In Yellowstone, the call of the wintry wild
Updated 4:04 pm, Friday, March 21, 2014
They huddle together in herds, thick coats impervious to the wind that whips through the Lamar Valley. Bison? No, wolf watchers, a dedicated group of amateur biologists who monitor Yellowstone's wolf packs as they hunt, play and compete with each other for territory.
Unlike the wolf pack, where decisions are dictated by the alpha female or established via the alpha male-versus-beta male hierarchy, the wolf watchers invite acolytes to share their resources: expensive spotting scopes and extensive knowledge.
It's winter in Yellowstone, where every inhabitant seems open to compromise. The "bachelor bison" - older males who've been expelled by younger, stronger bulls - are permitted to roam closer to the herd than during the breeding and calving seasons.
Even the wolf ignores the coyote. Primary predator of the food pyramid, the wolves coil tightly against the cold while their cousin, a supplicant scavenger, tears eagerly at the tatters of flesh that remain on the leg of a recently felled elk. We are taught in Bio 101 never to blend wildlife and human behavior, but I contend that even biologist Rick McIntyre, dean of the wolf watchers, may not be quite so generous when the curious masses descend upon him in summer.
Don't get me wrong. Yellowstone remains a wilderness to be treasured in any season. But President Theodore Roosevelt had the right idea when, during a 16-day visit in spring 1903, he sneaked away from his party to explore the backcountry by himself for a couple of days.
Winter requires a less premeditated plan, even when observing one of the most-visited natural landmarks in the world, Old Faithful.
The late evening draws single-digit temperatures, the hazy, full moon and me. The geyser, seen by an average of 12,000 daily visitors in the summer, erupts tonight at 11:17 p.m. before this audience of one, save perhaps a great gray or great horned owl.
These stealthy nocturnal predators, two of the avian world's great hunters, compete with each other for the voles, deer mice and kangaroo rats that scurry beneath the snow in search of their own meals. The owls glide silently above the snow, their exceptional ears triangulating the sounds below. When they hear the rodent's familiar scratching, often located more than a foot below the snow's surface, they strike with incredible accuracy.
Later this evening, I match baritone hoots with a great horned owl, brushing off my former days as a spotted-owl researcher with the Washington State Department of Natural Resources. Sadly, I never hear the distinctive bass call, sonorous as Verdi's Scarpia, from a great gray owl, the "Phantom of the North."
After one more solo witnessing of the punctual, frothy tower, I trudge back upon the crackling snow to the Old Faithful Snow Lodge. The Snow Lodge is exclusively accessible by "oversnow vehicles," i.e., snowmobiles and snow coaches. Though serviced regularly by snow-coach shuttles from the South Entrance and Mammoth Hot Springs, this isolation still conjures up images of Demeter's anguish when, each winter, she relinquishes daughter Persephone to Hades. The rest of the world may exist, but it seems very far away.
The Snow Lodge's recreation center offers adventures in every direction, including snowmobile tours to Mammoth, snow-coach tours throughout the park, wildlife photography workshops, and Nordic ski rentals and instruction. I set out next morning to explore this world made white with Demeter's snow, though Hades' environs, personified by thermal upheaval throughout the Geyser Basin, are never far from view.
An experienced, if average, Nordic skier, I'm joined by a new friend for a 17-mile tour along the Biscuit Basin Trail to Mystic Falls, part of the 40-mile cross-country ski trail system in the Old Faithful area. The day breaks perfectly for ski touring beside the Firehole River, the air crisp and dry, the sun bright and the temperature comfortably in the mid-teens.
The Yellowstone Caldera is considered a "supervolcano," a 1,530-square-mile hot spot with few equals on Earth. Though the last full-scale eruption occurred more than 640,000 years ago, seismic disruptions and hydrothermal activities continue across the plateau.
The friction among surface, magma and mantle remains as plain as the bubbles in the Morning Glory Pool, which steams like a ski-resort spa, albeit a lethal one, beside the river.
Though the great gray owl, considered a top-tier "twitch" for birders, remains unchecked on my life list, I've certainly seen many trumpeter swans before, taking groups to observe the graceful birds as they feed on the farmers' fields in Washington's Skagit Valley.
Trumpeter swans also migrate to Yellowstone, where they prefer to alight upon non-thermal rivers and streams, according to the resident naturalist. Thus I'm surprised to see a pair of swans floating within the steam on Iron Spring Creek as we enter the final third of our route. At that perfect photographer's moment, we spy upon the swans for several minutes, two isolated pairs within this vast wilderness.
Suddenly the pair stumble awkwardly down the creek, feet slapping this way and that, wings grazing the surface until, by some mechanical sleight-of-wing, the giant birds lift off and disappear beyond the diaphanous mist.
First sightings abound in Yellowstone, an 8,000-foot-high living diorama perched precariously atop a geothermal cauldron, where even non-elusive natural wonders feel like discoveries worth celebrating. What prepares us to see the Earth's pulse, where the ground bubbles, belches and evicts the water table skyward? The Fountain Paint Pots of the Lower Geyser Basin remind us that the Earth's crust is capable of color schemes as deep in hue as the lupine and vibrant as the poppy, two flowers that will paint the adjacent meadows in the season to follow.
Geyser names, Jelly, Spasm and Jet, suggest the nuances of each individual spout, and a fun game of "rename the geyser" ensues. Fumaroles, i.e. toxic steam vents, exist wherever the Earth's crust has lost its struggle with the mounting pressure from a previously subterranean heat source. Fumarole fields appear for no reason in particular - here a vacant field, there a patch of hiss and mist.
This landscape appears otherworldly. The River Styx must flow near. Snags, long since poisoned, float behind the vapors; hoarfrost forms upon their bare limbs, superfluous armor protecting a ghost. Ravens skip nervously about the snow.
Steam also appears in the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, a basin first formed after volcanic eruptions 600,000 years ago. The canyon has endured several more lava flows. It's also been plugged by three glacial epochs, each followed by a significant reshaping during the glacier's retreat, the last of which occurred just 10,000 years ago. The Yellowstone River continues to sculpt the canyon today.
The struggle of water and ice, like river against rock, never subsides. Persistently frigid weather forms an exoskeleton of ice in front of the 308-foot Lower Falls. The current punches against the ice exterior, forcing a temporary gap that will reseal in the subzero chill of night. Ten-story-tall icicles calve, shattering against the ice that envelops the rocks below.
After visiting the Upper Falls, Gerard Baker, assistant superintendent of the National Park Service, who accompanied a tour co-produced by Tauck Tours and Ken Burns, leads a native ritual beneath towering lodgepole pines. "We pray for the weather," Baker intones after a song, arms outstretched. "We pray for rain, snow and yes, for blizzards. All elements are needed for new growth."
Standing in the middle of the snow-covered road, where we have stopped for the ritual, it's easy to forget that other, albeit much shorter, seasons will inevitably tumble in. Just then I hear the piccolo-pitched call of a golden-crowned kinglet high above me. Looking up, I spy the tiny songbird foraging for spiders and mites upon the nascent, dusty brown cones emerging from the needle fronds.
Spring, as the kinglet could tell us, is not too distant in the future. Nor, I realize as our small circle continues to clog the middle of Grand Loop Road, are the people.
Viewing Yellowstone's wildlife
-- Yellowstone has the largest concentration of mammals in the lower 48 states, with 67 species, including bison, grizzly bears, gray wolves (pictured), elk and bighorn sheep.
-- Animals are most easily seen in early morning and evening hours, when they are eating. But the number and variety of animals you will see on any
given day are largely a matter of luck and coincidence.
-- All visitors must keep 100 yards away from wolves and bears, and 25 yards from other animals. It is illegal to willfully disturb or displace any animal.
If you go
Most major U.S. carriers offer daily flights to Bozeman (North Entrance) and Jackson (South Entrance.) The North Entrance Road to Mammoth Hot Springs and the Lamar Valley Road is plowed in the winter. Always travel prepared for extreme winter conditions.
Where to stay
Xanterra Parks and Resorts: (303) 600-3400, www.xanterra.com. Operates Yellowstone National Park Lodges. Xanterra arranges snow-coach shuttles to Old Faithful Snow Lodge and various tours within the park.
Old Faithful Snow Lodge and Cabins: (866) 439-7375, www.yellowstonenationalparklodges.com. Cabins and rooms range from $99 (Frontier Cabin) to $230 (Lodge Room King) per night. The lodge also offers packages.
What to do
Tauck Tours: (800) 788-7885, www.tauck.com. Offers nine-day "Wonderland: Yellowstone in Winter" trips three times per season. Tour was developed with Ken Burns, creator of "The National Parks: America's Best Idea" PBS series. The 2014 trip cost is $4,090.
Crai Bower is a freelance writer. E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.org