And Wake-up Where?

Silence is a great way to spend time while driving. If the radio is quiet and the CD player is quiet then the mind gets quiet. These times have allowed me to reflect on the people I have met, the places I have seen and wonders of God’s hand in the all of everything. And although the radio is almost always silent I do turn on the CD player at times. I have carefully chosen music for this trip to allow for different driving conditions and my moods. As an example, I won’t play Creedance Clearwater Revival when the traffic is heavy, rather I might put on George Winston,s Winter Into Spring. But then there are times, I want to hear Nina Simone belt out Sinner Man and many of her blues pieces: and I do play it loud! I have also listened to several episodes of The Fat Man and The Green Hornet, old time radio programs from the Forties. Two days ago I finished, in audio book form, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding. It is an incredible book that I have read twice and now listened to twice.

I have started Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men in audio book, which is being read by Gary Snise. This too I have read twice, seen two versions of the movie and now will hear in audio book form. This is what I do while driving.

I have often thought about listing in a post the music I am listening to for this trip and so at the end of the post there will be an opportunity to click a link to continue reading. If you do, you will find my compiled listening list. There is one mixed CD I created from mostly free music. The majority of songs on that CD are either from Noise Trade, or Amazon’s version of iTunes. I have found many gems from these two sources. So, you may not have heard of some of the artist on this mixed CD but I would recommend you search them out. Continue reading What do I do while driving between places?

Yesterday, on my drive to Yellowstone, I passed a herd of Prong horned Antelopes grazing near the side of the road. I zipped by them so fast; the speed limit was 75mph (yee haw!) I almost missed them. At 75 mph you don’t stop on a dime, so to get a good look at them I had to turn around and drive back a distance. When I and others were doing our zipping by they paid no attention to us, but when I pulled up slowly along side, all heads were up, the grass quickly forgotten. With camera ready I got out of the car and took a couple of quick shots, they turned to run in one direction but stopped as if they realized it might be the wrong direction: it looked fine to me. But I did notice that where they were headed was a buck I hadn’t noticed at first. They then all turned an ran the opposite direction, buck included. It was cool to see some very wild prong horned antelope instead of the almost tame ones in the Grand Canyon area.

My first day in Yellowstone was mostly driving from West Yellowstone down to Old Faithful. This took almost all day, since I filled it with many stops and hikes to various geysers and hot springs. There’s not a lot to tell except during one of my further forays along the Firehole River I came across an angler who was intently trying to land a trout. He succeeded and he graciously allowed me to take a picture of him with the trout. His name is Jeremy Fuller and lives somewhere in New Hampshire. He never heard of the Groens, sorry. Jeremy is a science teacher at the High School level and was here in Yellowstone taking classes for his masters. What a hard place to take classes huh?

The rest of my trip was to slowly find myself near Old Faithful when she blows. I discovered that this geyser is named wrong. It should be called Old Tease for many times after the predicted time to erupt it would spit water three or four feet in the air, you could hear the excitement rise, and then nothing but steam for many, many minutes. Old Faithful didn’t erupt until 15 minutes after the predicted time. Yes, I know they say it can erupt 10 minutes either side of the predicted time, but this was longer. When Old Tease finally stopped teasing it was cool and lasted for over two minutes. I’m glad I saw it, but I have to say my favorite of the day was the Grand Prismatic hot spring. And thanks Tom for the heads up to find the hill on the other side. What a perspective!

The photos of the Grand Prismatic, you’ll see why it’s called that when you see the photos, where you can see it in all its multi-colored glory were from where Tom Wenger, a camera club friend, had told me to go. There were few who found that perspective and I am grateful.

To quote Ruth Graham Bell (a poem she wrote) “I am sitting by my laughing fire” writing this post. I hope you enjoy it and the accompanying photos.

This day ended up being a stormy day. No sooner than I arrived at the Many Glaciers portion of the park it started storming, with lots of lightning and rain. It forced me to wait in the car for almost two hours before the storm passed. Not a lot to say but here are a few pictures from that day.

Just in case you didn’t know, I had a photo accepted to the State museum’s Art of the state exhibition. It went on display June 19th and you can see it on at the State Museum on Third St in Harrisburg. Just an fyi. Nope no pic, you’ll have to see it in person. Not just mine but also works from 132 other artist from the state of PA.

Finally I was able to camp in the backcountry. My first choice for an overnight hike and camp was called Lincoln Lake. Because permits are required for all backcountry overnight hikes I went to the permit office right before hiking out to Avalanche Lake. The ranger, a young girl which I suspect was living her first year as a ranger, advised in a mater-of-fact monotone that Lincoln Lake was not open for camping because it was “In thaw.”  She was not a conversationalist in any way and answered my queried look with “It means it’s in thaw.” I guess that means it’s thawing out but it took another ranger to explain that because the area is thawing out they consider the local vegetation to be at its most delicate so they don’t want campers tramping around. I don’t get it since day hiking to Lincoln Lake was allowed. Anyway, this girl ranger (it’s just an identifier) kept suggesting hikes that were further west in the park and I was looking further east so I could see some snow. When I suggested Snyder Lake, she said “It’s in winter.” I asked if that meant I couldn’t camp there. Her response was “No, but it’s in winter.” The same second ranger, who was helping others better than my girl ranger was helping me, said “That means there’s lots of snow there.” I said “Great, can I have a permit for Snyder Lake? She looked at me and just started to take my name address and other information for the permit.

Once the permit was printed I got this lecture about how hiking and camping alone in bear country is not recommended by the Park service. And how I should have pepper Spray on me at all times. It was $50. So I asked if it was required. “No” is all I got and she handed me my permit. Then she said, you have to have a Bear Canister.” Those I found out are free but the permit was $5. She said I needed a Poo Pack, which if you’re wondering is to carry out my poo, should I be so full of it to need it. I asked where  can I get one of those. She handed me one and then also gave me a plastic bag to carry out all my trash. It seems that along with the bear canister, the poo pack and trash bag are free. I left wondering what I had done to this girl ranger (what else do I call her)  to cause her to act so abrupt with me. I didn’t shave that day perhaps that was the reason.

After securing my permit I set out on my hike to Avalanche Lake. That’s where I saw the grizzly bears I mention in my earlier post. The next morning before leaving on my hike I bought the pepper spray. Seeing grizzly bears, even from five hundred yards away can be a great motivator. Perhaps I would have been better off without it— more on that later.

It took me a while to be sure I had all that I needed for my camping experience. I needed some food so, a power bar (apple cinnamon) for lunch, a can of Campbell’s Chunk Beef Vegetable Soup for supper and beef flavored ramen noodles for breakfast. I know that sounds a bit strange for breakfast but I wanted something easy and light. Oh yeah, also cheap. I packed my backpack suspecting I am carrying about forty pounds or so. It was heavy for one night but I had to have my camera gear with me and my tent, sleeping bag and self inflating ground pad aren’t the lightest. I could barely get it on my pack by myself. I must be getting old.

I hit the trail at 9:45am and slogged through the muckiest trail I have ever been on. It was definitely “in thaw” for the first three miles of the 4.4 mile trail. The elevation of the trail is just over 2700 feet over the 4.4 miles but I quickly found out much of it is at the beginning of the trail. When I thought I had travelled close to three miles, I saw a sign that said it was 1.8 miles. That was a cruel moment. This hike was by far the hardest I have ever been on. And although the trail slowed in its ascent over the last third, it was still the hardest part. That’s when the snow began. At first just small patches, but even the patches were two or more feet deep. And often hollow underneath so that about every third step I would posthole through. This became not only hard but a hazard as well. It would be easy to break a leg if you weren’t careful. And I was alone. There were a couple of times that day hikers passed me by but generally it was me, the snow and the mountain lion I was sure was nearby. I forgot to mention I found cat tracks several times on the trail; big cat tracks.

Something the ranger girl (no slur intended) made me do was watch a video all about what to do if you see a bear while hiking. There wasn’t much about mountain lions though except to be on the lookout. I’ve always figured that seeing a mountain lin means it’s too late. But the bear part I had down pat. You are to make lots of noise. In the video they show folks yelling “Hey bear, hey bear.” But that’s a bit boring so here is my making noise chant. Hey bear, you there bear? Do you care bear? Anyone else there? If not does anyone care that I go bare? Repeat ad infinitum and you have the perfect scare bear chant. It must work I didn’t see a single bear over two days. I did hear a chuckle behind me after finishing up one of my chants. It seems a day hiker was not that far behind me.

I chatted briefly with this hiker but never got her name, all I know is that she lives in Phoenix but each summer works at the camp store here in Glacier NP so she can hike the trails on her day off.

Finally, 3:30pm and I have reached the lake. I have been walking in three to five feet of snow for the last thousand yards, punching through as often as not. Guess that’s what a forty pound backpack will do. The lake is small, no more than a couple of acres, but beautiful surrounded by a three hundred degree arc of mountains rising in majesty. The mountains still had a lot of snow clinging to their steep sides, and many ephemeral waterfalls slipping over their ledges. I could count thirty one of these waterfalls that will be gone with the snow. Five times I witnessed some very cool and dramatic snow falls. The first hint of a snow fall taking place was a sound like the wind whispering in the trees, soft at first and then growing louder, but never reaching a roar. The whisper was always followed by a sound like the reports from a gun: four or five of them in quick succession and then you could see the falling of the snow. After the first two, which caught me by surprise, I learned what that whispering was telling me, and since they always occurred on the same slope, I was ready with my camera for the last three. I felt fortunate to be in this place to experience such a sight.

Let’s talk about supper. How hard can soup be right? Not hard at all except when you forget eating utensils. After all my checking and double checking to be sure I had everything necessary, I guess I missed something. But being the ever resourceful, MacGyver type camper, I used my pocket knife with its almost one inch wide blade to eat my food with. It even worked with my Ramen noodles in the morning.

There had been little sun during my hike and even rained during dinner. With four or more feet of snow all around me, and my tent sitting on top of all that snow, a very wet tent I might add. It had rained the two days before and I had last packed my tent in a light drizzle but at least my sleeping bag was dry.. But with hand warmers between my two pairs of socks and my self inflating ground pad to keep me off the snow I slept slightly warmer than chilled. It was enough.

My trip down was almost uneventful, except for the post holing where the was snow, oh, and that can of expensive pepper spray. To explain then pepper spray I need to mention there was a large tree across the trail about a third of the way down. There was no way around the tree so it mean taking off my backpack wedging it into a couple of branches, fumbling over the tree. It was an evergreen close to three feet in diameter and thick with branches. I had my camera around my neck but it kept catching on the branches, so it too came off and was set amongst the branches. Once safely off, and shaken down to get rid of all the needles clinging to me, I put on my pack and off I went. A mile down the trail I saw a stream that I thought was picturesque. Hmm, now where’s that camera? Oh no!

Leaving my pack by the stream I hiked up a mile to get my camera. I was not 10 feet from the tree when I slipped and felt like I was going down hard on my face. I tried to twist so my backside would hit first. I haven’t mentioned that pepper spay fortunately has a safety clip so it won’t go off unnecessarily, but what good is having that on when your in bear country. I couldn’t trust myself to have the presence of mind, in the company of a bear, to remember to take it off before trying to use it: I might only get one chance. So with my pepper spray safety off fully, prepared to do harm to any bear that would harm me, I fell. While trying to protect my face and twisting to turn a less vulnerable part of me to the ground I turned just enough to land on my side; the side with the pepper spray. It went off right into my face. Fortunately my glasses prevent a direct hit to the eyes, but nose and mouth were fair game. I was seized with a fit of sneezing and coughing like I have never had. And my eyes were watering so badly that I couldn’t see clearly for some time. It might have been a half hour before I could recover my camera. I didn’t fully recover from the sneezing until after the hike was over; the coughing and watery eyes fortunately passed more quickly.

But I did the hike and I did it, alone in bear country, against the advice of ranger girl (ok, this time I’m being a bit snide), without eating utensils and it was a glorious! Something special to remember.

I could write more about the trail, the snow, and the mountains but the pictures will tell that story.