The Bison are Bellowing
You peer out the van window as crisp cloudbursts with low-hanging mist cool off the hot, mid-summer air. It smells refreshing and revitalizing. Magenta fireweed, ivory cow parsnip, and yellow arrowleaf balsamroot dash past your vision, coloring the surrounding evergreen forest. Suddenly, the viewscape opens widely. There—in the open expanse of Yellowstone National Park’s Lamar Valley—a lone, large-humped bison deliberately crosses the landscape in an uninterrupted descent upon a massive herd
On Top of the World: Adventure to Eagle Peak
Nestled among the tall peaks of the Absarokas on the remote southeastern boundary of Yellowstone, Eagle Peak is far from the park’s busy roadways and bustling tourist attractions, just barely visible – if you know exactly where to look – from a scant few locations in the park’s popular front-country. Out of sight and out of mind to most visitors, Eagle’s mystique for backcountry enthusiasts is only enhanced by the notorious “Keyhole,” a narrow passage through a crumbling cliff band high on the mountain that truly is the key to reaching the highest point in Yellowstone.
Into the Great Wilderness: Canoeing Yellowstone Lake
We arrived in camp early, set up the tent among regenerating lodgepole pines, and set out for a stroll along the obsidian beach. We first encountered elk tracks, and then deer tracks, and then wolf tracks. We guessed by the sizes of the elk tracks and the scratching in the sand that perhaps a bull was herding his harem along the shore this morning. Now, as we sit and watch the sun set over the glassy water, we listen to the music of autumn – the bugling of bull elk.