ll be the lucky ones. And a grizzly is most prized of all.
A trip to Yellowstone brought sightings of black-tailed deer, more moose and bison, our first elk and almost a grizzly. Terry actually caught a glimpse of its hind end disappearing into the trees, as we jockeyed for a parking place in a line of cars that had rangers directing traffic, as people thronged the road.
The big bear had crossed the road in front of a lucky few, and the telephoto lenses were plentiful.
I asked one woman with two impressive cameras whether she’d managed to get pictures of the grizzly and she said yes, “good ones.” Any chance we could see them?
“Sure,” she said, opening the tripod of one camera and turning it on.
“I’m a professional writer and photographer and I’m doing a book on Yellowstone,” she said.
“Great!”
“You’re going to see some good work,” she continued and I called Terry over.
Camera on, message on screen: No memory card.
Chagrined, she grabbed her second camera: “That’s OK, I’ve got it on this one.”
Second camera: No memory card.
Trying to stay cool: “I’ve got plenty of pictures of this bear.”
Ouch.
Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/WildlifeBlog2#5250050878454602002
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
The Wild Life
The Tetons are drop-dead gorgeous. Seduced for many years by California’s spectacular coast, I’d nearly forgotten how beautiful this part of the world is -- and that mountains were my first love. We’re in the Gros Ventre campground where, for the princely sum of $9 a night we look out on a sage-dotted meadow where moose and bison and antelope roam, backed by the jagged peaks of the snow-dusted mountains. The leaves are just beginning to turn gold.
This is the best park for wildlife viewing in the U.S. The first night after setting up camp we joined a dozen other campers in a meadow, where a moose pair taunted photographers with tripods and expensive telephoto lenses, the bull showing only his impressive antlers and the cow flicking her ears, barely visible above the meadow where they lay contentedly chewing their cuds. One photographer told a new arrival he’d been there for most of the day and that the pair had stood for about three minutes an hour ago. The female finally got up and began browsing on the sage, under the watchful eye of her mate, but the trophy bull eluded the lenses. We left after sunset, a line of hopeful photographers still silhouetted against the darkening sky.
As we drank coffee the next morning, a cow moose and her calf ambled right through the campground, browsing on the bright red hips of wild roses. Later in the day we saw herds of bison in the meadow near the campground, and a fast-moving herd of antelope in the distance. Assorted hoofprints and bison “cowpies” told us the herds had only recently crossed the road. We moved to a campsite that would afford full sun for our solar panels and Terry spotted a great horned owl, obviously well-fed, who took a perch in a nearby tree, watching us. Of course I’m snapping away with my little point-and-shoot Canon with no telephoto lens, thrilled nonetheless to be in the midst of such critter abundance.
We love observing animal tracks and scat, and the campground has deposits from both moose (ovals the size of songbird eggs, which can be burned as incense when dried – we’ve tried it) and elk droppings, which look and smell like Hershey’s chocolate kisses. At a closed-for-the-season camp bathroom I found some very fresh scat that included an undigested rodent head.. Our new scat and track ID chart, along with a naturalist at the visitor center, both indicate gray wolf and I’m hoping it was, thrilled to think of a wolf sidling through the campground in the dark of a drizzly night. They’ve been moving into this area from Yellowstone to the north.
This is bear country and tent campers must keep all food and toiletries in heavy metal containers shared among campsites. Each year on average 14 black or grizzly bears are destroyed because they’ve become habituated to people food., and even dishwater must be taken to a special sink for draining. It’s definitely a disincentive to tenting! Signs everywhere warn “A Fed Bear Is a Dead Bear,” and who’d want that terrible responsibility? Right now bears are packing on four pounds a day in preparation for mid-November hibernation. We’re heading to an area where old 399 and her now-emancipated cubs have been hanging out, on a slim chance of a sighting.
Everyone’s here for the wildlife, along in some cases it’s preferred on a plate.The Tetons are drop-dead gorgeous. Seduced for many years by California’s spectacular coast, I’d nearly forgotten how beautiful this part of the world is -- and that mountains were my first love. We’re in the Gros Ventre campground where, for the princely sum of $9 a night we look out on a sage-dotted meadow where moose and bison and antelope roam, backed by the jagged peaks of the snow-dusted mountains. The leaves are just beginning to turn gold.
This is the best park for wildlife viewing in the U.S. The first night after setting up camp we joined a dozen other campers in a meadow, where a moose pair taunted photographers with tripods and expensive telephoto lenses, the bull showing only his impressive antlers and the cow flicking her ears, barely visible above the meadow where they lay contentedly chewing their cuds. One photographer told a new arrival he’d been there for most of the day and that the pair had stood for about three minutes an hour ago. The female finally got up and began browsing on the sage, under the watchful eye of her mate, but the trophy bull eluded the lenses. We left after sunset, a line of hopeful photographers still silhouetted against the darkening sky.
As we drank coffee the next morning, a cow moose and her calf ambled right through the campground, browsing on the bright red hips of wild roses. Later in the day we saw herds of bison in the meadow near the campground, and a fast-moving herd of antelope in the distance. Assorted hoofprints and bison “cowpies” told us the herds had only recently crossed the road. We moved to a campsite that would afford full sun for our solar panels and Terry spotted a great horned owl, obviously well-fed, who took a perch in a nearby tree, watching us. Of course I’m snapping away with my little point-and-shoot Canon with no telephoto lens, thrilled nonetheless to be in the midst of such critter abundance.
We love observing animal tracks and scat, and the campground has deposits from both moose (ovals the size of songbird eggs, which can be burned as incense when dried – we’ve tried it) and elk droppings, which look and smell like Hershey’s chocolate kisses. At a closed-for-the-season camp bathroom I found some very fresh scat that included an undigested rodent head.. Our new scat and track ID chart, along with a naturalist at the visitor center, both indicate gray wolf and I’m hoping it was, thrilled to think of a wolf sidling through the campground in the dark of a drizzly night. They’ve been moving into this area from Yellowstone to the north.
This is bear country and tent campers must keep all food and toiletries in heavy metal containers shared among campsites. Each year on average 14 black or grizzly bears are destroyed because they’ve become habituated to people food., and even dishwater must be taken to a special sink for draining. It’s definitely a disincentive to tenting! Signs everywhere warn “A Fed Bear Is a Dead Bear,” and who’d want that terrible responsibility? Right now bears are packing on four pounds a day in preparation for mid-November hibernation. We’re heading to an area where old 399 and her now-emancipated cubs have been hanging out, on a slim chance of a sighting.
Everyone’s here for the wildlife, along in some cases it’s preferred on a plate. Photos at:http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/GrandTetons1#
This is the best park for wildlife viewing in the U.S. The first night after setting up camp we joined a dozen other campers in a meadow, where a moose pair taunted photographers with tripods and expensive telephoto lenses, the bull showing only his impressive antlers and the cow flicking her ears, barely visible above the meadow where they lay contentedly chewing their cuds. One photographer told a new arrival he’d been there for most of the day and that the pair had stood for about three minutes an hour ago. The female finally got up and began browsing on the sage, under the watchful eye of her mate, but the trophy bull eluded the lenses. We left after sunset, a line of hopeful photographers still silhouetted against the darkening sky.
As we drank coffee the next morning, a cow moose and her calf ambled right through the campground, browsing on the bright red hips of wild roses. Later in the day we saw herds of bison in the meadow near the campground, and a fast-moving herd of antelope in the distance. Assorted hoofprints and bison “cowpies” told us the herds had only recently crossed the road. We moved to a campsite that would afford full sun for our solar panels and Terry spotted a great horned owl, obviously well-fed, who took a perch in a nearby tree, watching us. Of course I’m snapping away with my little point-and-shoot Canon with no telephoto lens, thrilled nonetheless to be in the midst of such critter abundance.
We love observing animal tracks and scat, and the campground has deposits from both moose (ovals the size of songbird eggs, which can be burned as incense when dried – we’ve tried it) and elk droppings, which look and smell like Hershey’s chocolate kisses. At a closed-for-the-season camp bathroom I found some very fresh scat that included an undigested rodent head.. Our new scat and track ID chart, along with a naturalist at the visitor center, both indicate gray wolf and I’m hoping it was, thrilled to think of a wolf sidling through the campground in the dark of a drizzly night. They’ve been moving into this area from Yellowstone to the north.
This is bear country and tent campers must keep all food and toiletries in heavy metal containers shared among campsites. Each year on average 14 black or grizzly bears are destroyed because they’ve become habituated to people food., and even dishwater must be taken to a special sink for draining. It’s definitely a disincentive to tenting! Signs everywhere warn “A Fed Bear Is a Dead Bear,” and who’d want that terrible responsibility? Right now bears are packing on four pounds a day in preparation for mid-November hibernation. We’re heading to an area where old 399 and her now-emancipated cubs have been hanging out, on a slim chance of a sighting.
Everyone’s here for the wildlife, along in some cases it’s preferred on a plate.The Tetons are drop-dead gorgeous. Seduced for many years by California’s spectacular coast, I’d nearly forgotten how beautiful this part of the world is -- and that mountains were my first love. We’re in the Gros Ventre campground where, for the princely sum of $9 a night we look out on a sage-dotted meadow where moose and bison and antelope roam, backed by the jagged peaks of the snow-dusted mountains. The leaves are just beginning to turn gold.
This is the best park for wildlife viewing in the U.S. The first night after setting up camp we joined a dozen other campers in a meadow, where a moose pair taunted photographers with tripods and expensive telephoto lenses, the bull showing only his impressive antlers and the cow flicking her ears, barely visible above the meadow where they lay contentedly chewing their cuds. One photographer told a new arrival he’d been there for most of the day and that the pair had stood for about three minutes an hour ago. The female finally got up and began browsing on the sage, under the watchful eye of her mate, but the trophy bull eluded the lenses. We left after sunset, a line of hopeful photographers still silhouetted against the darkening sky.
As we drank coffee the next morning, a cow moose and her calf ambled right through the campground, browsing on the bright red hips of wild roses. Later in the day we saw herds of bison in the meadow near the campground, and a fast-moving herd of antelope in the distance. Assorted hoofprints and bison “cowpies” told us the herds had only recently crossed the road. We moved to a campsite that would afford full sun for our solar panels and Terry spotted a great horned owl, obviously well-fed, who took a perch in a nearby tree, watching us. Of course I’m snapping away with my little point-and-shoot Canon with no telephoto lens, thrilled nonetheless to be in the midst of such critter abundance.
We love observing animal tracks and scat, and the campground has deposits from both moose (ovals the size of songbird eggs, which can be burned as incense when dried – we’ve tried it) and elk droppings, which look and smell like Hershey’s chocolate kisses. At a closed-for-the-season camp bathroom I found some very fresh scat that included an undigested rodent head.. Our new scat and track ID chart, along with a naturalist at the visitor center, both indicate gray wolf and I’m hoping it was, thrilled to think of a wolf sidling through the campground in the dark of a drizzly night. They’ve been moving into this area from Yellowstone to the north.
This is bear country and tent campers must keep all food and toiletries in heavy metal containers shared among campsites. Each year on average 14 black or grizzly bears are destroyed because they’ve become habituated to people food., and even dishwater must be taken to a special sink for draining. It’s definitely a disincentive to tenting! Signs everywhere warn “A Fed Bear Is a Dead Bear,” and who’d want that terrible responsibility? Right now bears are packing on four pounds a day in preparation for mid-November hibernation. We’re heading to an area where old 399 and her now-emancipated cubs have been hanging out, on a slim chance of a sighting.
Everyone’s here for the wildlife, along in some cases it’s preferred on a plate. Photos at:http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/GrandTetons1#
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Unplugging and heading to the woods
Day two in the Tetons brings more of those Georgia O'Keefe clouds and new snow on the highest peaks. Our campground (photo attached) pool has long been covered for the winter and a mix of late season campers, like us, will soon move on: RVs from Florida and Washington, a euro-style camper with plates from the UK, those ubiquitous Quebecois (they seem to be everywhere!) and a hardy young couple from Salt Lake who were spending the night in a tent until the kindly proprietors offered them a cabin for the night.
Have no idea, as we unplug and head into the woods, how I'll keep this going, but we'll see. Keep checking in.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Travels with Happy
On the road again…
Loaded with a week's worth of unread newspapers and two dozen books, plenty of wine, the last of the garden's tomatoes and a big bag of grapes from our bountiful arbor, Happy took to the road again with us as happy passengers. This time we're heading east to see the west before the snow flies.
The first day proved to be record mileage for us: over 500 miles through the seemingly endless landscape of Nevada. Mile after mile of high desert scrub, punctuated by subdivisions that have sprouted like mushrooms after rain – a real estate boom that's led to staggering foreclosures in today's market.
Still the traditional opportunities for sin abound, from gambling in gas stations to the siren calls of the Mustang and Pussycat Ranches, where truckers are always welcome.
We bunked down in Elko, once not more than a wide spot in the road, now fitted out with an impressive number of sprawling malls and drive-through Starbucks. A remnant of the area's Basque sheep herding community remains in the Nevada Dinner House, a nearly century-old establishment that began as a hotel on the other side of the tracks. Purchased in later years by Italians, it still serves hearty Basque family-style dinners. Next door to Elko's rowdy bowling alley and around the corner from the Stumble Inn bar, it draws a full house of locals and passers-through: beefy guys in muscle shirts, ranchers who remove their cowboy hats at the door, truckers who don't, couples trying to converse above the din of the dining hall. Seventeen bucks will get you lamb shanks, along with the family-style sides that accompany each dinner: a huge tureen of vegetable soup, salad, a bowl of spaghetti, a platter of french fries and a fresh vegetable side, along with house-made bread. That's what you'd get if you got there early, or knew enough to reserve the shanks with the chatty hostess multitasking in the bar. The popular lamb was gone by the time we ordered, so Terry contented himself with all the sides. I was delighted with the filet mignon "small plate" – a full serving by Napa Valley standards and, at $8, easily the best beef I've had in years. We washed it all down with a full-to-the-rim glass of (chilled) no-name Cabernet for $4.
Moving into Idaho the following day, we drove through a series of incredibly scenic tableaux – the dramatic canyon and rushing waterfall of Twin Falls, rolling farm land of endless corn, golden wheat stubble and sod-roofed potato storage barns. One moment the sun was blinding, the next lightening would split a leaden sky in the distance. We saw prong-horned antelope, red barns that reminded me of the Midwest and huge machines harvesting potatoes under whipped-cream clouds in a pewter sky.
Skirting the rushing Snake River we climbed over Teton Pass to descend into a panoramic valley framed by a double rainbow, whose arch led us to Victor and the scenic campground where we are tonight. Hot showers, a good dinner with a nice bottle of Petite Sirah and rain pattering on the roof will induce blissful sleep. Click for pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/1WestTripNevadaIdaho#
Loaded with a week's worth of unread newspapers and two dozen books, plenty of wine, the last of the garden's tomatoes and a big bag of grapes from our bountiful arbor, Happy took to the road again with us as happy passengers. This time we're heading east to see the west before the snow flies.
The first day proved to be record mileage for us: over 500 miles through the seemingly endless landscape of Nevada. Mile after mile of high desert scrub, punctuated by subdivisions that have sprouted like mushrooms after rain – a real estate boom that's led to staggering foreclosures in today's market.
Still the traditional opportunities for sin abound, from gambling in gas stations to the siren calls of the Mustang and Pussycat Ranches, where truckers are always welcome.
We bunked down in Elko, once not more than a wide spot in the road, now fitted out with an impressive number of sprawling malls and drive-through Starbucks. A remnant of the area's Basque sheep herding community remains in the Nevada Dinner House, a nearly century-old establishment that began as a hotel on the other side of the tracks. Purchased in later years by Italians, it still serves hearty Basque family-style dinners. Next door to Elko's rowdy bowling alley and around the corner from the Stumble Inn bar, it draws a full house of locals and passers-through: beefy guys in muscle shirts, ranchers who remove their cowboy hats at the door, truckers who don't, couples trying to converse above the din of the dining hall. Seventeen bucks will get you lamb shanks, along with the family-style sides that accompany each dinner: a huge tureen of vegetable soup, salad, a bowl of spaghetti, a platter of french fries and a fresh vegetable side, along with house-made bread. That's what you'd get if you got there early, or knew enough to reserve the shanks with the chatty hostess multitasking in the bar. The popular lamb was gone by the time we ordered, so Terry contented himself with all the sides. I was delighted with the filet mignon "small plate" – a full serving by Napa Valley standards and, at $8, easily the best beef I've had in years. We washed it all down with a full-to-the-rim glass of (chilled) no-name Cabernet for $4.
Moving into Idaho the following day, we drove through a series of incredibly scenic tableaux – the dramatic canyon and rushing waterfall of Twin Falls, rolling farm land of endless corn, golden wheat stubble and sod-roofed potato storage barns. One moment the sun was blinding, the next lightening would split a leaden sky in the distance. We saw prong-horned antelope, red barns that reminded me of the Midwest and huge machines harvesting potatoes under whipped-cream clouds in a pewter sky.
Skirting the rushing Snake River we climbed over Teton Pass to descend into a panoramic valley framed by a double rainbow, whose arch led us to Victor and the scenic campground where we are tonight. Hot showers, a good dinner with a nice bottle of Petite Sirah and rain pattering on the roof will induce blissful sleep. Click for pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/1WestTripNevadaIdaho#
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