living it up with the locals

Lisa and Dave who we had met in Alaska and live in Yellowstone met us for a walk up above Mammoth Hot Springs on the Sepulcher trail.

The day before Dave had also arranged for Ralph to meet the head wolf and avian biologist at the park Doug Smith. He was a really kind guy who looked similar to the stranger in the Big Lebowski, he made time in his schedule for a quite chat about the reintroduction project. When on San Juan Islands of Washington State back in July we had been told by the Whale biologist that legislation in America could include provisions for anything, regardless of the nature of the bill.  This is best explained by the wolf example Doug gave me; Federal protection for wolves has been removed in two states (Idaho and Montana, both have massive ranching interest), this change to the law was made in the BUDGET BILL which has nothing to do with wildlife legislation whatsoever, it is also a bill that could not be stopped due to its importance. The amendment had been placed as a favour to the democrat senator in Montana. This means that in America a child protection bill could include tax cuts for a corporation.

Doug said that the Yellowstone wolf population had dropped 40% over the last three years, but that this was the result of natural variation in prey abundance and should be expected. This is in stark contrast to the Kodiak bear population which had been consistently growing over the past decade, the guides said this was "good management" through hunting but to us this just seemed highly unnatural.

Meanwhile back to the Sepulcher trail....The beginning of the trail looked very enticing with the light dusting of snow, it felt more like Christmas than autumn.

Grizzly bear print in the snow at the start of the trail, quite a fresh print too, maybe we were following close behind it.  The snow made it great for seeing animal tracks.

Coyote tracks across the bridge

This hide was not there the previous day when we had walked the same route, it must have been what the bear was eating, most likely elk.

We climbed this snowy peak

The colours were great down low

We took Sepulcher

Half way up the mountain we heard coyotes howling, it was both eerie and very cool.

Three quarters of the way up the mountain Dave and Lisa's friends Virg and Ashea joined us - this is a photo of us at the top.

Chatting about bears going off water falls etc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPWtmKzDxxw

The snow made visibility at the top limited, but it made up for this making everything look very pretty

Dave practising for REI catalogue cover shoot.

Ralph and Lisa, Ralph is weirdly defying gravity (must be the wonder bra he says!).  We had to borrow a hiking pole each to make our way down. Virgil was hardcore though and made it down without the need for any poles.

Can't remember what these ones were, a prize to the first person who lets us know in the comments section.

Pine marten prints

More snowy lovelyness

A flower braves the elements, can't remember its name will look it up

The snow cleared as we dropped back down towards Mammoth.  

Just after this point we started to see very comical black bear prints. It had obviously heard us coming and was scrabbling down the muddy path as quickly as it could in order to get away from us. All along the trail we saw long slide marks ending in a bear paw print - we felt a little guilty for making him hurry so much.

The trail ended at the bottom of Mammoth Hotsprings.  We went back to Gardiner afterwards to have burgers at Ashea's YUM!

The next day we all arranged to meet for an early morning (to avoid the crowds) dip at the amazing boiling river.

Boiling River where the boiling hot water from the hot springs run into the freezing river. You can pick your favourite temperature anywhere in-between and sit there for hours, in our case two.

We think that the stuff about America being a litigation culture is greatly exaggerated and that we use it in the UK as an excuse for our own cautiousness. Given these potential hazards we doubt that such a place would be open to the public in an UK national park.

It was freezing cold and very early in the morning, or maybe we always look this weird!

Don't go too near to this bit as it is bloody hot.

Sitting in the Boiling River.

It takes a little while to find the right temp, but once you do it is very relaxing.

Good bye Boiling river