In May I had the chance to spend a couple of days in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. Yellowstone became the world’s first national park in 1872, as federal land protected from the settlement and development that was beginning around it. It’s still the case that its official population is zero, and instead people travel in from towns near it boundaries, or camp or use motorhomes for recreational stays. I stayed in the small town of West Yellowstone just over the border in Montana.
For me the highlight of the trip was seeing bears in their natural habitat. I believe I saw Grizzly Bears in the far distance near the Dunraven Pass and then these Black Bears back on lower ground. That’s relatively speaking, as the whole park is at least a mile above sea level. Both the brown and black ones below are members of the Black Bear species, with the distinctive straight line from forehead to nose.
In the video you can see the larger brown one prowling around, and then the slightly smaller black one climbs a tree to get away from it. The brown one then sits at the bottom like a dog watching a squirrel before eventually wandering off.
Bear attacks, especially from Grizzlies, happen about once a year in Yellowstone. Earlier in May, two people had to be airlifted to hospital after a serious attack on a trail not far from the concentration of hot springs and visitors around Old Faithful. The message repeated by the Forestry Service and others is to always carry a can of bear spray – similar to pepper spray but projecting a stream of the liquid twelve metres for six or seven seconds that harmlessly stings bears’ eyes and makes them want to get away. Like European bears, Grizzlies are a subspecies of the Brown Bear, but they are more aggressive than their European cousins. Even so, they generally avoid humans, and only really confront us when protecting their young or tempted by food.
On the streets of West Yellowstone, dumpster-diving bears are discouraged by these metal rubbish bins, with a catch you have to slide back to open. Instead of our big plastic wheel bins, the hotel had metal skips with latching doors. They even have self service machines to get cans of bear spray in some of the car parks. I got mine from Bass Pro though and I gave it a quick burst outside my hotel to check what the spray looked like.
As well as all this about bear spray, there’s also advice not to hike in groups of less than three, and so I relied more on driving than walking, getting out to look at the sights armed with my bear spray in the belt holster it came with.
As well as bears, Yellowstone is famous for its wild population of bison. In 1902, 21 bison from ranches were reintroduced alongside the roughly 20 wild bison still present. For decades, domesticated bison were kept in fenced areas and fed during the winter, and wild bison were culled due to the belief herbivores were overgrazing the landscape. In 1968, the culling stopped and the wild population is now in the thousands. They are visible in ones and twos in random places, and in large herds on the open grasslands. I drove a couple of hours from West Yellowstone to the Lamar Valley to see herds – just a small flavour of what was once present across North America.
More recently the culling of herbivores, including deer, started again. Yellowstone has also seen a high profile rewilding attempt with the reintroduction of wolves to suppress deer and enable natural regeneration of trees in open spaces and riverbanks. I didn’t look for wolves lurking around the edges of the grazing areas, or come across mountain lions. I did see bighorn sheep and deer.
Yellowstone also has notable geological features, especially hot springs including Old Faithful which erupts every 90 minutes or so. As I was driving around, I caught sight of other plumes of steam rising through the trees.
Finally here is the Petrified Tree, a 50 million year old redwood tree. A hike starts nearby up to a forest of more petrified trees. The last two photos show the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River and the Lamar River.
After Yellowstone I explored some of Montana, including the Madison River valley, and returned to the UK via the airport in Bozeman. Outside the hotel, first thing in the morning, I used up my can of bear spray to get more practice, in case I have a chance to come back.