A DAY IN THE NOT SO WILD

[iandsmith]

From another of my voluminous email:-
Full of anticipation we boarded the bus. We hadn’t gone but a kilometre or two down the road when we saw some elk and then more elk right beside a carpark.
Further on we got to see some bison and everyone got excited. By the end of the day, we’d seen so many bison you could hardly be bothered looking out the window. We’d seen them on the road right beside our bus holding up traffic, we’d seen them in a postcard scene with snow-capped mountains in the background and we saw them wandering around the geysers.
However the coup d’etat was when we saw a bear. I’d been saying in my best southern accent, “Ah cum tuh see a bayer” for days and now the Texans on the bus were bouncing back, “Thars your bayer”. It was a grizzly and it was ripping into some plant root in the middle of a roadside paddock, eagerly watched and photographed by about 2 hundred tourists who couldn’t get enough of it. The rangers have a name for it, it’s called a bear jam and they have to come and direct traffic otherwise people get hit by oncoming traffic.
It seems everywhere you go in this park there’s either a steaming pond, rushing water, snow capped mountains or wildlife. It’s easy to see why folks want to come here. Our accommodation is set right by Yellowstone Lake with about 2 feet of snow still sitting beneath the trees and ice on the lake. It is summer after all.
We’re actually at just under 8,000 feet here and sometimes when you’re walking a bit briskly you get out of breath.
At Old Faithful we joined the crowd of a couple of thousand (they get 6,000 on busy days) but we both agreed that the colours and general spectacle of the myriad numbers of other bubbling pools was more of a highlight than the famous gusher.
Rosemarie’s cold has now passed but her back continues to play up. She’s either in agony or it’s tolerable but she’s soldiering on.
So far I don’t seem to have alienated anyone and some people have actually come up and started talking to me; also I’ve actually been asked for some copies of my pics. Head swell, head swell.

[Mickeymoo]

Nice work Ian looks like a great trip!

[bushwalker zane]

Bison doing a poo... Nioooce.