In the planning phases of our trip, each new
booking of accommodations had me scrambling to a map, to see just where we’d be
staying, and what other local treasures could be discovered. When Sue announced
we’d be staying for several nights in West Yellowstone, MT, I noted that it lay
SO CLOSE to Montana's state line with Idaho, which I’d never before visited, and also
that there was a nearby lake called Henrys Lake. Immediately, I thought that
this would be the perfect place to enjoy a little slower pace and focus on my
beloved pet.
When I started discussing upcoming travel plans
on Facebook, my friend Clint Johnson noticed that we’d be in West Yellowstone for a few days
and immediately wrote to me, recommending – highly, enthusiastically recommending – the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery
Center (GWDC).
So this morning, our first destination was the GWDC.
We arrived at opening-time, and spent the first hour or so browsing the indoor exhibits.
I learned A LOT!
Then we went outdoors, immediately spying a
very large, fenced and moated, enclosure with three grizzlies wandering around.
Turns out they were hunting for tidbits of food that had been “hidden”
for them by the "Keeper Kids" - kids visiting the center that day. (The hiding part was probably going on
while Sue and I were studying exhibits.) It’s a great idea; I suspect that “boredom”
can be a problem for animals living in captivity.
This is Coram.
And I should probably say here that yes, these
animals do live in captivity, but no, this is not a zoo. All of the residents
are animals who are for one reason or another incapable of surviving in the
wild. Take these two brothers, Grant and Roosevelt, for example. When they were
cubs, their mother had to be euthanized because she’d been positively
identified as responsible for two fatal maulings of humans. It would be cruel
to leave her orphaned cubs unable to fend for themselves in the wild, right? So
Grant and Roosevelt were adopted by the GWDC, and they are best buddies who hang
together and play and wrestle to the delight of visitors.
Coram is in the background; in the foreground are brothers, Grant and Roosevelt.
There are two wolf enclosures across the way
from the large grizzly enclosure, but so close to the heat of the day the
wolves were not very active.
Other animals have been rescued and are on
exhibit in a carefully-created “natural” habitat as well.
A Uinta Ground Squirrel
Keke, the Rough-Legged Hawk
So, having enjoyed the exhibits and the
bear-watching for a good while, we decided to head on to Idaho, and return to
the GWDC later in the day.
First stop: Henrys Lake. Which, as it turns out,
is not really accessible to visitors like us, as private summer homes and
fishing cottages ring the lake. Oh, there was a fish camp, but who wants to go
wading near a boat ramp?
So we headed to Henry’s Lake State Park, where
we walked a little trail, Sue did some birding, and I snapped a photo of Henry with
Henrys Lake in the background.
We then set out down the longest main street (33
miles) in the world, through Island Park, Idaho, for Caribou-Targhee National
Forest and Henrys Caldera. Attracted by a sign pointing toward “Upper Falls”
and “Lower Falls,” we chose to visit the upper falls, and discovered Mesa
Falls, on the Henrys Fork. Bonus!
Passing on the lower falls, we headed back
toward Island Park, and Sue recognized the name of the road that would lead to Henrys
Caldera.
At this point, some background will be
necessary. Sue had been talking to a man who’d done a lot of back country
hiking in the area, and though he’d been familiar with Henrys Lake he wasn't really familiar with the Caldera. His best guess was that Eccles Road, which he had not yet
taken himself but some of his friends had, was the one leading to the caldera.
Sue then looked up facts about Henrys Caldera, and learned that the Henrys Fork
Caldera is about 18 miles long, with a plainly visible rim.
So driving along Eccles Road, we both envisioned
coming to a place where we would see the rim of this caldera, either rising up
in front of us, or that we would be able to look down into this caldera. We
enthusiastically dodged potholes, puddles and downed tree limbs on the carelessly-maintained
road. We never saw another soul as we bumped along.
At one point, we came to a large puddle that
completely crossed our “road.” Perhaps at this point, a person with loads of
common sense would have turned around and headed back out, but we’d put in
considerable time navigating that miserable and neglected road and didn’t want that time to have been spent in
vain. So I got out, instantly getting swarmed with mosquitoes and flies, and found
a long branch which I actually used to “stick” the puddle, to determine its
depth and also how soft the ground may be underneath. Because I at least have
enough sense to know that this would be a horrible, horrible place to
get stuck – we had no cell service, and the hike to find someone who could call
a AAA wrecker for us would have been brutal.
Finding a drivable path around the puddle, we
valiantly soldiered on. And on. And on. I kept quizzing Sue about this 18 mile
visible rim – surely we’d have seen some evidence of it by this time?
We finally came to this pretty clearing,
and although it didn’t have a rim as such, and
certainly not an 18-mile rim, I declared that I’d seen Henrys Caldera and that
it was time to turn around. Sue spied a “T” intersection ahead, and suggested
that we head toward it. But that would require sticking another puddle just ahead, and I
wasn’t for it … unless I were 100% certain that the road would take us where we
wanted to be. So she volunteered to walk the 100 yards or so to the intersection,
to check it out. “Eccles Road” was the only clue she saw. Eccles Road leading to the left, Eccles Road leading to the right ... and of course we were already on Eccles Road. Our atlas didn’t even have Eccles on it, so we decided to turn back. Dejectedly, yes, but what a
fantastic adventure!
Before getting back into the car, Sue walked away, for privacy to
find a place to relieve herself. Almost instantaneously, she was sprinting back
to the car, having seen a sign with a stern warning about grizzly activity in
the area. Yikes! I’m told that grizzlies, despite their massive size, can
outrun humans anyways, and I’m positive they can outrun a human with her pants
around her ankles, so I’m saying this was a good call on her part.
The journey back was not nearly as arduous and
uncertain as the journey out, because all I had to do was follow my tire tracks.
In relatively no time, we were back at the highway and heading back to the GWDC.
Back at the GWDC, we found a different grizzly
roaming the large enclosure (I might note that they’re extremely careful as to
which bears are let out together, so as to avoid potential aggressive
encounters.)
This is Nakina, another bear who came to GWDC as an orphan.
We also found the wolves much more active.
These views, by the way, are taken inside of an enclosure with large glass
windows on opposite sides, to afford safe “up close” viewing of the two packs
on exhibit.
Returning to the campground after a day which
had been intended to be slow-paced and turned out to be anything but – but which
was so rewarding in so many other ways – I have logged on to the internet to do my
own research on Henrys Caldera, to try to figure how close we were, and where/
how we might have gone wrong.
I have learned that the Henrys Caldera is
inside the larger Island Park Caldera. That the two calderas share a rim on the
western side. That it is the only caldera in the Yellowstone region that is
plainly visible. That it is 18 miles long and 23 miles wide.
And that its rim is plainly visible from many
locations in the Island Park area … visible from the highway. We had
already seen it. Before we took that wild ride INto the caldera.
You just have to laugh.
Fun day! Tomorrow we see GEYSERS!
Click here.
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