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.
