A Voyage of Discovery: Betsy and Bubba on the Road

If you’re like me, before your first visit to a place like Yellowstone, your familiarity with the buffalo was limited to the nickel. On my first time here, we drove in through the Northeast Entrance and were fully mindful of the ranger’s cautions about bison charging and goring. We weren’t but a fe w miles into the park before we encountered a bison standing in the middle of the road, with twin jets of snot hanging from his nose, looking pretty ticked off, and obviously not planning to move for our little rental Geo. The very fact of the bison’s presence in Yellowstone today is remarkable, despite their size and apparent ability to take care of themselves.

While bison were found from the Pacific to the Appalachians prior to the European expansion westward, the bison herds numbering in the millions were reduced during the 1800s by market hunting,sport hunting, and the US Army. Ironically, the Army ultimately became the saviors of the bison after nearly driving them to extinction. When Yellowstone National Park was founded in 1872, there were relatively few bison left. The Rangers didn’t exist in those days, and when poaching in the Park was a problem, the Army was brought into the Park in 1886. The most notorious of the poachers, a guy named Ed Howell, was arrested by the Army in 1894. The Army lacked the prosecution authority to deal with the wholesale slaughter in which Howell engaged. Their solution was to take him to the South entrance to the Park, and to deposit his guns at the North entrance, figuring it would take them a while to be reunited. A writer for Field and Stream was so outraged by this ineffectual resolution that he organized a lobbying effort, resulting in Congressional passage of legislation giving the Army authority to prosecute.

By this time, the herd had been reduced to about 2 dozen animals. The Army undertook to import bison into the park, and, in 1906, set up an experimental breeding program. By the 1930s, between the introduced animals and the Park’s native herd, there were around 1500 animals.

The art and science of wildlife biology was not so evolved in the 1950s and 1960s, and determinations were made to reduce the herd, because of fears of overgrazing. These “management” activites reduced the bison in the Park to under 400. Subsequent studies and advances in the understanding of the ecosystem and its components have allowed the herd to grow to about 3500, currently believed to be the carrying capacity of the park for bison. They are still the subject of conflict. The bison are believed to carry brucellosis, a disease that can cause cows to miscarry. And, make no mistake about it, we are still in cow country and the range wars still go on. Even though the cattle can be easily vaccinated against brucellosis, area ranchers want the ability to destroy bison who may be carriers (studies I’ve heard quoted say there is no evidence of transmission of brucellosis from bison to cows, although it is believed that the bison may originally have gotten the brucellosis from cattle! Besides, the elk also carry brucellosis, but many of the area ranchers have lucrative business interests in elk hunting outfitting.) So when bison leave the confines of the park, and it is believed that several hundred do so each winter, they are hazed back into the park or destroyed. At least, if they are destroyed, their carcasses are given to native american tribes working with the Park Service. If the winter is harsh, a number succumb to natural causes, and serve as food for wolves, coyotes, eagles, etc.

Until a week or so ago, the bison population in my area of the park was primarily bulls, singly or in groups numbering up to 6 or 10. As the summer advances, the herds are moving east across the park. As I drove through the Hayden Valley on Thursday on my way to visit with Maybelline, traffic was stopped in both directions as a herd of about 150, cows and calves, trotted up from the river, took dust baths at road’s edge, and moved up the hill away from the river.

The males are bigger than the females, and, being vain creatures, have fuller “pantaloons” on their forelegs than the females. All have a bushy bouffant topknot between their horns. A tough place to scratch. Many of the trees in bison areas have been gouged free of bark by the bison trying to address that nasty itchy scalp.

Apparently, the natural turpentine in the pine sap acts as a sort of insect repellent.

These ungainly creatures have astounding ability to put a hoof on the gas. They can run 30+ miles an hour when they feel the need to do so, and can jump 6 feet high from a standstill. They are shedding now, and the woods are full of clumps of hair where they’ve rubbed some loose. And, of course, the woods and meadows are full of bison pies, watch where you step. They are irascible and temperamental on a good day, and, as we move into the rut season in late July, apparently the bulls become downright nasty. A ranger I know recommends that you watch their tails for an indicator of mood. If they are carrying the tail up and swishing it around, it’s an indicator that the bison will either charge….or discharge.

The calves are adorable, frequently referred to affectionately as red dogs. Ah, well, people wondered how I got such beautiful children, it’s the same in the buffalo world, I guess.

I’ve written about baby animals and flowers, the pleasures of hiking and all that. There is a harsh side to this place, and its remoteness, despite the fact that more than 3 million folks visit here every year.

We have clinics at a variety of locations throughout the park. Basic medical needs and first aid can be addressed there, and the rangers are well trained in dealing with wilderness first aid. But real medical care, the kind we expect in our everyday 21st century lives, is not so readily available. Cody, WY, is the nearest “large” community to my location, only 87 miles away. (Put that in perspective, Newporters, who haven’t been to Fall River for 20 years, and hesitate to drive all the way to Middletown for a movie on a weeknight.) The road to Cody closes each night at 8, not to reopen until the next morning at 8. The next nearest community, Jackson, WY, is 101 miles away, but that 101 miles constitutes a 3 hour journey. In the event of a real emergency, the rangers can call for an ambulance (of course, the patient must pay the freight) or can medevac someone out in a helicopter.

This week, a woman from Michigan was standing on a small retaining wall at Calcite Cliffs in the Tower Roosevelt region in the northeast part of the Park. She stepped over the retaining wall to get a better photo, and slipped on loose gravel, then fell 500 feet to her death, while her husband and children stood by, helplessly. Rangers had to rappel down the cliff to recover her body.

A few days ago, a man on a tour fell and appeared to have internal bleeding. He was medevacked out and flown to Billings, MT for surgery. The helicopter could not take his wife; she was left to find a taxi(there are no rental cars in the park) at night for the four plus hour trip to Billings.

Last night, we received a call at the hotel from the rangers asking us to hold a room for a family in distress. They had rolled their van, and the grandfather with his three grandchildren arrived at the hotel at 9:30 to stay. The grandmother, children’s parents, and one child had been taken out of the Park for hospitalization.

On a daily basis, visitors tempt the fates by going way too close to wildlife. Frequently, the rangers are there to step in and try to herd the visitors away. This is most apparent in the frequent bear jams, huge traffic jams while visitors stop their cars in midstream to get as close as they can to a grizzly bear, who looks cute and sweet, probably weighs 300 pounds, and does not want to be approached. I was stopped in one of these jams the other day, and watched a woman carrying a child who looked to be about 2. The ranger repeatedly herded her behind the line, she appeared to pay no mind. Finally the ranger stood in front of her and sent her back to her car. At the same time, I was beckoned on into the roadway by another ranger. The woman still 10 feet to the side of my car, yelled at me for not stopping to let her across, I was jeopardizing her child’s safety. Hmmm…

Except for those of us who spend time at sea, our lives in urban or suburban America, do not expose us to these kinds of perils. We are not mindful of our place in the natural world, and seem to believe that we truly have been given dominion over the planet, to tread as and where we will. Yellowstone is a daily reminder for me. The risks are well worth it, to my way of thinking, but I’ve had to learn to change my ways. I don’t often hike alone, as I would without reservation in the woods and fields of southern New England. Even leaving the camper or walking out of work, I must be aware of my surroundings, and cognizant of the fact that there may be a bison or bear around the corner.

With my apologies for the cinematic allusion.

Some of you know Maybelline. For the others, as a child, my fondest dream was to own a horse. I had read, among other good horse stories, Paul Revere and I by Robert Lawson, the story of the American Revolution told by Paul’s horse, and relentlessly harped on my father, why couldn’t we have a stall in the kitchen like Paul Revere? After all, my mother was the champion of all things early American, and what could be more early American than emulating Paul Revere’s horse husbandry! To no avail. They sent me off to camp and let me ride until I got hurt. That was the end of my great equestrian saga. From time to time as an adult, I started riding, and, each time, progressed to a certain level of competence and then quit. I had a million reasons: too much work, not enough money, the kids, lack of time, blah blah, but the real reason, the dirty little secret, was that I was afraid of horses, and afraid of falling. I fell a bunch of times, and never got hurt, but that didn’t mitigate the fear.
I started riding again about three years ago when Sandy Carney andCarol Beekman invited me to get involved in the drill team they were riding with in Tiverton. Patiently led by Richard Upchurch, a professor in computer science at UMass Dartmouth, who better not give up his day job, given the ability to follow instructions we demonstrated, the drill team would meet twice a week, and an eclectic bunch of folks laughed and had a great time while exercising our horses, and sometimes, our minds. After a couple of months, I bought myself a saddle, and told the kids that I finally wanted to get serious about riding. In January of 2004, I was introduced to Maybelline. She had been purchased off a truck by Roseland Acres and had done yeoman service for the summer season as a trail horse and camp horse. She had developed a sore right where her girth lay, and, after being worked hard all summer, apparently wasn’t much use to her owner so was thrown in a stall where she languished for a number of months. When I met up with her, her feet were in bad shape, she was apparently full of parasites, and she was scared of her own shadow. What a pair we were! With a lot of support from my drill team friends, I started riding her. My confidence improved and so did her condition. After a few months, with the summer season fast approaching in which she would once again be subjected to hard labor, I made an offer to purchase her. The first month of horse ownership was idyllic; Maybelline and I made great progress together. The second month, Maybelline came into heat, and I learned why a lot of people will never ride mares! In the course of the following ten months, I supported the physical therapy industry in Newport with one ailment after another occasioned by falling off Ms. Maybelline. Getting injured from a fall off a horse for the first time (and the second and third!) really caused my fear to take a hold. In January of 2005, I was too afraid to get on my little horse. We worked through that and had a great year together last year, but I knew it made no sense to transport her out west. I put up advertisements in local tack shops and on an on-line horse sale site. Each and every time someone called me about her, I asked them a few questions, and then talked them out of her. The callers were looking for a horse for the child, by and large, and I knew that any child who wanted to advance as a rider would be bored with May in a single season. She needed an older rider, one who was patient, wanted to trail ride, didn’t want to jump or show, never expected to be showing in equestrian classes….in short, me. So Maybelline remained in Tiverton while I went on my adventures, and was shipped June 7. The truckers gave her a short vacation in Colorado Springs and called me Wednesday to say she’d be in last night.

May arrived in Gardiner, Montana about 9:30 last night. As you can see I haven’t figured out how to deal with red-eye in my photo editing program. Just as well, it turns out. May was once again in heat, and had her satanic attitude, so the eyes in the photo look just right! Note that the eyes are accompanied by ears pinned, and an attitude of pure evil toward the horse next to her!

May is spending the summer at the home of Sue Stormer, originally from Pennsylvania and, for the past 15 years the head wrangler for the company I work for, for their trail rides at the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. She is very nice, wonderfully kind to the animals, and very busy right now as they prepare to open their operation on Tuesday. She’d not had time to prepare May’s paddock, so we put her in a temporary one for the night and I shoveled, raked and otherwise prepared her new home for her this morning while she strolled around the property to get acquainted with the other horses.

She spent the morning relaxing and engaging in her favorite activity, and even did a little work, namely mowing the lawn in front of Sue’s house. Acclimation to altitude will take her a little time, she was winded from eating!

May walked around the property and visited with the other horses for the afternoon. These are two of the girls next door; May told them stories about Buddy Cianci and they were suitably entertained.

She’ll get a few weeks off before she does any work, to get her used to the altitude.

In the meanwhile, a few miles from her new home, Bubba and I met our first rattlesnake. I dragged Bubba off up the hill, only to drag him into a beautiful crop of flowering prickly pear cactus. Poor boy! This beautiful country can certainly pose some harsher challenges than New England.

With the extremes of weather in the Park, everything seems to happen on an exaggerated rapid schedule once winter breaks. It’s pretty remarkable that I arrived here just a little more than a month ago and there were more than two feet of snow on the ground. The last patch of snow disappeared the first week of June in my little campsite, but, throughout Memorial Day and erratically during the following week, nights were well below freezing. Even this week, the cold has endured. Rain at night finds blocks of ice in my folding lawn chairs outside the camper. And it did snow and hail this evening! But the back of winter has clearly been broken, and it happens pretty fast. A week ago the ground behind the camper was bare, little on it but dried remnants of visits from last year’s bison(promising an active population later in the summer between me and the restroom!)
Overnight, greenery has magically appeared, and flowered.

The dogtooth violets were the first. They call them Glacier lilies around here, since they appear as soon as the snow recedes. While they are almost past in the sunny spots, the woods still are brightened by them, and, at the higher elevations on the way to the Sylvan Pass at the east entrance of the park, they are in full bloom.

Incredibly quickly, the scant vegetation filled out with the emerging lupines. Just a few leaves one day exploded into lupines everywhere, leaves one day, flowers the next. These alpine lupines are not like garden variety lupines. These are low to the ground, with small narrow silvery leaves.

Everywhere there’s a patch of sun, there’s a little patch of wild strawberries. I’ve never actually seen these fruit at home. I’m told that here, however, they are a particular favorite of the bears, who demonstrate a surprising delicacy and sleight of hand picking the fruits of these tiny plants.

In other parts of the Park, at lower elevations, there is more diversity of blooms. I am heading north to Gardiner, just outside the north entrance to the Park, tomorrow, and will see what’s new there.

I am also working on blooming. I had a chance to go to a ranger-sponsored workshop on Monday night at the Employee Rec. Hall, where we watched a video and listened to a presentation that apparently qualified us for an accelerated process in getting backcountry permits. I’m glad this is something I’ve learned a little about before; if my safety depended on a pretty superficial presentation made by the young woman who does the backcountry permitting, I’m afraid I’d really be at risk. I will have to find a babysitter for Mr. Bubba before I can head out, but I am certainly looking forward to the opportunity.

This evening, I went to a presentation on flyfishing. That’s a goal I’ve set for myself for the summer. I’m not sure I really care if I catch, but I want to fish. Fly fishing is graceful and elegant to watch. I’ve been offered lessons by Will and Ted who work in the Gift Shop at the hotel; Maria has already had a few lessons from them, and I’ve just borrowed their video on casting for the night, with plans to meet up with them behind their dorm some evening soon to try my hand at casting. I hope for better luck or skill than I experienced with roping; I always hit myself in the face. Unpleasant as that may have been, at least the rope didn’t have a hook on the end. Small consolation: they don’t permit barbed hooks in the Park, so removal of a hook will be comparatively painless!

I have started a volunteer stint with the National Park Service. I’ll be spending a few hours a week, on a schedule yet to be determined, since my work schedule is in flux with the departure of a couple of front desk employees, or Guest Service Agents as they prefer to call us. I was issued a uniform, alas, no Smoky the Bear hat yet) and will be working at the Desk at the Fishing Bridge Visitor’s Center. I spent my first afternoon there on Monday, after a short orientation on Sunday. I had the pleasure of awarding Yellowstone Junior Ranger badges to a brother and sister from California. It took me right back to seeing Sarah and Benjamin at the Visitors Center at Canyon receiving their badges, Sarah still has hers on a hat. I also spoke with a summer Ranger named Harlan, who took us on a guided hike back on the occasion of our first visit to the Park fourteen years ago. He was thrilled to hear that he’d made such an impact on at least three visitors, and to hear that Sarah was doing coyote research back in Rhode Island.

Tomorrow I’ll be heading up to the Archives at the Heritage Center in Gardiner for a tour of the Archives and an orientation for volunteers. I may be filling in as security/receptionist for them, and will also be working on some research projects in the Archives. I’m delighted to have the chance to do so; access to the Archives is limited.

I spent the afternoon on Tuesday cleaning my tack and converting the trunk of the car into a more efficient tack room. I just received the call that Ms. Maybelline will be arriving Thursday night between 6 and midnight, so the preparation was timely. She is going to be living in Gardiner, about four miles form the Archives. Bubba and I will drive up tomorrow morning, I’ll attend my orientation at the Heritage Center, and we’ll prepare a suitable welcome for the little horse from Rhode Island, who has just enjoyed a little vacation in Colorado.

Now that Memorial Day has gone and we’re pretty well broken in on our jobs, we are assigned to regular work schedules and shift teams. I work a late shift on Fridays and Saturdays, and an early shift on Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays. With the long days here, there’s plenty of time to enjoy life in Yellowstone.

The hotel is the oldest in the Park, with the first wing built in 1891, and additions in the 1920s. In the old wing, home of the front desk, the glass is original, wavy and slightly purple in tint. The furnishings are largely early summer house, lots of wicker, arranged in clusters for family groups to gather. A large sunroom overlooks the lake, and is a gathering spot for guests in the late afternoon, for cocktails, games, or sitting with a good book. The dining room also has some pretty stunning views of the lake.

Over the registration desk and in the entry to the gift shop, etched glass panels depict wildlife. Scattered around the lobby are framed enlargements of photos on sale in the gift shop, some of which are quite stunning~but I don’t have walls large enough for them at home, never mind in the van~! A “resident artist” is set up in the lobby doing water colors of vaguely anthropomorphized bears watching firefighters, tourists, etc. His work seems quite popular with many of the guests and some of the staff. My standards in watercolor are perhaps too high, having been watching Lucia’s work develop over the past 25 years. I find his stuff pretty trite and stylistically uninteresting.

Of the 300 odd rooms in the hotel, we turn over an average of 200 a day. On the morning shift, we are checking guests out; on the afternoon and evening shifts, checking them in. With the high rate of turnover, there are all sorts of housekeeping issues, and many guests arrive to find that their rooms are not ready for prime time. If they’ve been traveling all day, tempers can be frayed. We’ve been advised that we can encourage them to go enjoy the park, but should probably not tell them to go take a hike, it might be misinterpreted. Most guests are prepared to make the best of their vacation no matter what happens. There are several less pleasant subsets. One of the more interesting, if less appealing, is the professional complainer. These guests feign illness, complain about service and housekeeping, and manage to complain enough, and publicly and vocally enough, that management comps them on services or rates. We just said goodbye to an Australian couple that seemed to have perfected the art, stayed at the hotel for more than a week, complained about everything, were oh so ill during their stay and couldn’t get adequate medical care, and bounced up to check out on their last day, hale and hearty and having managed to knock off about 1/2 of their total bill during their stay.

Our little home behind the front desk houses about 4 of us at a time, three desk clerks and our “senior”- the trouble shooter and problem solver. I have limited authority, and love calling over the senior when there is a problem; I am coming to believe that there should be such a position in every job, someone to rescue you from the difficult personality, the problem not of your own making, the error someone else made that you’re having to explain away, or, even better, your own mistakes.

I particularly enjoy talking with the guests about the park and their plans. I love this place, and love sharing what I’m learning about it. And, of course, I’m thrilled when a guest comes in wearing a Sox hat, I know I’ve found a kindred spirit. There is a surprisingly large number of Boston fans passing through.

I’ve gone out and hiked with co-workers three days out of the past six. On June 1, Maria, from Buffalo, a former flight attendant, a pilot, and a colorful personality, joined me for a hike out to Storm Point on the north shore of the lake. A short easy walk of a couple of miles across a sagebrush meadow led to the shore of the lake, and a colony of yellow-bellied marmots in the rock formations on the shore. The rock here is rhyolite, a cousin of the granites of New England, but different in its texture. The marmots are winter hibernators, who enjoy the warmth of the sun on these rocky outcroppings during the summer.

On the way to and from the point, the trail wanders through spruce and fir woods and lodgepole pine woods. Bison stroll through, currently rubbing against trees to scrape off their winter coats. They mostly look like they’re having bad hair days at the moment.

On the 3rd, I hiked up Elephant Back with Maria and a couple of other co-workers, Kerry, her sister, Molly and Lee. I distinguished myself as the ultimate flatlander, having to frequently stop to struggle for breath as we climbed from the hotel to an altitude of about 8500 feet. My goal is to do this enough this summer that I can actually make it without sounding like someone is strangling me!. We hiked through a lodgepole pine forest. As we climbed, the trail was glittering with obsidian fragments, and the boulders contained chunks of obsidian. The evidence of Yellowstone’s volcanic history is everpresent, along with the reminders of the current thermal activity. Elephant Back is believed to be the remains of one of the more recent lava flows from the Yellowstone volcano, whic last erupted in a significant way about 600,000 years ago. Elephant Back is from a flow about 70,000 years ago. The view from the top was well worth the asphyxiation on the way up. We looked down on the hotel, and across to the Absaroka Mountains. The lake is extraordinary in its beauty, and holds lots of surprises: depths in excess of 300 feet, underwater peaks 150 to 200 feet high, thermal vents deep underwater as well as allong the shore.

On the 5th after work, Natasha, a young woman from Florida who is leaving this week, joined me for a hike to Fairy Falls. A gravel road leads from the bridge crossing the Firehole River past the Midway Geyser Basin. In the late afternoon sun, the steam rising from Grand Prismatic Spring was colorful, gold purple and blue.
The trail turned off of the old fire road, and wandered thgouh a lodgepole pine wood. As we got closer to the falls, the trees changed and there was more spruce and fir. We could hear the sound of the falls, and finally came across this lovely 197 foot high cascade of icy cold water. The air was full of spray that cooled us off on this hot sunny afternoon. These hikes are just whetting my appetite for discovering more about this incredibly diverse and beautiful place. The side benefit is in becoming a little more fit than I’ve been sitting behind a desk or hanging out in a courtroom these many years.