Bears wolves & other gezzers

Another taste of Jackson mountainbiking, Max, Otie & I biked from the top of the Teton pass on a 7km singletrack down Black Canyon spending 2000 vertical feet down thru fir & aspen trees and across grassy meadows (7.5 0n the LX scale) which was very enjoyable. The next day we headed north, camped the night in the Teton park and got up early driving into Yellowstone at 7-30. This park is the most popular national park in the States & this summer is its biggest year ever with 2 million visitors since this spring. There is real pressure on the campgrounds & to get a site at one of the 5 "first come first served " camps you need to be early. There are also camps run by the cocessionaire & we got 2 nights at Grant, a reservable camp by being there by 8am.The park is big, approx 1 million hectares with a road network of 2 connected circles like a figure 8. It was the worlds first national park created in 1872. It is on a plateau at 2000 meters

high & lies on an active geothermic area and boasts half the worlds active geysers. Huge eruptions occured here 1.3 million and 640,000 years ago and the central portion of the park lies in a huge caldera 30 by 45 miles in diameter. The heat powering those eruptions still powers the geysers, hot springs, fumaroles (steam vents) and mudpools. Bit like Rotorua really.We spent the first day jostling the crowds at the main geyser area being treated to wonderfull geyser displays. Old Faithfull belts out steam every 90 minutes to huge crowds.

We saw the Beehive geyser do a 50 meter high display which was lucky cos it only erupts once a day.

The reason they erupt is that ground water seeps into the thermal areas, boil into super hot steam untill enough pressure is built up for the steam to be ejected through all other water up the geyser opening.

We waited 1 and half hours under a hot sun, napping on the boardwalk at the big guy, the Grand geyser and were rewarded with a fantastic 10 minute display.

During our long wait we were etertained by a marmot & a golden mantle squirrel.

Then we walked thru the basin checking out the colourfull hot springs, vents and dormant geysers. The colours in the hot springs are caused by microorganisisms & bacteria which are symbiotic, the hottest being blue, then green, orange and brown. So the colours show where the hottest water is. We had a look thru the Old Faithful Inn a beautifull historical lodge built with 10,000 logs.

We checked a couple of other areas which were all different to each other including the Grand Prismatic Spring where the wind wafted big cushions of hot steam onto us which felt great as the day had cooled off. Then back to our camp seeing lots of elk just by our camp. The animals are not afraid of people and wander on the roads without being spooked. These are big animals and their Indian name is Wapiti.

That night we went to talks at the ranger station on wolves (a kids talk) and then on grizzlys. There is alot of advice & instructions given on bears because there was a fatal grizzly attack on a camper in his tent near Yellowstone a couple of weeks ago and 10 days earlier a male grizzly had been in the Grant campground.

The next day we headed towards the grand canyon of theYellowstone river. On the way we travelled thru a large herd of bison and were very close to them on a walk around a thermal area, as the males snorted and rolled around taking dust baths.

Down the road there were alot of cars stopped & we got out and saw a grizzly sow & 3 cubs in the sage away in the distance across the valley, too far to really see much.

The canyon area was unexpectedly pretty, a deep rugged gorge with a 100 meter waterfall and a rainbow of colours on the gorge walls as the river had incised down through layers of thermally active ground leaving mineralized stains. We walked to Artists Point, hiked the south rim trail, walked down to the upper falls (a bigger version of Huka) & then Max & I hiked down to the top of the larger lower falls.

Whitewater kayaking is illegal in this park which is a pity because the Yellowstone is a stunning looking river. We then drove back to Grant via Norris & Grant thus completing the lower road circuit getting back to the big elk herd & our camp at dark.

One feature of our travels has been the hordes of middle-aged Harley Davidson riders on the roads as they have been congregating at the 70th Harley rally at Sturgis South Dakota running over a 2 week period.

The average age of these "rebels with a cause (mortgage)" would be 50 and they will be keeping the leather garment industry very bouyant. They say there are 300,000 riders making this motorised Hadj this year.

Up early and off to get our next camp further north. A treat again to see the bison herd early in the cool morning with steam rising off their shaggy coats. A little further on a number of cars were parked with people looking thru telescopes.

We stopped & asked the nearest guy what was going on. We jackpotted because the guy was a zoologist employed by the park monitoring wolves. So we got the full run down on the canyon pack, 2 adult males, 1 female & 3 cubs & watched them thru the telescope. Absolutely fantastic and beautifull creatures.

The wolves were reintroduced into Wyoming, Idaho & Montana from Canada 20 years ago (with a release of about 45 animals I think) & the present population is in excess of 1300 in those areas with 7 packs in Yellowstone. They are killing some stock in Montana & there is a hot debate there whether there should be a cull, which would be terrible if it were allowed.

I think there is a much greater value in having wolves than the loss of a few dozen sheep. Tourists love seeing them & it restores a degree of ecolgical balance to the wilderness.

We travelled on & up thru a mountainous area where we came accross another traffic jam & another jackpot. A mother grizzly & 2 cubs about 100 meters away moving up the hill scratching in the ground for roots & unfazed by the hundreds of onlookers.

Awesome to watch these majestic beasts, all from the comfort of our van. The kids got up on the roof to watch, safari style. Although our wildlife encounters had slowed us down and it was later in the morning we eventually drove into the small camping area at Tower & talked to a very nice Lithuanian couple who were packing up & they handed their campsite to us.

Easy. After a period of schoolwork we went up to the Mammoth thermal area at the north end of the park, seeing 2 coyotes crossing the road on the way. The park HQ is here & the army managed the park in the ealy days building stone administrative buildings with big green lawns. Well the local elk herd soon learned that green grass was easy pickings compared to dry coarse scrub & they roamed all over the admin area looking well fed & contented.

Park rangers were scurrying everywhere with flashing lights & road cones keeping cars & people back from the animals. We then completed the top loop road back to our camp arriving back at dark just as the bats were flying around.

Another early start. Mary & I are in the tent which we pack up while the kids stay sleeping in the van. We drove out the Lamar valley the only part of the park we hadn't visited. Along that that road we came across another crowd of people looking thru telescopes & this time knew what they were looking at.

We quickly & politely made the acquaintance of the nearest group & weretreated to views of the Lamar wolf pack about 1 km away. This pack also had 3 cubs but was not as active as the pack we saw the day before. We continued down the valley seeing lots of buffallo & 2 bald eagles. We turned around disappointed we hadn't seen pronghorn antelope or black bear in Yellowstone.

I was showing the kids a picture of a pronghorn from the park brochure, when I looked out the window & there one was. Great.

A pretty animal which I had

never heard of before this trip and apparently one of the fastest running animals on earth.

We accidently went on a 6 mile one way side road which bought us back on the main road we had already driven down. A short distance down the road there was a group of stopped cars watching a black bear right by the road feeding on flowers & then breaking open a rotten log to get at insects. Another wonderfull show of nature by a beautifull animal oblivious to the crowd watching.

That show completed out Yellowstone visit nicely & we exited the park & headed up to Bozeman Montana for a motel with clean beds, showers and laundrymat.

Walking through postcards

When quizzing Mick about day hikes in the nearby Teton National Park, he told us about the Teton Crest trail trip he had done with Pam & Liam, when Liam was 8 and showed us photos of that trip. We got keen to also do that trail, partly because the trail started at the top of the Teton ski field and there was a cable car to the top. The trail traversed behind the Teton range through the headwaters of the 4 canyons which drain the range, staying above 8500 feet. Mick & Pam lent us backpacks & we headed to the Park to organise backcountry permits & pickup bear proof food boxes. So the next day we were off, alighted the cable car & were wisked 1000 meters to the top of the Teton range and past an amazing looking skifield which would look awesome in winter. We headed over the back leaving all the day trippers behind and into the

head of Granite canyon. 3 hours later after

waking through alpine forests of aspen & lodgepole pine, across grassy meadows with wildflowers, we made camp in our permitted area.

Lotte was tired in the last hour so Mary & I shared her pack. After dinner we stashed our bear proof food boxes & hung our surplus food in a pack up a tree well away fom our tent because we were learning to be "bear aware". The next day we headed up and out of Granite canyon. The higher we went the better the wildflower's colour show became untill we were walking through a carpet of red, yellow, purple & blue flowers with the occasional humming bird flying past.

The second day was a long one but the scenery just got better & better as we got closer to the big peaks of the Teton range. It was hot and water was short, however we eventually found a spring and could quench our thirsts. It was a very senic 6 km walk along the Death canyon shelf and then up and over a low pass into Alaska basin. On the pass we encountered marmots & pika for the first time. Then into the basin to camp after walking 16 km for the day. Our camp was in a tight grove of trees which gave us protection from wind & lightning.

In In the morning we were entertained by our resident hoary marmot and neighbouring yellow bellied marmot, both of which came up close if you sat still. Very cute little critters the size of a possum with short legs & bushy tails.

There always seemed to be a marmot nearby on lookout duty, giving a shrill whistle if danger lurked. We spent the morning in Alaska basin and found a pika colony. These are little rodents which are related to rabbits who live at a band of altitude. They don't hibernate in winter and spend the short summer harvesting grasses & flowers and making a big pile of hay beside their rocky den to sustain them during the winter.

Back on the trail and up out of the basin to Sunset lake for a swim & lunch. The weather started to change & we hurried up the mountain to Hurricane Pass managing to just stay in front of the weather. I was very aware of the warnings not to be on the top of mountains & ridges during lightning storms, and Hurricane pass was 10400 feet high and exposed. The wind got stronger, it started raining & the thunder & lightning was getting closer. On top of the pass the kids all held hands and ran across the top as fast as possible. It was interesting that both Mary & I no longer noticed the weight of our packs when the pressure was on and we needed to move quickly. Otie (aka the "exploding orange") was wearing a cheap orange plastic poncho which got shredded in the wind. We managed to get onto the other side & out of danger, or so we thought.

Our next challenge was on a steep snow bank on the headwall of Cascade canyon, which after some anxious moments we traversed down into the canyon as the wind got stronger. Mary & I hung onto Lotte & Otie while Max was pathfinder at the front. We were soon back in the treeline and in shelter.

The storm stopped as quickly as it began and we were soon drying out in the sun heading down the canyon & into an idyllic campsite with another resident marmot.

The last day was a hike 8 miles down Cascade canyon with light packs walking underneath the Grand Teton and back into the daytripper zone about 4 miles from the end.

At the end we got a boat across Jenny lake to the van which had been shuttled there by our mate Kevin who had been on the Salmon with us. Back to Mick & Pams for great showers & comfy beds again.

It was a fantastic experience with awesome scenery & wildlife. The Park Service does a really good job & they regulate the number of hiking permits so there were not alot of hikers out the back. We had no trouble getting permits however so I don't think that many people do the multi-day hiking.

On the drive back to Jackson we detoured though the Kelly area and saw 2 herds of bison. It was a thrill to see these animals which had once roamed the American plains in their millions and had sustained the plains Indians for thousands of years. They are primal looking beasts and little different from the depictions of their European relatives in the early cave drawings in Spain & France. There are lots of calves and snorting & bolshie behaviour from the adolescent males.

Back roads of Idaho

We travelled through the Boise National Forest in southern Idaho to Stanley, where at the gas station I saw a small brochure on the Yankee Fork gold dredge in a nearby tributary of the Salmon river. We turned off the main highway up a gravel road into the Challis State Forest and were soon in a small valley filled with tailings. Then in front of us I saw a genuine huge gold dredge looking just like the photos I'd seen of the last dredge to operate in Alexandra, long since dismantled.

The dredge was built in 1940 with profits earned by its owner in the construction of the Hoover dam, and it ceased operating in 1953 and has been sitting in its final floating place since then. It is now owned by the US Forest Service as it sits on their land, and is maintained by a team of retired people with either an interest or connection with the dredge and who run tours during the summer months.

It was fantastic to see a line of dredge buckets attched to a dredge boom rather than filled with flowers in Alexandra gardens. The dredge is 112 feet long, 54 feet wide, 65 feet high weighing 988 tons, covered in corregated iron and powered by electricity generated by 2 big diesel engines, just as the Alexandra dredge was. The machinery driving the bucket boom and the rotary screen was huge. The dredge was operated 24 hours a day by 3 men per shift. The gold was extracted once a week using mercury and the ingots were sent by ordinary post to the owner out east. I don't know how much gold was won from the claim or why the dredge ceased operating. The guides said there was a design fault in the driving gear for the bucket chain with the driving cog only on one side of the boom and not on both sides which would have evenly spread the load. So there was lot of regular maintainence needed.

We camped in the area near a ghost town in a clearing by the river sharing the site with a hobo called Larry, his American pitbull "Mama" and her 8 puppies. Lotte & Otie played with the puppies while I kept a wary eye on Mama looking for any sign that the true character of her breed might come out.

Larry was great, a 74 year old retired cowboy & constuction labourer drifting through the western states doing seasonal work, picking wild huckleberries, collecting semi-precious stones & harvesting sage to supplement his pension and then wintering over in his wild cabin in Arizona with no electricity or running water.

Larry knew all the free camping spots in these parts and gave us directions to some. He liked our boxed wine.

The next day we headed off up the single lane gravel road to Challis & just around the corner came across a moose grazing in a pond by the road. We had our own private wildlife show because there was no other traffic. Driving through remote wooded valleys and over passes made one realise how big the west is.

We eventually got back on the main road and drove south to Arco which boasts the site of the worlds first atomic reactor. While parked for a loo stop, a bolt of lightning hit the ground about 100 meters away with a simultaneous thunder clap which shook the van giving us all a fright.

We overnighted at the nearby Mountains of the Moon National Park with its eerie lava landscape where we explored lava cones, beds and caves.

The North America continent is moving westward and this area was formed by the geological hotspot which currently lies beneath Yellowstone. The next day we drove back to Jackson Hole to enjoy comfortable beds at Mick & Pam Hopkinsons, and we got in some mountain biking and kayaking on the Snake river.

Running the Salmon

The calendar was ticking and we made a 1600 km 26 hour non-stop journey from southern California across the Mojave desert, up thru Utah and into Wyoming to Jackson. We had a couple of very anxious hours in Las Vegas when the van stopped & wouldn't start. It was 46 degrees and we think the fuel evaporated before it got to the cylinders while we were idling waiting for Lotte to have a pitstop at the Sahara casino. The evening cooled to 100 F while we scoffed at the Circus Circus "all you can eat buffet" and the van started straight away enabling

us to resume our travels on the long trek north.

It was sunrise coming up to SaltLake City, as I looked at the signs for towns I had been reading about in "Under the Banner of Heaven". Then thru Park City & on to the wide open spaces of Wyoming all the way to Mick & Pam Hopkinsons home in Jackson, under the lofty peaks of the Teton Range.

By the next morning we had bought & packed for 7 days on the Salmon with a party of 13 all on a permit which Mick had managed to pick up from a cancellation. There are only 8 parties allowed on the river each day during the summer season, the permits for which are balloted by the Forest Service each year. It was a 6 hour drive to the river thru remote eastern Idaho & our luck ran out 120 kms from the town of Salmon which our van conked out in the absolute middle of nowhere, with no traffic.

We were traveling on our own but had 2 bits of luck. One was 1 bar of service on the cellphone which gave a very patchy connection to the AA and the other was that another vehicle on our rafting trip with people we had never met, was behind us. We ended up getting towed part way by our new mates, & then towed by the AA all the way to a garage in Salmon.

The towie & mechanic were both Mormons, they each only had one wife & they really looked after us.

Max & Otis were with me in the towtruck with Bill the 74 year old towie who gave us a full rundown on the ranching, Indian & political background of the local county & some homespun advise to the boys on standard rules of conduct for their lives. We were 4 hours late & left our rafting outfitters to pick up the van once it was repaired & shuttle it the 500kms to the takeout.

We camped at the Salmon river putin in the mountains of the Frank Church Wilderness watching a fire smoldering high up on the otherside of the gorge, ignited from a lightning strike.

Next day we loaded the 3 rafts in our group, had a briefing fom the ranger & headed away under a blue sky down the Gorge of No Return.

One raft was ours with Mary rowing, Lotte supervising & occasionally in an inflatable kayak (IK) and Max, Otie & me in kayaks. Another raft was the Hopkinson boat with Pam rowing, Liam & Mick in kayaks and Liam's friend Tomi also on the raft. The third boat was Kevin & his daughter Hayley with Kathy, an old skiing mate of Pams & Kevins in an IK on her very first river trip.

We had a pretty big first day because we were one of the last groups away and all of the good camp sites had been taken so we travelled further than we planned. But we camped in a great place & with everyone helping got the rafts unloaded & the kitchen set up.

The plan was for each family to provide & cook 2 breakfasts & 2 dinners on the trip, the kids doing all the dishes so the workload was evenly spread leaving lots of time for relaxation & socializing.

Each day followed a similar pattern with Kevin getting up early & making marvelous smelling & tasting coffee, having brekky, packing up & heading away down river about 10. The river was not demanding with only a smattering of grade 3 rapids and with Mick as guide no problems were encountered. It was fantastic to see a whole possee of kids heading down the rapids in a flotilla of kayaks & inflatables. The river was milked of its surfing waves by all the kayakers. The weather was hot meaning ongoing watergun warfare between the rafts & kayaks everyday. Typically we would be on the water for about 4 hours a day, with a long lunchbreak and setting up camp by 4. This included establishing the groover, a toilet seat balanced on an ammunition can in which solid waste was grooved and packed out of the river. We only had one thunderstorm with wind and rain for an hour.

Lotte & I slept under the stars every night. As with the other multi day river trips we have been on, its a great time to spend with the kids, get to know your fellow travellers and commune with nature. Its a bonus to have warm dry weather.

The river goes thru a remote part of Idaho with no road access for 90 miles. It is a very special place as all similar rivers of its size are dammed in this part of the US. I'm not sure how this part of the Salmon escaped that fate. Even though it is in a wilderness area there are some isolated ranches & houses which were "grandfathered in" (already there) when the wilderness status was created. They were old mining houses, struggling farms and hideouts of fugitives from the law. The ranches are serviced by their own jetboats which are also able to run some tourist operations. There was a museum of an old hermit, Buckskin Bill who lived off the land, forged his own guns & had built a fort to keep the government away. Idaho is still a state with much anti-government sentiment apparently with armed militias lurking deep in the mountains.

The scenery is a dry woodland where fire is frequent and part of the natural ecosytem.

The river flows thru a mountainous area with the gorge being deeper than the Grand Canyon, apparently. I was very interested in the wildlife, as was Otie, and we saw lots of bald eagles, kingfishers, chukkas, big horn sheep, mule deer, elk, yellowed bellied marmots, garter snakes and 1 otter. Mick had the only bear sighting.

After 7 days we reached the takeout near Riggins, suntanned and relaxed. To our relief the van was there with only a bill for a replacement coil and running as smooth as silk. We packed up all the gear, off to Riggins for an icecream and then another little burst of excitement down the road on the north fork of the Payette river. We watched 4 self-righting "creature craft" rafts doing the top rapids & the Mick, Max & I did the lower 5 mile stretch of non-stop 150 feet per mile crazy full-on white water. As Mick says the river is really hard on your eyelids as you try to clear the water before crashing into the next wave. It was very demanding & Max did really well. The beer tasted excellent afterwards & we slept deeply in the campsite alongside the Desolation river deep in the Idaho mountains.