Guide to Yellowstone and Grand Teton

Yellowstone is only mentioned in passing, but the New York Time’s Magazine has just run a very interesting, mid-length article by Darcy Frey on black bears in Whistler. As more and more communities occupy (and cross) the border between development and wilderness, bear encounters have been rising exponentially. Nowhere is this more true than in the 9000 person resort town of Whistler, British Columbia, where bear break-ins, dumpster dives and general interaction is literally a daily occurrence. What is not are bear attacks, with the black bears happy to forage for food and scamper off when need be.

With the Winter Olympics set to arrive in 2010, this bear issue has the potential to snowball into an even larger story. Click here to the read the entire story.

The following excerpt is my favorite, with the author tagging along with a local bear researcher (and her dog) on a hunt to tranquilize a young bear named Oscar:

“While Myroniuk weighed his options, Oscar vanished over the ridge. Myroniuk jumped back in the truck, screeching out of the driveway in an attempt to cut the bear off at the next road. With Sisko barking and straining at the leash, Homstol gave chase on foot. She ran up the ridge, sprinting one minute past condos and tennis courts, leaping over (and sometimes under) decks and patios; the next she was scrambling through a thick exurban jungle of brush and climbing nearly vertically, hand over hand, up steep vegetated hillsides by gripping the leash and any low-hanging boughs. Sisko had the bear’s trail, though, straight through the neighborhood and right up to the front door of. . . . What was this? Le Gros French bistro?

Five in the afternoon, just before the dinner hour, Homstol stood, heaving for breath and holding the leash of her howling pooch. Through the open doorway came views of crisp white tablecloths and the aroma of duck à l’orange. A man in a chef’s apron appeared.

“Bonjour, my friends. How may I help you?”

“Trying to catch a bear,” Homstol said, still panting.

“Ah, ze leetle one?”

“You’ve seen him?”

“Ah, oui, he come in ze restaurant.”

“Inside? When?”

“Well, the other day I am finish my accounting and I am sitting down for a smoke when he come join me. He is very nice, he is a lovely leetle bear!”

Sisko must have picked up Oscar’s scent again, for the dog started whining and pulling at Homstol. “Sorry, gotta run!” she cried and followed after her dog, once again running an obstacle course of condo decks and tennis courts, boulders and tree stumps, all the while muttering that Oscar might be a lovely little bear today, but in two years, when he’s 300 pounds and charging the kitchen for foie gras, they’ll be demanding to have him shot.  “

Yellowstone: drought and high temperatures continue

As described in a post here last week, rangers in Yellowstone earlier this month began asking anglers to stop fishing on most lower altitude rivers during the middle of  day to give already stressed fish a break. Continued high temperatures combined with exceedingly low stream flows have changed the situation from an advisory to a mandatory restriction. For the time being, the following streams within the park are closed to fishing between 2:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m.:

Northern Yellowstone: Gardner River below Osprey Falls, Lava Creek below Undine Falls, Lamar River below Cache Creek, all of Slough Creek, Soda Butte Creek below Amphitheater Creek, and the Yellowstone River below Seven Mile Hole.

West side of the park: Madison River, Firehole River below Keppler Cascades, and the Gibbon River below Gibbon Falls.

Southern Yellowstone: Bechler River below Ouzel Creek, Falls River below Rainbow Falls, Mountain Ash Creek below Union Falls, Proposition Creek, Boundary Creek below Dunanda Falls, Robinson Creek, and the Snake River below Six Mile Ford.