Sunday, July 3, 2011

Day 18- Last Day in Yellowstone

I know we shouldn’t have but since we were staying 32 miles from the east gate, we got up very early today and “flew” to the park. Once at the East Gate, we continued to Fishing Bridge and then headed towards Old Faithful. This is the last loop through the park we hadn’t explored. Our first stop of the morning was at West Thumb Geyser Basin and it was just barely 8:00 on a crisp and promising morning. The thermal pools along Yellowstone Lake were steaming like crazy, making some of the photography a bit more challenging. We were part way through the ½ mile boardwalk when I stopped and looked to my left. There coming out of the wooded area was a young cow elk. She came slowly to the edge of the lake and took a deep drink, pausing every so often to look about. After a couple of minutes of taking her photo, I noticed several more young cow elk coming out of the very same group of trees. We kept hoping a bull would follow or another cow with a calf but we were disappointed on this count. In all, there were seven females wandering around, nibbling on the lichen and mineral rich bits of grass that grew in the area. It appears they live there or nearby all the time because of the multiple signs insisting the elk are not to be fed or approached because they are wild and dangerous. The signs say nothing about stationary visitors and elk who approach them. Two of the ladies climbed up on the boardwalk and crossed among a large group of Japanese tourists. That was truly exciting. I think “Watch out, here comes a big animal” translates in any language. About an hour later we found ourselves approaching Old Faithful who, it seems, has become a little less reliable in the past few years. Scientists don’t know if it’s because of changes in the water table or if the hotspot under Yellowstone has shifted just enough. It doesn’t matter because I’d made up my mind that we were sitting on that bench until she blew. We saw the geyser erupting as we pulled into the parking lot so we knew our wait could be anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 ½ hours. I am asked by another photographer what I plan to shoot the event with so, in the process, we struck up a conversation with her family that lasted the entire time we are there. One hour and 40 minutes after we sat down, the mound in front of us started to bubble and before we knew it, the full blown eruption is going off. There’s nothing in the foreground to judge but we estimate the height of the water at about 100 feet and it lasted about 5 minutes. It was great. After souvenirs, back in the truck, we decided to head on to Grand Prismatic Spring by way of Firehole Geyser. There was an enormous traffic jam at Grand Prismatic Spring so we continued on to find a nice place for lunch. I asked Carl to drive down Fountain Flats Road to the end. There, along the Firehole River, we just happened to find a small herd of bison cows with calves fairly close so we grabbed the tripod, camera and cable release and walked to a small clump of downed deadwood. We’re close enough to pull them in with my lens but not so close that we are violating any laws. I’m shooting away when Carl says something about the bull coming up behind us. I turned to look and there, between the river’s edge and our clump of trees is the largest most perfect Bison bull I’ve seen on this trip. I’m aware he’s way closer than we should be and the wind is sort of blowing in his face so he may be getting our scent. He started walking with an exaggerated stiff leg sort of walk and his tail was arched up as if he were going to leave a pile of scat but he didn’t. Then he started slowly wagging his head back and forth and grunting, followed by a display known as the Flemin response, which allows the scent on the wind to roll over this organ in his mouth. You’ve probably seen other animals roll their upper lip and make a strange face. That’s it! He passes us and I breath a sigh of relief. He’s caught wind of the cows up ahead and is definitely not the least bit interested in us. He stopped mid way between the cows and where we were, pawed at the ground, urinated in the dust pit and then lowered himself into the dust. He rolled and got good and coated and then headed off to his ladies. One by one, he approached the cows, sniffed at their rear end to check if they have come into season or maybe to find out if another bull has been messing with his ladies. This is where we spend our lunch time. It was a most exhilarating hour. Our last stop was finally to fight our way into a still congested Grand Prismatic Spring, a pool 200 feet across displaying more colored algae and bacteria than any other pool in the park. It dumps hundreds of steaming hot water into the Firehole River every minute. Oh and while we were watching the bison at Fountain Flats, we noticed a number of fly fishermen trying their hand at the fish in the river where we also noticed an osprey who at first hovered over the river and then swooped down to grab fish out of the very same river.

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