Monday, May 21, 2012

Paging Dr. Grant, and Channeling John Wayne


In the early and mid-1800’s, people like Jim Bridger were exploring an area in what is now southern Montana and northern Wyoming.  The stories that Bridger and other explorers and trappers were telling about what they saw in of that part of the west were considered so fantastic as to be unbelievable.  It wasn’t until the  early 1870's when a group of trusted men authorized by the army commander in the west, Phil Sheridan (of Civil War fame), and nominally led by a General Washburn with an army security detail completed a survey into that region did people begin to understand that the amazing stories and fables coming out of this region were actually true.  That region was eventually turned into our nation’s first national park by President Ulysses Grant in 1872.  It is Yellowstone.

Ian and I are back from our trip to Yellowstone.   We’ve had a busy week.  We’ve had some adventures.  Ian is already plotting how we can go back.  I’m a willing accomplice to his plotting.  We had a wonderful and exhausting father and son week.  You see, the world of Yellowstone moves in a different way and with different rhythms.  You are busy when you are there, but you cannot live on a schedule.  There really are no appointments or places on the map you have to be.  Flying around from point to point there is just silly.  It took me my first trip to Yellowstone to realize this.  Instead, you just keep your eyes open, and things will happen.  The human world simply does not control this place.  On our first day, for instance, we came around a bend to find a red fox sitting in the sagebrush about 20 yards or so from us.  We stopped and watched, only to realize it was hunting.  Over the next 20 minutes it patiently stalked something and made the kill.  Its dinner was a ground squirrel.  It carried it back right past us on its way to its den. While it may sound gross to some, it was fascinating, and something that most people never really ever see – a predator doing what it does to survive in the wild.  Ian rated this as his number 2 most interesting sight during the trip.  Yet there were a number of cars that passed by on the road, hurrying from one place to the next in the park, not realizing the little drama being enacted right there.

One day we explored the virtue of patience.  On our way to Old Faithful (about 50 miles from where we were staying) we were caught in the mother of all bison jams.  Did you know that a bison herd travels at about 2 miles an hour?  We calculated this during the 4 miles we moved during 2 hours behind a herd of about 70 bison.  We also saw a van that tried to drive through the herd get head butted and dented.  You see, when you irritate a bison, their first response is to head butt something.  We decided that patience truly was a virtue.  We did eventually make it to Old Faithful, but again, learned that in the real world, manmade schedules do not apply.

We also watched, from a safe distance, a momma grizzly and her 2 cubs taking a nap on a hillside.  This may not sound like much, but both of us came to the conclusion that she made our Florida black bears look like house pets.  There is a whole order of difference between black bears and grizzly bears, and one that put new meaning into the concept of respect.  A ranger nearby told us she was one of the larger grizzlies in the park, easily pushing 600 or 650 pounds. We did keep in mind the warning my wife had continued to give both of us each day by text to ‘not become grizzly poo’.

Ian’s favorite sighting was mine as well.  It was the wolves.  We had seen wolves each day, but often at great distance.  Our last day we came around a bend in the road to see what is called a nursery herd of bison – it was mommas and newborn bison.  Not unusual this time of year.  But what was unusual was about 30 yards off the road were two wolves, scoping out the herd.  One black wolf and one grey wolf.  They were beautiful.  We stopped and watched. The wolves paid us no mind, but after scoping out the bison for about 20 minutes, decided that they were just too much trouble.  They then crossed the road in front of us, climbed the hill, and lay at the top of it, keeping their eyes on the herd. 

I cannot express the incredible feeling I get from seeing wolves.  I think Ian feels it too.  It is what my wife calls one of those ‘nearer my God to thee’ moments.  It is a feeling that everyone should have at some point. You can liken it, in some ways, to that moment in the movie “Jurassic Park”, when Dr. Grant has just seen the living brontosaurus for the first time, has to sit down, and when he looks up, sees all the different kinds of dinosaur herds moving across the valley in front of him.  It is that feeling of intense wonder that you cannot explain to someone who has not felt it for him or herself.  I do think that Ian gets that feeling, too.  And I am happy for it.  Everyone should experience that in their lives.

Now, about the channeling of John Wayne – what am I talking about?  Well, one thing that Ian and I did do was to take an all-day horseback trip up along the northern border to Yellowstone.  We were in the high backcountry of the Gallatin National Forest.  Just Ian, myself, and a guide and the horses for about 10 hours up into the mountains.  I’m guessing we got about 15 miles or so up into the mountains where there really weren’t any roads, and we saw no other people.  One of our instructions from our guide was if anything happened to him, to turn the horses west, move downhill, and we would eventually hit a trailhead or a ranch.  Under no circumstances were we to go east or south, as it might be 300 miles before we hit any kind of human habitation.  So how does John Wayne play into this?  Well, for this son of mine with cerebral palsy, once he got on his horse, it was like he had been born on a horse.  All those extraneous movements disappeared, and it was like he was home again.  Ian always has been a good rider, but I did not realize how good until we were going up a pathway on the side of a ridge (we were following tracks from a mountain lion, hoping to get a look – never did see him, though), and I see Ian leaning over the side of the horse scanning for more paw prints while keeping the horse on the path and moving between rocks and pine trees on a 20 degree incline.  The Duke would have been proud.  I know I was. 

We had a number of more adventures.  We won’t discuss falling out of the raft while whitewater rafting in class 3 and 4 rapids, for instance.  What I will tell you is that we made memories of a father and son adventure that mean so much to me as a father, and I think, mean a great deal to Ian as well.  I guess we did something right, because he has already started plotting how to get there again soon.   That is important to me, because as I get older, more and more I come to see that life really isn’t about schedules or money or who is winning, but it is about having those adventures, and those memories together.  In the long run, they mean far more and are a more important currency in life than pretty much anything else.

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