No Griz!

Well, we have returned home. Very long trip. Longest ever vacation. So much of it spent driving!

I now no longer have to imagine what it's like to witness a cloud of smoke that covers a huge portion of the North American continent. Between the historically enormous fires in Washington state (over 400 square miles) and the ones in Idaho, and the local fires in Montana we saw smoke clouds that spread over thousands and thousands of miles. Upon leaving, we actually drove for two days over three (enormous) western states trying to escape from the smoke. Only on the very eastern edge of South Dakota did we find ourselves free of most of it.

That said, we did have some days without smoke covering the skies. Three days in South Dakota and Wyoming, and roughly two and a half days in Glacier National Park (Montana). Then the fire smoke rolled in and obliterated the views. Most of the wildlife, also, seemed to fade from the landscape. Hiding? It sure seemed so.

We ended up never seeing a single grizzly bear, not one moose, and only two black bears (one of them a cub).

Details as I download the files and collect my thoughts.

Wyoming's Devil's Tower.

The West

My experience hiking and backpacking out west is limited. I've taken a few trips there to enjoy the outdoors, but not as many as I'd like. The scenery out there is quite different from that here in the east. There's a reason they call it "Big Sky Country". The mountains are grander. The terrain is more rugged. The wildernesses are more vast. When I'm out there I walk around gawking at the grandeur of it all.

But that's not to say that I think it's all superior to what we have here in the east. Our wild areas may be more ancient, more eroded, the edges filed down and enclosed by the creep of urbanization; but there is still much to love and admire in our wilderness. We don't have have the megafauna to compare, but our forests are far more diverse and generally more lush. There's nothing to compare with the autumns of an eastern hardwood landscape.

We have been planning our Glacier National Park trip for an entire year. The day is coming for us to head out. Provisions are stocked. The vehicles are ready. Funds are in place. What reservations we can make have been made. Expectations are at their highest level.

Here we go.

Hiking the big peaks.

Looking into the wilderness of Montana.

A Montana lake.

Grizzly country.

Hiking above treeline on talus slopes.

Bull moose.

Brown phase black bear.

Why I Love Yellowstone

There are plenty of reasons to love Yellowstone National Park. Too many to list, actually. But right at the top is that there is so much wilderness there between the Park roads that there is a ridiculous amount of wildlife. Specifically, there is tons of unspoiled habitat for megafauna. You know...the big stuff. Big herbivores and big predators.

Someday I'll go back. Not in 2015. We're going to Glacier in 2015. But maybe in 2016. We'll see.

You have to love this place. Carole and Andy and I were walking back to our room and what's in the parking lot eating greens? A giant bison. We gave him a wide berth.

Part of the giant elk herd that got between me and my family as we were hiking back to Mammoth Hot Springs. We had to wait for it to pass before we could link up.

I took this photo of this griz from a VERY great distance. This is a digitally enlarged image taken with my most powerful telephoto lens. This bear had dug a bed for itself in the bank of the Lamar River and was completely sacked out. Why wouldn't he be comfortable? Who's going to mess with him?

Actually in the area between Grand Teton and Yellowstone. A bull moose.

 

Again...this was just outside Yellowstone. This was the only black bear we saw in the Yellowstone/Teton area. It is, as you can see, a brown phase black bear. I wasn't as close as this photo makes it appear. He was feeding heavily on something low to the ground as he walked along. I never saw what it was and he never once lifted his head. He was just vacuuming whatever goodies were growing there.

Bison in a dust wallow. Hayden Valley.

And it's not just the animals. A boiling hot lake, ladies and gentlemen. A. Boiling. Hot. Lake. Give me a break.

Megafauna from South to West

I spend a lot more time in the outdoors than most Americans. A lot more.

One reason I go to Parks and wilderness areas is to find solitude. I also go to enjoy various types of scenery. Mountain vistas. Waterfalls. Rivers and streams. Forests.

But another huge reason I head off into the forests and swamps and mountains is to see wildlife. And there are all kinds of animals to define wildlife, but when I talk about that aspect of my journeys I'm speaking about megafauna. These are the larger animals. Things that are not tiny to us.

Most of our National Parks feature habitat that is the very reason that enables us to view such creatures. And in my wide journeys I am always on the lookout for the big critters, and I have varying degrees of luck spotting them.

For big fur-bearing animals I suppose the places like the western National Parks are the best. It's hard to visit one of those spots and not see the large critters we all think of as designating wilderness. In the east...well, the pickings are slim in comparison. When I'm hiking in the Piedmont or along the spine of the Appalachians, I just don't see a lot of wildlife. I feel fortunate to spot the occasional black bear. Elk are only now being reintroduced, but I do spot them from time to time. I've never seen a bobcat or a mountain lion here in the East. About the only big critters I can count on seeing in the East are white-tailed deer, raccoons, wild turkey, and the two vulture species we have.

But there is one place in the east where I often travel where there is at least as much wildlife as in the west. Maybe more. And that is in the wetlands of the deep South. If I go paddling in the Okefenokee Swamp, or trekking the rivers around the Outer Banks, or cruising the low country of Florida then I can pretty much guarantee myself that I will enjoy a vast bounty of wildlife.

West, East, South. I'll take what I can get.

Mullet school. Silver Glen Springs, Florida.

Black snake. Virginia Creeper Trail, southwest Virginia.

Migrating hawks forming a "kettle". Linville Gorge Wilderness, North Carolina.

White-tailed deer. Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Coyote/Red wolf hybrid. Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Alligator Snapping turtle. Outer Banks, North Carolina.

Cottontail rabbit. Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina.

A black bear and I surprise one another. Douthat State Park, Virginia.

Bison herd, Hayden Valley, Yellowstone National Park.

Bothersome raccoon. Blue Spring State Park, Florida.

Black buzzard, Manatee Springs State Park, Florida.

Bull elk. Rocky Mountain State Park, Colorado.

Bull elk, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Cataloochee section, North Carolina.

Grizzly bear, Yellowstone National Park. (Yeah, not a good photo, but I prefer Grizzly bears to be far away.)

Manatees. Manatee Springs, Florida.

Bull moose. Grand Teton National Park.

Key Deer. Big Pine Key, Florida.

Osprey. Fort DeSoto Park, Tampa Florida.

Grand Teton eye candy today. As usual, busy working on novels.

Carole and Andy. The Park Service had these picnic tables all around parts of Jenny Lake.

The Stupefyin' Jones of USA Mountains.

You just stand and stare at them. They are among the best of the best.

We spent most of an entire day on the shores of Jenny Lake.

I was warned about Jackson, Wyoming. But I had to see it. Something as sappy as the elk antler arches made me head there. The place sucks ass. A playground for people with far deeper pockets than mine. I never felt so out of place or unwelcome in an American town. It's for the goddamned rich and only for the goddamned rich. They can keep it.

This was the nicest lodging we had in the two Parks. We really enjoyed our stay in this cabin.

We missed seeing a bull moose in Yellowstone, but saw three in the Tetons.

Sunset. We had stopped to see an out of the way lake just as the sun was going down.

One last viewpoint at Jenny Lake, then we had to leave. Alas!

This was the last place we stopped to take photographs before heading back toward Salt Lake City and the jet that would take us back to North Carolina. It was hard to leave the place.

Critters of the Rockies!

The following are photos I took of critters that we encountered mainly on our hikes (but sometimes at our campsites).

Bull elk. It was the rut and they were bugling.

Cow elk.

 

These ground squirrels were everywhere. They could be total pests.

Uncooperative but gorgeous bird. A western Jay? Stellar jay?

I had left my telephoto lens behind for weight considerations. Big mistake.

Soon-to-be-endangered Pika. Glad I got to finally see them.

Gorgeous White-tailed ptarmigan.

First good photo I was able to snap of a marmot.

Cutthroat trout. He is not suspended in air. The water of the glacial lake was just that clear.