To Yellowstone!

After 5 days of traveling, Nadia and I arrived in Yellowstone on April 7th. The mountains surrounding us at Mammoth Hot Springs are capped with snow, though there is very little snow on the ground here at 6,239 feet (relatively low in comparison to the rest of the park). Of course, the main though coursing through my head when we arrived was hiking (duh, that's what the blog's about...) so out we went!

Our first hike was literally right out our back door, on the trail to Beaver Ponds. Neither of us have spent much time up here at Mammoth in the past, so neither of us had hiked this trail before. It's a relatively easy, 5-mile loop that extends behind the Mammoth Terraces. Within the first mile, we saw a harem of elk grazing in the meadows, with more than 60 elk. This isn't an uncommon sight at Mammoth, where the elk often graze in the lawns between buildings.

Mammoth was originally built as a military training ground. The buildings stand staunchly on the ground, reminiscent of squatting bunkers, and spread out similarly to a town. The grass here is one of the few larger impacts people have had on the ecosystem here at Yellowstone. When the military resided in Mammoth, they needed comfortable grass to practice their formations. So the government planted Kentucky Bluegrass all over Mammoth, which grows tenaciously over the entire location. It turns out that elk are far less attracted to the sprigs of weeds and elkthistle than they are to the lush Bluegrass that flourishes here in the mild weather at Mammoth. This has caused a pseudo-habituation of the elk, since they are willing to put up with the tourists to eat their version of a 5-star meal.

You see, Nadi and I have a running joke that during the season Mammoth is the Disneyland of Yellowstone. This is where the vast majority of tourists (referred to hereafter as 'tourons' - I hope you can figure that one out on your own) enter the park, gawking at the herds of bison, and taking pictures of their children standing next to elk. Curiously enough, these are the same overprotective parents that won't let their children climb a tree or take a trip through the backcountry, yet they're willing to snap some photos of the kids three feet away from a 2,000 pound bison. To be fair, it's not their fault. They came here to see Old Faithful, which erupts in such a perfect schedule that the tour companies can shuttle in the tourons by the masses with just enough time to let them cycle around the gift shop before shipping them back out before the next eruption.

However, us Yellowstoners (dare I say it aloud!), share a passion for the park in a way that no tourist will ever understand. We'd just as soon let them have Old Faithful - just as long as they leave the rest of the park to us - the backcountry fanatics. We love fording rivers, telling stories of backcountry encounters with bears, clinging to the side of a mountain, and starting campfires in the pouring rain. We rarely show up to Old Filthy, because to us, the boardwalks just won't cut it. This isn't just a vacation to us, it's a lifestyle. This is Henry David Thorough's America - unscathed by the American industrial machine. You won't see a single smokestack here in Yellowstone, nor a single oil pump ("Drill, baby, drill" will never be uttered here - thankfully that loon is back in Alaska, busy dealing with Putin and the rearing-head commies!) and we're planning on keeping it that way.