Heading North

Our last day in the Grand Tetons dawned sunny and warm and we took a morning hike to the top of Blacktail Butte for a wonderful view of the valley. The herds of elk and bison on this visit have been the biggest we’ve ever seen, although many locals believe the elk have been decimated by wolves, newly arrived in the Teton Valley. Wolves are a hot-button topic in Wyoming, where they can be shot on sight. We chatted with the state speaker of the house and gubernatorial candidate, a tall handsome Marlboro man look-alike, at the beer fest immediately following the Memorial Day weekend parade, and “wolf management” came up almost immediately.
The local papers carry impassioned letters from wildlife-loving locals and visiting Californians who point out that living wolves equal money for the local economy. “We have our own mountains,” wrote one couple from Lake Tahoe. “We come here to see the wildlife.” Local outfitters, who make their living taking visitors from around the world into the wilds to shoot a trophy elk, disagree.
Of the Druid pack we watched daily last year in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley, none still exist. All of the new pups died, presumably of mange, the pack’s alpha female was killed by another wolf last October and the local paper reported that the pack’s last collared female was recently shot by a rancher 150 miles from the pack’s home. I don’t know what we’ll see in Yellowstone this year.
We’ve struck out on bear this year, although many sightings have been reported. We finally spotted our first predator today, watching a coyoe pounce on a ground squirrel in the elk refuge. Even without bears, the dramatic weather, blessed peacefulness of the nearly-empty campground, and daily sightings of wildlife and birds have made this a special visit. The weather even permitted an outdoor dinner at our campfire and a morning breakfast cookout on the Snake River, where a small herd of elk splashed across the shallows while Terry scrambled eggs.
We ended our last afternoon with a gondola ride up to 10,000’ Rendezvous Peak, where a panoramic view of the valley soon succumbed to pelting snow.
Tomorrow, it’s off to Yellowstone. Two last batches of pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/3Tetonsspring2010?authkey=Gv1sRgCIeYnPCE1uPCiAE&feat=directlink
And:
http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/2Tetonblogspring2010?authkey=Gv1sRgCNm8hLb_iq2JkAE&feat=directlink

Springtime in the Tetons

A noise in the night awakened me: a soft scratching outside Happy not far from my head. An animal? I hoped so, and that we’d find some sign in the morning. I drifted back to sleep. We had Gros Ventre campground virtually to ourselves and left the blinds open to the magnificent mountain view. First light revealed a world of white. Snow had blanketed the world outside, falling steadily and silently, except for the drifts that slid off the roof and down the front slope of the trailer with a soft scratching sound.
The temperature inside read 36 degrees.
Our propane heater quickly dissipated the chill and I returned to bed with a mug of hot coffee and the newspaper, gazing out on a magical scene more suited to December than late May. Dark boulder shapes in the distance announced the arrival of bison, probably the same herd we’d watched fording the river the day before. We jumped in the truck and drove to the camp entrance a short distance away to watch the behemoths move steadily into the campground, snorting and moving aside the snow with massive heads to reach the spring grass underneath. We returned to the campsite and Terry did some snow moving himself, clearing the solar panels atop Happy so they could soak up the meager rays the day offered.
We’re two weeks ahead of our early June arrival last year and the weather has been striking: bitter cold and snow during the Jackson elk antler auction on Saturday, flip-flops and sundresses at the chili cook-off at the same location on Sunday. We were lucky enough to witness part of the spring migration of elk off the winter refuge, watching hundreds of the animals crest a hill and move into the Gros Ventre valley. The great horned owl has returned to her nesting hole in the tree nearby and we’ve watched her, looking like a fat gray cat, sheltering her two fluffy nestlings from the cold. We've spotted several moose -0- one who crossed the road in front of us -- underweight after the winter and losing their thick coats. A coyote has denned in the nearby meadow and her haunting evening cry, along with the daytime songs of robins and meadowlarks, are all that break the peaceful silence. It’s been our best visit here. We love living off the grid in comfort, pleased that everything works so well, right down to the solar panel that powers the radio that lets us listen to NPR each day. The recent purchase of an air card evens allows me to check email from our traveling home, rather than driving to a wifi source. Life is good.
We’ve met up with friends from Florida, a college friend of mine and her husband, who are journeying cross-country in their new motor home and staying in a campground in town. We’ve had some wonderful daytime wildlife viewing expeditions, ending the day with martinis in Jackson. My kind of camping.
Pictures at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/1Tetonspring2010blog?authkey=Gv1sRgCOOxg5H26uKeowE&feat=directlink

Grand Teton winter

Happy stayed home for our winter trip to Jackson Hole. Just driving was enough of a challenge, with snow falling as we crested the Sierras and 18-wheelers throwing up blinding sheets of slush on the windshield. This trip was more about snow, hot tubs and martinis than camping, but wildlife viewing is always our goal.
As we approached Jackson from the south, we spotted a few pronghorn antelope, driven out of their northern feeding grounds by the snow, their slender legs incapable of moving through the deep drifts. Deer browsed near the road, including a buck with an impressive rack. A bald eagle surveyed the landscape from a fence post and a golden eagle fed on roadkill.
It was early in the snow season, and the elk had only recently begun moving from the hills into the 25,000-acre refuge, established in 1912 to provide elk with a protected winter feeding ground. Last winter, elk in the refuge numbered 6,000.
There were fewer than 100 in residence as we rattled and bounced in a sleigh pulled by a pair of hefty Belgian draft horses, frisky at their first day out on the range. The Belgians were brother and sister, and they clearly adored each other, nuzzling whenever the driver pulled up on the reins.
Although the skittish elk take off at the sight of humans, horses can approach with impunity and we came very close to a small herd of bulls, contently chewing their cuds. The fall rut over, elk once again grouped by gender, the males having lost a quarter of their body weight in the rigors of wooing females. Like the moose we saw later, they conserved energy by spending much of the day lying down.
Low-hanging clouds obscured the mountains and for the first time ever, we saw no bison on their customary range along Antelope Flats road. Only birds were visible: black and white magpies, both sage and ruffled grouse, and a mob of ravens feeding on the grass-filled gut of a slain elk.
A howling chorus of coyotes greeted us our first evening, and we spotted prints of a red fox in the snow near our door, but never saw either.
While common animals were scarce, we came across a herd of the less-common bighorn sheep, driven down from the rocky heights by swirling winds. I snapped pictures until my fingers were numb as they browsed nonchalantly along the road, literally moving within touching distance.
The sound of – band practice? – stopped us on a quiet road another day and we found we’d discovered a winter refuge for trumpeter swans, impressive birds with eight-foot wingspreads and a call that sounds like a musical instrument.
In another month, the elk refuge would be filled with elk and the bison who compete for their food. On occasion, they’ll be joined by wolves from the new packs recently formed in Grand Teton Park.
Of the wolves we’ve been watching up in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley, there was news. The lone black pup we saw mousing last fall had not survived, nor had a second pup. Of 9 or 10 pups born to the fabled Druid Peak pack last spring, none were alive to see the winter. Even more ominous for the pack’s future was the death of 569, the handsome gray matriarch and alpha female of the pack, killed by other wolves. Her sister, mother of some of the pups born this spring, has not been seen for months. Will the remaining Druid adults, coats thinned by mange, survive the bitterly cold winter? Will the now all-male pack find females to court? We’ll find out next spring.
Follow link below for photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/JacksonHoleDec2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCPXIo6DKoeeJZQ&feat=directlink

Wolf Tales

Wisps of smoke wreathed Druid Peak our last morning in Yellowstone, as lightening-sparked fires smoldered in the underbrush. Later, we would drive through smoke so heavy it blocked Yellowstone Lake and limited our vision to 30 feet. It would later close the only road through the park as a dozen fires in both Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, a month old, reignited in the north wind.
But for the moment, our attention was on the valley floor, peering through Doug McLaughlan's powerful spotting scope. Fly fishermen dotted the river, taking cutthroat trout from the shrunken river that concentrates fish in the autumn. But while the season is a good one for fishing, it's a difficult time for wolves, with prey elk made strong by ample summer feeding.
It’s difficult to believe we may be seeing the end of the famed Druid pack, as we watch for wolves in the sage far below us. A huge bull elk crests a distant ridge and a pronghorn ram snorts a warning behind us, but it's an otherwise quiet morning.
Doug has seen wolves still alive with mange in the snows of March, but we can’t imagine how animals could endure 40 below zero temperatures missing much of their fur. If all three pups fail to survive, the pack could disperse, with no new successors to carry the pack into the future. The Druids, viewed by thousands and the subject of many articles, a book and a PBS film, could vanish as have other packs before them.
We’ll find out next spring, when we’re certain to see the wolf regulars, who are a pack unto themselves. Dubbed elitist by some park visitors, they can identify individual wolves from two miles away with their expensive Swarovski scopes. Several have purchased more than one tracking collar, at a cost of $2,500 each. The serious researchers have radios to communicate with Rick McIntyre, who tracks collared wolves with an antenna. His vehicle parked at a pullout is a magnet to the regulars. We’ve learned their code names for the best viewing spots: Footbridge, Hitching Post, Dorothy’s, Fisherman’s – code names wolf watchers use to communicate among themselves while keeping interlopers or those who would cause harm oblivious to the wolves’ location. It sounds rather cloak-and-dagger, but the hatred of wolves by many locals is palpable.
Wolf watchers convinced the park service to bar for two years a professional photographer who violated the 100-yard distance law, particularly after he climbed the peak, intending to photograph the newborn pups in their den. Another park visitor was fined after tossing hotdog buns to wolves when a wolf watcher photographed his license plate.
Wolf people are serious types, but we’ve found them unfailingly friendly and incredibly dedicated.
Of all the wolves observed since the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone in 1995, one of the best known male wolves is #302, now alpha male of the new Blacktail pack. Dubbed “Casanova,” the male would leave his birth pack, the Leopolds, and travel many miles to court females in the Druid pack under cover of darkness, always returning to his pack at dawn. Ultimately he joined the Druids, helping the pack gain its dominance and becoming its beta male.
Doug also spoke about Big Black, who broke from the Druid pack and took several strong yearlings with him to form the Slough Creek pack several years ago. The year of 2008 was a tough one for Yellowstone wolves, with only 12 pups surviving in the entire park. Turf wars are common when packs compete for limited resources, and 302 moved on the nearby Slough Creek pack, killing several of its members, although Big Black escaped. Emboldened, the sisters of the Slough alpha female, who’d constantly pinned, subjugated and tormented her sisters, killed their cruel sibling.
Amidst the chaos and decimation of the Slough pack, a female fled to the Druids for protection and was accepted. She was carrying Big Black’s pups and this spring the highly unusual occurred in the Druid pack: the birth of pups that had been sired by two different fathers.
“Big Black’s instinct to feed his pups probably cost him his life,” said Doug, who told us the male wolf was seen approaching the den of his former pack this Father’s Day with food for the pups he had sired. He was seen several more times bringing food to his offspring, but rival males are not tolerated and Big Black probably tried the Druids’ patience too many times. He was never seen again.
Clan rivalries, vengeance, parental devotion, murder – a wolf pack has it all.
On this last morning in Lamar Valley, I finally got to see a Druid pup, the lone surviving black pup from this spring’s litter. We watched him for at least a half-hour through Doug’s powerful telescope, as he froze, then pounced, attempting to find a meal of a mouse or vole in the dry grass and sage.
It appeared there were no adults in the area to feed him. His tail was completely denuded of fur due to mange and he scratched his side in obvious discomfort for long periods of time. At last he took off and headed east, trotting out of sight. Doug told us that black pup is the largest and most vigorous of the three remaining Druid pups and the one who has the best chance of making it through the winter. He believes the pup is the son of Big Black.
Pictures at:
https://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/FireInTetonsSept2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCNnusaKVhvHJXg&feat=directlink

Return to Lamar Valley

A bull moose wandered past, within eight feet of Happy our last morning before we left for Yellowstone and bison were back on our side of Antelope Flats road, rolling in the dust, bellowing like lions and hogging the road. We love those guys – such attitude.
Five full hours driving time brought us to Pebble Creek campground. We saw a few deer (oddly enough, somewhat of a rare sighting here) and lots of bison enroute. The bison herds seem to be thriving. Driving through beautiful Hayden Valley, we had a great ridgetop view of what initially appeared to be wolves, but they proved to be the old coyote fakeout. Large, healthy-looking animals, though.
Once at Pebble Creek, we learned from camp host Ray that the Druid Peak wolf pack we observed so closely this spring, the most famous pack in Yellowstone, had left the valley for the summer and only recently returned.
Pulling into our site, we saw a familiar Montana 5th wheel with Utah plates that proved to be Pam and Dennis, the couple we spent so many dawn wolf watches with this spring. We learned from them that the Druids are infected with sarcoptic mange and may not make it through the winter. Rick McIntyre, chief wolf researcher, later offered a bit more hope, saying he’d seen wolves survive mange.
A late sunrise and 17 degree temperatures got us off to a late start the first morning. The wolf watching scene had moved from the convenience of spring’s roadside pulloff and now required a climp up a steep hill strewn with loose rocks. Terry got brief glimpse of black wolf, and we learned a gray had been present earlier. But sightings were few and very distant. Doug McLaughlin, a wolf researcher we’d met this spring, was generous as always with wolf information and the use of his spotting scope.
He told us Druid pups are down in number from 9-12 this spring to three and those three are thin and mangey. Survival through the winter is chancey, but the pack is resilient and has survived much in the past.
Alpha male 480 doesn’t look good, and was seen with a loose flap of skin on his right foot he may have gnawed off due to mange. It may have been him that was hanging around, largely out of view our first morning. Several observers heard him howling this past week, an eerie and very atypical howl that one longtime observer said is only made when a wolf is dying. At 7 ½ years, he’s getting old – the average lifespan for wolves in the park has been less than four years. If he’s not eating, as alpha he will neither ask for nor receive food from pack mates. He was not spotted again during our visit, and his mate has not been seen in over a week.
The unusual heat has kept wildlife sightings sparse, save for the ever-dependable bison. A few bears have been sighted at the higher altitudes, but they’ve eluded us. Even the mountain goats that inhabit Baronette Peak have sought cooler refuge. We have had good sightings of elk, bighorn sheep and pronghorn antelope, always a group consisting of a single male keeping a close eye on his harem during this rutting season. The elk still lounged on the lawns and meandered through the campground at Mammoth, but we missed seeing #10, a massive bull who poses for pictures until a crowd gathers, then charges autos. He’s sent over 50 cars to the repair shop this season.
Where did the mange that’s tormenting the wolves come from? It was actually introduced 75 years ago by the state of Montana to coyotes, which were infected in the hopes they would spread the mites to wolves and kill them (and themselves in the process.) There’s a drug that would cure mange instantly and researchers think it could be administered by lacing a carcass on which the wolves would feed. The dilemma is this: in some cases it appears certain wolves are developing an immunity to mange and if that could be passed on genetically, their offspring would greatly benefit. So – to treat would rob them of the opportunity to develop immunity. It's yet another of the many complexities in managing wildlife.
Ironically enough, we’ve seen more coyotes this visit and they appear in magnificent shape, full of vigor and with thick, heavy coats. We watched one hunt in a field as if it were a buffet line, pouncing on and devouring a rodent every 25 feet.
There are puffs of smoke on the peaks from lightening-sparked fires, and similar fires in Yellowstone are lowering visibility greatly on the main road.
We ran into Ranger John Kerr, who remembered us from the spring, and had a nice chat. Although he was too modest to mention it, we later learned that he and Darlene, our campground host and a first-year ranger, were the two park rangers selected for duty during the Obamas’ visit last month. John, a former Boston resident who’d worked in documentary filmmaking for PBS, now works seasonal bear-jam duty in Yellowstone. He was manning the barricades when the President emerged from his car, thanked John for working and shook his hand, making it a memorable 71st birthday for the genial ranger.
Pictures at: http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/TetonsYellowstoneSept2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCJaXjKWZgenbLw&feat=directlink

Where Have All the Bison Gone?

The Teton range came into view at the same time the clouds turned black: fluffy, whipped-cream cumulus morphing into indigo; black streaks of rain touching the far-off horizon. By the time we made our way through Jackson, rain splatted on the windshield and lightening crackled in the mountains, illuminating the darkening landscape.
We reached Gros Ventre during a lull and set up camp in our favorite area, having seen only a few distant antelope on the way.
The next couple days showed how lucky we’ve been in the past sighting wildlife in this vast expanse of wilderness, and how unpredictable sightings can be. Bison remain dark spots in the distance, recognizable only because we know this is where they live. We miss the bison jams, the snorting and trembling of the earth as they gallop past, the baleful look of the lead bulls as they meander across the road. Don’t they know I just sent a check to the Buffalo Field Campaign to protect their wild brethren?
We've learned that each wildlife sighting is a wondrous gift and we can't take them for granted. What are the odds that an animal will come into viewing range in the few seconds you pass by? Very slim, given the vast size of the park.
Although no one complains but me, the weather is unseasonably warm – highs in the mid-eighties, glass-winged grasshoppers buzzing in the sagebrush as if it were mid-July, wildlife not yet triggered to move south.
The camp hosts recognized us and shared the happy news of seven moose in the campground, five of them bulls. We visited the tree that housed the great horned owl nestlings this spring. The cavity was predictably empty, but I searched the duff at the base of the tree and found a small rodent skull, evidence of the winged hunters’ residence.
We discovered a new area bordering the elk refuge and made our way up the mountain on a dirt road to Forest Service land, in search of a lake and a hike. We found parked horse trailers and a few cars, but no signs indicating the direction of the lake. There were, however several signs warning this was grizzly territory, making the narrow trail leading through the dark forest unappealing. We chose instead the primitive road, marveling at the incredible views across the tawny-grassed elk preserve to the distant mountains.
The silence was profound, the deepest I’ve ever experienced. The dropping of a single leaf was audible. The chattering of a red squirrel seemed as loud as a jackhammer. It was, frankly, unnerving and we turned around before reaching the lake, stopping in town to buy a can of bear spray.
An early-morning bike ride began with the eerie sound of elk bugling and our first sighting of a herd, a large bull with a four-foot rack moving close enough in our direction that we sought the shelter of trees until he moved the herd away. The new bike path to Jenny Lake made 15 miles easy and we so enjoyed the trek we bought new bikes in Moose.
Nights are properly frosty, with star-studded skies and the sound of the river helping us drift off to sleep. Despite daytime warmth, vegetation announces the approach of winter. Patches of golden aspen punctuate the green-black mountainsides; cottonwoods are turning from green to yellow. Black hawthorn, chokecherry and spirea grow more crimson with each day, and rabbit brush and dogbane spread their egg-yolk hue in vast expanses in open meadows.
This morning a bull and cow moose appeared in the campground, the cow browsing while the bull lay in the sage. When we returned from a hike six hours later, antelope browsed the sage close to the road and the moose pair hadhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifn’t moved, although the sun had. Visibly panting, the bull finally rewarded waiting photographers, stood up and moved into the cooling shade.
We went to a fund-raiser the other night to support research on the pika, the alpine-dwelling rabbit cousin which is considered a predictable indicator of climate change. A search for pika at Slide Lake produced only a fleeting look at one of the tiny, bunny-faced creatures.
Postscript
Returning to camp the next day after a ride on our new bikes, we spotted a welcome and familiar sight: a herd of bison coming back from a cooling drink in the river. Nearly 100 of them stopped traffic as they crossed the road, the calves kicking up their heels and the bulls giving us the bison stink eye.
Things are looking up on the wildlife scene.
Pictures at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/Sept182009TetonBlog?authkey=Gv1sRgCJXOn7nR2vCy7AE&feat=directlink

Fire and Ice

With glacier-carved alpine peaks, crystalline lakes and herds of hikers, Glacier Park is America's Switzerland, beginning in Canada and ending in Montana. It’s a dramatic landscape that has been shaped by fire and ice. Vast expanses of gray snags show the aftermath of forest fires, aesthetically unpleasing, but part of the natural scheme. Spring avalanches regularly clear-cut wide swaths of forest, twisting and snapping trees like toothpicks and rendering impassable the park’s only road. Waterfalls cascade from every peak, crossing the road to drop into the verdant valley far below. It is easy to see why the Lakota consider this land sacred.
But the park’s namesake glaciers are melting. Only a small number of the original glaciers remain, so small from a distance they are indistinguishable from snowbanks, and they will be gone in another 20 years.
The park’s million-plus acres, with nearly impenetrable forest and little access to humans, may be the grizzlies’ last stand, scientists believe. Unlike Yellowstone, animals here are seldom seen, except by intrepid backcountry campers, who are encouraged to hike in groups and carry bear spray. Deer, relatively uncommon in Yellowstone, were spotted frequently along hiking trails, in campgrounds and grazing on the lawns of hotels, and we caught a brief glimpse of a black bear. In general, though, Glacier’s wildlife remained safely sequestered from human eyes and the perils of auto traffic. And, despite the still-deep snow on passes, it was at Glacier that we found the warmest weather of the month.
Thanks to wilderness camping and no Internet, this is being posted weeks after our return!
Photos (copy and paste link) at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/happytwo.mcwilliams/GlacierPark?authkey=Gv1sRgCJKW-bqk1JyKCA&feat=directlink