National Parks, Yellowstone and Grizzly Bears

The first officially designated National Park in the United Kingdom was the Peak District on 28th December 1951.  The first National Park in the World was Yellowstone in the USA in 1872.

Yellowstone was designated when President Ulysses S Grant signed a new law ordering ‘the tract of land lying near the headwaters of the Yellowstone River to be set apart as a public park’ .  I visited Yellowstone in 1995.

We entered at the picturesque east entrance and drove through an area of coniferous forest badly scarred by the fire damage of 1988, which had burned down a third of Yellowstone’s forests.  After that we climbed the Absoroka Mountains to the Sylvan Pass and then descended swiftly towards Yellowstone and the largest mountain lake in North America.  Stops to admire the views came frequently and the scenery was truly superb.

Next we turned north towards Tower Canyon passing on the way the sulphur cauldron and the mud volcano and stopping for a while at Canyon Village and taking the steep walk to the lookout platform at Inspiration Point for great views of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River, a thousand feet below.  Next we went on to Tower junction and the high falls tumbling spectacularly one hundred and thirty feet into Tower Creek below.  Finally we drove over the Blacktail Deer Plateau and stopped for a longer time at Mammoth Hot Springs.

The park is sensationally beautiful with stately snow capped peaks, lush meadows with herds of grazing bison, rivers and tumbling streams, a magnificent sky blue lake and bounteous wildlife.

And some of this wild life can be dangerous.  As well as the really big things like bison, mousse and elk that might trample you down there is the small matter of wolves and coyotes both of which can give you a nasty nip.  But most dangerous of all of course are the bears and all around the park there are a lot of signs sensibly warning visitors to keep well away from these magnificent but unpredictable predators.

A Grizzly Bear can reach a weight of over six hundred kilograms and stand up to two and a half metres tall when it pulls itself up on its hind legs and it is best not to startle them because this is when they get really pissed off and dangerous.  The Park advice on what to do is clear enough but I can only imagine that it is really useful if you have got Indiana Jones like nerves of steel.  So this is how it goes:

• If you stumble across a bear first you need to back away (This will probably be a bit undignified because by now, due to involuntary bowel movements, you are sure to have shit your pants!)
• and talk to the bear in a calm voice. (Unfortunately there is no additional advice on the sort of things bears like to have a conversation about.  Might I suggest therefore as openers, the price of honey or the story of Goldilocks!)
• Keep backing away and whatever you do do not run (this is sound advice because a full grown bear can reach speeds of thirty five miles an hour and he is sure to outrun you)
• and try in any way to make yourself seem less threatening (being in a state of extreme terror with a backbone turned to jelly this shouldn’t be too difficult).
• In the unfortunate event that the bear does charge, and you are not equipped with a sidearm, (Equipped with a fire arm? For goodness sake I’m on a Travelspere coach holiday!) promptly drop to the ground stomach-first and cover your head and ears with your arms.  In this situation fighting back will almost certainly intensify and prolong the attack.  (This is obvious really because humans are seriously ill equipped to fight grizzly bears and it would be foolish to attempt it. Seriously I expect that this playing dead routine might be a bit difficult to carry through with any degree of absolute confidence and, let’s face it, realistically you are probably going to end up as the three bear’s supper!)

Fortunately bear attacks are rare and although a man was killed by a female protecting her cubs in July 2011 this was the first fatality since 1986.

More on the Yellowstone visit…

and the full journey at National Parks of the United States

Photo Books

I visited the National Parks of the United States of America (not all of them of course) on a coach trip holiday with my parents and brother Richard in 1995.  Mum and Dad liked to travel and generously invited us to accompany them on a Travelsphere coach trip holiday to the mid-west mountain states of the USA on a journey that would start more or less at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and finish at the Grand Canyon in Colorado. That is the sort of invitation that his hard to turn down so we explained things to our families, packed our cowboy gear and our denims, changed some sterling for dollars and set off in search of the old Wild West.

In 2010 I discovered BLURB, abandoned traditional photograph albums and published an account of the journey!

Read the full story…

A Life in a Year – 28th December, National Parks, Yellowstone and Grizzly Bears

The first officially designated National Park in the United Kingdom was the Peak District on 28th December 1951.  The first National Park in the World was Yellowstone in the USA in 1872.

Yellowstone was designated when President Ulysses S Grant signed a new law ordering ‘the tract of land lying near the headwaters of the Yellowstone River to be set apart as a public park’ .  I visited Yellowstone in 1995.

We entered at the picturesque east entrance and drove through an area of coniferous forest badly scarred by the fire damage of 1988, which had burned down a third of Yellowstone’s forests.  After that we climbed the Absoroka Mountains to the Sylvan Pass and then descended swiftly towards Yellowstone and the largest mountain lake in North America.  Stops to admire the views came frequently and the scenery was truly superb.  Next we turned north towards Tower Canyon passing on the way the sulphur cauldron and the mud volcano and stopping for a while at Canyon Village and taking the steep walk to the lookout point at Inspiration Point for great views of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River, a thousand feet below.  Next we went on to Tower junction and the high falls tumbling spectacularly one hundred and thirty feet into Tower Creek below.  Finally we drove over the Blacktail Deer Plateau and stopped for a longer time at Mammoth Hot Springs.

The park is sensationally beautiful with stately snow capped peaks, lush meadows with herds of grazing bison, rivers and tumbling streams, a magnificent sky blue lake and bounteous wildlife.

And some of this wild life can be dangerous.  As well as the really big things like bison, mousse and elk that might trample you down there is the small matter of wolves and coyotes both of which can give you a nasty nip.  But most dangerous of all of course are the bears and all around the park there are a lot of signs sensibly warning visitors to keep well away from these magnificent but unpredictable predators. 

A Grizzly Bear can reach a weight of over six hundred kilograms and stand up to two and a half metres tall when it pulls itself up on its hind legs and it is best not to startle them because this is when they get really pissed off and dangerous.  The Park advice on what to do is clear enough but I can only imagine that it is really useful if you have got Indiana Jones like nerves of steel.  So this is how it goes:

• If you stumble across a bear first you need to back away (This will probably be a bit undignified because by now, due to involuntary bowel movements, you are sure to have shit your pants!) 
• and talk to the bear in a calm voice. (Unfortunately there is no additional advice on the sort of things bears like to have a conversation about.  Might I suggest therefore as openers, the price of honey or the story of Goldilocks!)
• Keep backing away and whatever you do do not run (this is sound advice because a full grown bear can reach speeds of thirty five miles an hour and he is sure to outrun you)
• and try in any way to make yourself seem less threatening (being in a state of extreme terror with a backbone turned to jelly this shouldn’t be too difficult).
• In the unfortunate event that the bear does charge, and you are not equipped with a sidearm, (Equipped with a fire arm? For goodness sake I’m on a Travelspere coach holiday!) promptly drop to the ground stomach-first and cover your head and ears with your arms.  In this situation fighting back will almost certainly intensify and prolong the attack.  (This is obvious really because humans are seriously ill equipped to fight grizzly bears and it would be foolish to attempt it. Seriously I expect that this playing dead routine might be a bit difficult to carry through with any degree of absolute confidence and, let’s face it, realistically you are probably going to end up as the three bear’s supper!)

Fortunately bear attacks are rare and although a man was killed by a female protecting her cubs in July 2011 this was the first fatality since 1986.

More on the Yellowstone visit…

and the full journey at National Parks of the United States

A Life in a Year – 26th July, My First BLURB Book

I visited the National Parks of the United States of America (not all of them of course) on a coach trip holiday with my parents and brother Richard in 1995.  Mum and Dad liked to travel and generously invited us to accompany them on a Travelsphere coach trip holiday to the mid-west mountain states of the USA on a journey that would start more or less at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and finish at the Grand Canyon in Colorado. That is the sort of invitation that his hard to turn down so we explained things to our families, packed our cowboy gear and our denims, changed some sterling for dollars and set off in search of the old Wild West.

In 2010 I discovered BLURB and published this account of the journey!

A Life in a Year – 26th February, Grand Teton National Park and inappropriate place names

Grand Teton National Park is a United States National Park located in northwestern Wyoming, south of Yellowstone National Park.  The park is named after the Grand Teton, which, at nearly four thousand two hundred metres high, is the tallest mountain in the Teton Range.  The origin of the name Teton is alleged to be the name given by French trappers in the area.  Another possible source is that the mountains derive their name from the names of one of tribes in the Sioux Nation but I prefer the first explanation as will become clear later.

Grand Teton National Park was established on February 26^th 1929 and covers one thousand, two hundred and fifty square kilometres land and water and I visited the park in 1995.

On a second and final day in Yellowstone National Park the weather was cold and there was snow in the air and the coach driver who was keeping an eye on the forecast was obviously eager to move on because heavy falls were predicted and when this happens it can close all of the roads until the following spring.  This usually occurs about the beginning of November and as we were only a week away and wanted to be home for Christmas, it was probably very sensible to move on.  (The following day he confirmed to us that the snow had fallen and some of the roads were indeed closed).

We left the park at the south entrance that took us into the Grand Teton National Park down US highway 26.  This was a journey of about eighty five kilometres to the town of Jackson and on the way we passed the majestic snow capped Grand Teton mountains and Jackson Lake to the west of the highway.

Many inappropriate former place and topographical names in the U.S.A. have been changed by the Board of Geographic names which was established in 1890 with a mandate to make place names consistent and respectable.  They clearly overlooked the translation of the French named Grand Tetons and obviously decided that Big Tits Mountains was OK!