BISON OR BUFFALO - DEPENDING ON WHAT YOU WANT TO CALL THEM

      Yellowstone is well known for its Buffalo herds. At times they can be massive, however on this trip the largest herd I saw was about 30. Background information

• Can weigh up to 2,000 lbs
• Can be the size of a small car a.k.a similar size to my Honda fit
• Can run over 30 miles per hour
• Injure more people than bears almost every year

     Enough with the background information, for those that don’t know this is my second trip to Yellowstone National Park. The first trip I was between 4 – 7 (I don’t remember the exact year), but I don’t remember a lot. But what I do remember are the huge herds of buffalo and the traffic jams they create. In Yellowstone there are really two things that create traffic jams (three if you count the road construction on the one section). The first is a rarer animal siteing such as a bear or wolf. The second and perhaps more common traffic issue is a buffalo in the middle of the road.

     I was in the park all of 10 mins before I encountered my first buffalo traffic jam.

     This was the first of many buffalo traffic jams. My personal favorite was the one where the buffalo was just standing in the middle of the road. He had this air about him than said I am standing in the middle of the road causing problems because I can and there is nothing you can do about it. Another favorite was the buffalo that would walk down the road in the opposite direction of traffic. These were always funny. It is instances like this that kind of make me wish I was a buffalo so I could spend my life disrupting traffic in every way imaginable. If I was a buffalo, I would try to arrange buffalo at 30 yard intervals in the road to create an obstacle course.

      After you have been in the park for over an hour, you have probably seen more than 50 buffalo. After about the second herd of adult buffalo, it gets boring and the pictures all start to look the same. It got to the point where I would say “Oh look more buffalo” and just keep driving. After visiting Mammoth Hot Springs, I decided to drive out to Roosevelt and Tower Falls. As I was driving out there, I kept seen herds of buffalo. I didn’t take any note of these herds until I noticed one herd had about 15 baby buffalo with it. That got my attention, and I was suddenly re-interested in buffalo. I pulled off the side of the road and am about 100 yards away from the buffalo and the babies (calves if you want to get technical). As I am getting the camera out of the car and changing lenses, what I assumed was the bull buffalo (this could have be the lead female, because buffalo keep pretty separated herd of male and female unless its breeding season though I didn’t know this at the time) move himself about halfway between me and babies. I was a little nervous about this but I think the buffalo and I came to an understanding, I would stay where I was and take picture and as long as I didn’t come any closer I was fine.

For more buffalo pictures please click here

Day 5 – Grand Teton National Park

     Today was my first day in Grand Teton National Park. My day started later than I planned, due to my sleeping though my alarm. Thankfully, I didn’t sleeping though the whole day, I only slept until 9:00 a.m. I got the park and my first stop was the visitor center to see how the road conditions were. I asked one of the rangers about a good 6 to 8 hour hike that I could get to in my without four wheel drive and snow tires. He suggested the Jenny Lake Loop to Hidden Falls. He told me the roads that were open were snow free, so I would be good on that concern.
     I drove out to Jenny Lake and immediately encountered snow on the hiking path. I have never experienced hiking in snow and needless to say I was underprepared for the difficulties in hiking in snow and 7,000 feet. At certain points I was knee deep in snow.

     I made it about half way to Hidden Falls when I slipped on a snowy embankment and twisted my ankle. At that point I decided it was safest if I turned about and head back to my car. The close I got to the car the more my ankle hurt and it got the point I was just saying to myself “one more step and I am one step closer to being done.” At one of my rest stops, I heard this twig snap and looked up and there was an adult moose. The moose just looked at me like I was crazy and continued to eat his twigs.

     From Jenny Lake, I drove further into the park. The next stop was a overlook on the other side of Jenny Lake. At this overlook, I met an older gentleman, who was looking for someone to go snowshoeing with. My ankle was feeling better so I went with him about a mile. 

     Yesterday, this gentleman had found three wolves feeding on a kill further into the park. I followed him out to this spot and we started watching. The first thing I noticed was a heard of elk near the spot he had seen the wolves. As I was watching the elk, they took off running and I noticed a gray wolf bounding behind them. The wolf didn’t catch an elk, but it was still cool to see. The wolves then spent over an hour feeding on the same kill as yesterday.

     After the wolves, I spent the next two hours exploring the park and just viewing the sights. I will try to post pictures soon. But I have to go through 442 pictures. 

Animal Count:

• Moose – 3
• Elk – to many to count over 100
• Otter – 2
• Wolf – 1 (A ranger confimed this was a wolf, it was wearing a radio collar)
• Muskrat – 1
• Coyote – 2 (I am not entirely sure they were not wolves but coyotes are more common)
• Bison – 15
• Many types of birds