So when we got a text from our old friend John Schaefer inviting us to camp with him and his wife Cathy in Yellowstone last weekend, we could not dismiss it out of hand. In fact, we couldn't see why we shouldn't go--so we did. Cashed a few frequent flier miles for round trip tickets to Jackson, rented a cheap car, and experienced Yellowstone at its peak tourism season. This is surprisingly tolerable, even transcendent, if you know what you are doing. John and Cathy have been doing this for a long time, and we joined them when we could, the last time being in October of some year like 2006 or 2007. We'd always waited till the "tourists" had gone home.
The park itself has changed in the years since, mostly as a result of forest succession since the horrific fires of 1988. I'd never seen the park until some years after those fires, so my entire experience amounts to watching the new growth take over, along with concomitant changes. Some things haven't changed, like gaper's block for elk or buffalo, but others have changed a lot. Full disclosure here: I'm not primarily moved by the geysers, hot springs, boiling pots of toxic chemicals, and so forth, that Yellowstone is famous for. They are amazing to witness, but to me they seem every bit as scary as industrial disasters left by humans as a by-product of coal, steel or uranium production, say. But they're thought-provoking in the sense that they can allow ourselves to see our own massive toxic contributions to the planet as part of a continuum that existed long before we did. Maybe that's not helpful.
The biology is fascinating to me, though. On our earliest trips to the park, the scorched earth and dead trees dominated the visual landscape, but the enthusiastic growth of the next generation (knee- to shoulder-high at the time) was impossible to miss, and the large mammals were much easier to spot at a distance. Now, 30 years later, many (millions?) of the dead trees remain standing, many still taller than the new growth in spite of having lost tops and middles over the years. The young trees in many places are propping up their dead ancestors. It's easy to see how some slopes and basins support much faster, denser growth than others, and how the character of others has changed completely.
We saw monumental traffic snarls caused by just a few elk grazing on the banks of the Madison River, and were caught in some animal-caused jam for a half hour, the specific cause of which we never did identify (let's assume it was a grizzly bear to make it seem almost worthwhile). An old bison bull wandered through the campground on his way back and forth to the river, but even bison sightings were (for us, at least) down from previous visits. This maybe is typical of Summer, with so many more people jamming the roads, but it's also true that the hiding places have improved a lot in thirty years.
The last time I visited, brook trout were abundant and aggressive in small upcountry streams. Willy and I could race to any miniscule pool, put any fly down anywhere with any level of grace, and have 7-inch fish landed (and returned) in less than a minute--then on to the next pool. It was a sweet experience (for the humans at least), especially with a kid--and brook trout are beautiful fish--but they really are (were?) an invasive species for Yellowstone, or anywhere out West.
John and I revisited one of those streams this time and found that the brookies were gone. With only a little more care and time, we found ourselves similarly entertained by native Yellowstone cutthroat trout. Those are the fish that brook trout replaced, out-competed, and not infrequently ate. This must represent a big commitment by NPS. We are required to return a cutthroat, and encouraged to keep (= kill) brookies, rainbows, and browns (none of which are native). Apparently the campaign is working, at least in the upper Gibbon River. I hope the cutts can learn to eat more mosquitoes--a major untapped food resource in the area. Here's John's first fish caught with a Tenkara rod.
No comments:
Post a Comment