All the Roads Lead to Yellowstone?

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Adventure Tuesday

Yellowstone National Park - Winter Edition

The Park

We have traveled to Yellowstone many many times the past few years. Mostly in the wintertime, but lately a bit more in the summertime. Well, lately as in last summer of 2017, when we went there twice. Yellowstone is divided up into East, West, North and South Yellowstone. It's impossible to do it all in one day. It takes quite some time to drive from one end of the park to the other, especially if you include bisonjams and tourists. I have driven through all the entrances in the park over the years. From the northwest entrance in Gardiner, to the northeast entrance in Cook City it is about 56 miles. From the entrance in Gardiner to the west Yellowstone entrance its about 54 miles, and to get to Old Faithful from Gardiner it is also about 56 miles. From the northwest entrance in Gardiner to the south entrance (the one that takes you into Grand Teton National Park) its about 94 miles. On the website of Yellowstone National Park you find all sorts of maps, gps coordinates and brochures about how to plan your trip. There is even an app nowadays.

Christmas Celebrations

W is from Bozeman, and he has been in Yellowstone many many times. He has done research there, and his dad does research there. So, both of them knows the ins and out of all of Yellowstone. Ever since the first Christmas I spent with W in Bozeman, we have visited Yellowstone every time we go there. In the wintertime we always enter through the North Entrance, the one in Gardiner. Not all the roads are open in the wintertime, but it is possible to get to most places if you go by snowmobile or snowcoach. Of course there are restrictions on where you can drive your snowmobile or not. You can also go on snowmobile or snowcoach guided tours in the park, but we have never done that. We usually ski, or drive around looking for wildlife. You can drive from the northwest entrance to Mammoth hot springs, but not farther south unless you go by snowcoach or snowmobile. Different years have different closing and opening days of roads, so the best thing to do is to check the website for up to date information.

Have you ever been to Yellowstone in the wintertime?

Fieldwork in Yellowstone part 2

Looking south towards the Madison River

This forest was burned in 1988, and then again in 2016. This is the aftermath. All those small black specks in the ground are tree stumps, they are the remnants of that deep forest that used to be there. Fires are occuring more frequently in these ecosystems, and it's still not 100% clear what will happen with these deep forests in the future if this continues. 

Adventure Tuesday

My life choices and interests

    Often times I stop to think about my life choices, where I started, what paths I took and how I ended up over here, here in the US. There is no doubt that I am living a life that I love, I get to do all those things that are of big interest to me. Sure, I get the boring parts too, but even the boring parts can be enjoyable, which in some sense proves that I actually do love what I am doing. This summer I got to do fieldwork in two different areas, not my own fieldwork for once. I went to Puerto Rico with my job, and helped out with some fieldwork there. A few weeks later I flew into Jackson Wyoming, W picked me up and we drove into the Grand Teton National Park. The following week we spent most of our time in both the Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Park. The fieldwork itself was in Yellowstone during this trip.

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A tale of several fires

    Both W and I study fires for our PhDs, I study how wildfires affect the stream water chemistry and the connection between the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems up in Alaska. Our work is based on climate change and its effect on wildfires, we are trying to understand how a shift in climate might affect the future ecosystems in Alaska, and in the rocky mountains. W studies how changing wildfire regimes and climate affects tree seedling establishment after fires in sub alpine and boreal forest. Alaska with its boreal forests and the Rockies with coniferous and sub alpine flora are two very different ecosystems, but with many similarities. One really important similarity is that changing fire regimes likely mean profoundly different ecosystems in the future. 

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Getting dirty

    We share the passion, the passion for our nature. I usually get tangled up in the small details while W tries to understand the bigger picture. We spent most of the fieldwork on all fours, counting seedlings, stumps, trees, charred vegetation, cones, ghost logs and logs. Temperatures were in the 90s and we were basically in a black forest. Mosquitos were not necessarily a big issue, but they were there. By the end of each day we were all black, tired and hungry. We camped at a campground outside the park and swam in the river most evenings. I had the time of my life.

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    Did you go on any adventures this summer?

Jinxing it?

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Wednesday Thoughts

Bears

    As you probably have read earlier I am obsessed with bear and moose safety. With all the wild animals that walk around the watershed I've taken many classes on bear safety and how to act in order to prevent a bear encounter. A few weeks ago there were two bear attacks on two separate days at two different locations in Alaska, both with a deadly outcome. Both including a black bear. It made me think about the fact that I have no clue what to do if worse comes to worse and you are attacked (read the bear is actually eating on you and it is a predatory bear). We do have the bear spray, but if for some reason I would not be able to deploy the bear spray and the bear actually got to me? Or you ran in to one of those predatory bears that is in it for a meal, what do you do? I know they say fight for your life, but how can you fight for your life if you have nothing to fight with but your bare hands, arms and legs? I have heard other stories about people being attacked in their tent, well I know this is extremely rare, but I started storing a knife in the tent for a while, and then I forgot about it. A knife that would allow you to cut the tent open if you needed to. I used to wear a knife in the field to, but then I forgot about that too, it was usually in my backpack if I did bring it. 

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Signs of bears in the field

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Fieldwork

    W has been in the field too, countless times, many times alone. I think W has seen a bear from afar in the past while doing fieldwork, and I saw the back of a black bear once running away from me when I was on the ATV in the field once. Another time something was luring behind a tree as a friend and I came walking quietly after a long day in the field, we spooked it, it was huffing behind a large tree before it took a large leap to the side and ran up the hill. Still no clue if this was a bear or a moose. Lesson learned, be loud, and then be even louder. It's easy to forget about this after a long day working hard in the field, or when you are working with your head down in the stream it's easy to not make enough noise, plus you will most likely draw a curious bears attention to you, because many of them are just curious. With W's field season coming up and what had happened in Alaska I wanted him to buy a knife, a knife to have as a last resort, if for some reason there was no other way but to fight for your life. We talked about bear safety too, repeating what we already knew, again. I know W thought I was being ridiculous, but with what had just happened I felt first off very saddened for the two peoples families, but also very scared and wanted to be sure there was a way to fight for your life. I've had people laugh and make fun of me for my intense worry about bears in the field in the past too, but at least I want to be up to date with the bear safety for my own safety.

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Fieldwork in Alaska

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Jinxing it?

    W bought a knife, a large hunting knife, I mean not too large, but enough to be able to potentially make an impact. At least something to have in the tent if you would need to get out fast, or to have on your belt in the field. After a few hours of the first day in the field for W he texted me and said he had to pull his bear spray. Which is insane because that has never happened before, he has never had an encounter like that before. This time he wasn't even alone. But the bear was a curious black bear, those are the worst. A young curious black bear who would not move away even though they made sound and made themselves larger. Eventually he moved away enough for them to feel safe and retract too. Did I jinx his field season? A couple of days later they were going to cross a stream to another field site and W decided that they should walk downstream a bit, and then try to cross. Well luckily they did because they manage to spot two grizzlies across the stream about 50m away from them, something they would have popped up right in front of had they crossed earlier. Yeah I really jinxed it didn't I?

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Last time I camped in Yellowstone National Park

    Fingers crossed that those were the only bears for this field season, as I am sitting on a plane on Friday to Jackson WY to spend 10 days in the field in Yellowstone, and some of those camping!