Leach is a Yellowstone insider with unmatched passion for this nation’s first national park. At the age of twenty-two, Leach’s dream of becoming a Yellowstone ranger came true. It wasn’t long before he’d earned the nickname “Rev” for his powerful Yellowstone “sermons.”
In Grizzlies on My Mind, Leach shares his love for Yellowstone—its landscapes and wildlife, especially its iconic bison and grizzlies—as he tells tales that will delight anyone interested in the national park system, wildlife and wild landscapes, rivers and adventure. Heartwarming and heartbreaking stories of human lives lost, efforts to save a black bear cub, a famous wolf who helped Leach through some dark personal days, the unique and oftentimes humorous Yellowstone “culture,” backpacking trips that nearly ended in disaster, and Leach’s spiritual journey with his Assiniboine-Gros Ventre “brother” fill the pages—and the reader’s heart.
If you’ve never been charged by an elk, traveled solo at dawn across Yellowstone’s frigid interior (working your way slowly through a herd of peaceful bison in the process), or lain awake in a backcountry tent, listening for the spine-tingling breaths of a curious grizzly—but you crave such experiences, Grizzlies on My Mind is the book for you.
Leach is a Yellowstone insider with unmatched passion for this nation’s first national park. At the age of twenty-two, Leach’s dream of becoming a Yellowstone ranger came true. It wasn’t long before he’d earned the nickname “Rev” for his powerful Yellowstone “sermons.”
In Grizzlies on My Mind, Leach shares his love for Yellowstone—its landscapes and wildlife, especially its iconic bison and grizzlies—as he tells tales that will delight anyone interested in the national park system, wildlife and wild landscapes, rivers and adventure. Heartwarming and heartbreaking stories of human lives lost, efforts to save a black bear cub, a famous wolf who helped Leach through some dark personal days, the unique and oftentimes humorous Yellowstone “culture,” backpacking trips that nearly ended in disaster, and Leach’s spiritual journey with his Assiniboine-Gros Ventre “brother” fill the pages—and the reader’s heart.
If you’ve never been charged by an elk, traveled solo at dawn across Yellowstone’s frigid interior (working your way slowly through a herd of peaceful bison in the process), or lain awake in a backcountry tent, listening for the spine-tingling breaths of a curious grizzly—but you crave such experiences, Grizzlies on My Mind is the book for you.
Grizzlies On My Mind: Essays of Adventure, Love, and Heartache from Yellowstone Country
282
Grizzlies On My Mind: Essays of Adventure, Love, and Heartache from Yellowstone Country
282Paperback
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Overview
Leach is a Yellowstone insider with unmatched passion for this nation’s first national park. At the age of twenty-two, Leach’s dream of becoming a Yellowstone ranger came true. It wasn’t long before he’d earned the nickname “Rev” for his powerful Yellowstone “sermons.”
In Grizzlies on My Mind, Leach shares his love for Yellowstone—its landscapes and wildlife, especially its iconic bison and grizzlies—as he tells tales that will delight anyone interested in the national park system, wildlife and wild landscapes, rivers and adventure. Heartwarming and heartbreaking stories of human lives lost, efforts to save a black bear cub, a famous wolf who helped Leach through some dark personal days, the unique and oftentimes humorous Yellowstone “culture,” backpacking trips that nearly ended in disaster, and Leach’s spiritual journey with his Assiniboine-Gros Ventre “brother” fill the pages—and the reader’s heart.
If you’ve never been charged by an elk, traveled solo at dawn across Yellowstone’s frigid interior (working your way slowly through a herd of peaceful bison in the process), or lain awake in a backcountry tent, listening for the spine-tingling breaths of a curious grizzly—but you crave such experiences, Grizzlies on My Mind is the book for you.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780882409955 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | TURNER PUB CO |
| Publication date: | 05/01/2014 |
| Pages: | 282 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
ONLY IN YELLOWSTONE
Only in Yellowstone could the first hour of one’s day begin with such natural drama. While countless adjectives describe Yellowstone, “unpredictable” surely ranks at the top of the list. The blizzard ravaging the northern reaches of Yellowstone Country couldn’t have come at a worse time. As is often the case this time of year, I had stayed up too late the night before and overslept my wake-up time and now found myself frantically getting Kamiah dressed, throwing together her lunch and snacks for the day. Before moving to Yellowstone, I had spent my entire life in the Columbia watershed. This is where growing up in the Pacific time-zone handicaps me. That one extra hour makes a big difference. The NBA playoffs, at their peak, are keeping me up to watch the best athletes in the world go to work against one another. Games that used to start at 7:30 pm Pacific Time, ending no later than 10:30 and getting me to bed well before my 11 pm danger zone, now start at 8:30. This puts me in the predicament of staying up for the conclusion of the game and slowing me down the next day, or doing the responsible thing by enjoying the first half and getting to bed at a decent time.
So you see, there are tradeoffs to living in Yellowstone Country. It is not all frolicking bison, wild trout, backcountry powder and scenic vistas. We are in the midst of what feels like our seventh month of winter, and our Rocky Mountain time-zone keeps us up later than we should during the NBA conference playoffs.
After scrambling to get a light breakfast in my little girl’s belly, I sat her in front of the television and told her I was going to start the truck and that I would be right back. But as is often the case with our adventurous nature baby, she wasn’t having any of the TV and instead followed me outside, into a raging snowstorm. With winds whipping both the falling flakes and the already settled snow into a fury, it was difficult to tell how hard it was actually snowing. As I struggled to open the tailgate of my truck, my arms filled with fly rods for the third in a series of four fly fishing tutorials I was going to be late for at the high school, I heard Kamiah’s cry from behind the locked gate. Wearing her Seattle Supersonic sweat-suit and little yellow ball-cap to commemorate the playoffs, she grimaced as snow pelted her in the face.
Several inches accumulation from my truck’s roof crashing onto the tailgate as it slammed down, I dropped the fly rods and scooped up Lil’ Stuff. With her giggle of pure delight to be out of the storm’s fury, I settled her in the toddler seat and cranked up the heat. Typical of Yellowstone Country, the first 20 minutes of our morning had already started in eventful fashion.
But things were about to get downright strange—another adjective that describes many aspects Yellowstone Country. First, there are the oddities that are the thermal features, which abound throughout Yellowstone National Park and are not found in such density anywhere else on our planet. Then there are many of the people who call the Yellowstone region home. Now I imagine every region has its fair share of strange folks, but there seems to be a disproportionate number of unusual people in this part of the world. Perhaps it is the landscape that rubs off on residents after having lived here for a certain amount of time, but I also suspect Yellowstone’s remoteness and otherworldliness attract more of this type than other places. And I’m convinced that enough winters in Yellowstone can turn otherwise normal people a little weird—this is another reason I coach basketball all winter. To maintain my sanity.
As I rushed out of the driveway and down the twisting road that leads to town, I felt my tires slide and brakes lock and with a shake of my head—it is May, for Godsake!—I put the truck into four-wheel drive. The drive from Gardiner up to my little girl’s daycare in Mammoth takes about 15 minutes. For seven years, when I worked for the Park Service, this constituted my work day commute. I have to believe it is one of the most spectacular 15-minute commutes in the world. Barring a complete whiteout, which was beginning to look like a possibility today, you can always count on stunning views of such natural treasures as the hurried Gardner River, stoic Rocky Mountain Junipers, steep rocky outcrops with crumbly sandstone Hoodoos, and the impressive Bunsen Peak. On any given day you may also see migrating bison, large bands of elk, resident bighorn sheep, nesting golden eagles, soaring osprey, meandering grizzly bears, or sauntering wolves. While it’s not likely you’ll see all of these animals on the same drive, the knowledge that the potential for such sightings exists tends to keep one eye focused on the narrow, curvy road, while the other searches for movement. But due to the weather, driving through the canyon this morning—where thick plugs of mud and massive boulders that descend during summer rainstorms often lead to road closures—I focused entirely on keeping all four tires on the road. On more than one occasion when I’ve been driving home late in the evening, after giving a program at the Mammoth Hotel or the Indian Springs Campground, I’ve seen headlights radiating up from the river bottom, after a hurried or impaired driver missed one of the sharp curves in the short canyon section of road.
As we climbed out of the Juniper-lined river gorge and made the short descent into the Chinese Gardens, I at first assumed the wolf-watchers (a culture that often provides some of the earlier-mentioned strangeness) had piled into the largest pullout in the stretch of meadow road paralleling the river, just before the steep climb to Mammoth. But as I got closer, I instead recognized a number of white Park Service vehicles. One of three things could explain this: they had nothing to do. There was something extraordinary happening. Or they were concerned about people and/or wildlife safety.
It frustrated me to no end that I was forced to pass by without discovering the explanation for this influx of vehicles and bystanders, but I had to get Kamiah to daycare and myself to the school. I slowed and scanned the western bank of the Gardner River, looking for the carcass we had seen two days before, which wolves and a grizzly bear had reportedly scavenged. On that morning 48 hours earlier, I personally observed 24 ravens jubilantly tearing their beaks into the flesh of a winter-weakened and now dead elk (on average, 29 ravens feed on every wolf-killed elk carcass in the park).
At first glance, it appeared a black wolf was cleaning up what remained of the carcass, but a quick glimpse through field glasses yielded a lone raven—perhaps the largest raven in the world—triumphantly claiming his morning prize. My curiosity quickly turned to anger as we approached the big turnout and parking area for the Boiling River, at the south end of the meadows, and saw three ghost-like figures atop massive horses riding our way. Why were three cowboys—one as strong and thick as a bull bison with a handle bar mustache and weather -worn 10-gallon cowboy hat—riding down the southbound lane on this wintry day in May?
My thoughts jumped to the disgraceful reminder of Montana’s antiquated bison management policy that had taken place the previous day, when Department of Livestock agents killed two bull bison on the north end of Yankee Jim Canyon. Having seen Park Service officials haze bison lazily bedded down on the 40-yard line of the Gardiner High football field two days earlier, I quickly assumed that the men on horseback were there to push bison deeper into the park.
I have developed a pretty good system for my drive to daycare with my beautiful little girl. We spend the first half jamming out to K’naan or any other music with a strong beat that Kamiah can bob her head to; and then we talk for the latter part of the drive—about how much her Mommy and Daddy love her and the events that will transpire throughout her day. But on this morning, the sight of those three macho cowboys embedded upon it, all that occupied my mind were the bison that I have such deep reverence for. I always refer to them as “the elephant of North America.” They may just be the greatest treasure Yellowstone National Park can boast of. And yet somehow we continue to let ignorance and bigotry rule our management decisions regarding these magnificent animals.
Just as I could easily fill the next ten pages with my disillusionment with the Interagency Bison Management Plan, I could have consumed the next several hours thinking of nothing else. But I was about to send Kamiah off to the unpredictable world of daycare, where 16 two-legged toddlers create havoc each day for the angels that are their caregivers, and I always try to leave her in good spirits and especially feeling loved, so I managed to push my fear for the bison back. At least temporarily. Moments later, however, after my daughter bestowed a goodbye hug and kiss upon me, I climbed back in the truck, my anger brewing again.
How can anyone buy the press reports that the two bison slaughtered yesterday were killed because of the brucellosis threat they pose to cattle in the area, when three days earlier I witnessed several hundred head of elk—who, like bison, carry brucellosis—in the same pastures?
People seem to take offense when I compare wildlife genocides such as the wanton slaughter of bison in the 1800s with those of humans. I assume this stems from fear and anger that someone would have the audacity to value non-human life on a level comparable to that of soul-enriched people. But to me it is clear that the same misguided hate that led to the tragic historical accounts which have plagued human civilization since the beginning (slavery, genocide, dirty blankets, etc.) now drives the massacre of the last wild, free ranging bison herd in the lower 48.
By the time I approached the Chinese Gardens, the snow was again lightly falling. I rounded the bend leading to the meadows, where all of the excitement had been unfolding a few minutes earlier, and to my astonishment, the horse carrying the old school cowboy was standing in 6 inches of river water while the other two horsemen sat atop their steeds, eight feet off the river bank.
What the hell? My seven years of learning how to think like a Park Service employee finally kicked in and I realized that there must be a carcass in the river. That would explain all of the NPS vehicles hogging the pullout and the lack of wolf watchers. Park Service employees had flooded the pullout with NPS vehicles to keep the wolf watchers and other members of the public out while they hauled the carcass away from the road.
I slowed to a crawl as I passed by the scene—waving and saying hello to a few of the rangers I knew—and marveled at the brute strength of the horses and the skill of the riders as they dragged a water-logged elk carcass out of the river. I could only imagine the hell that the riders would catch from the wolf watchers. Not that an army of spotting scope-armed wolf enthusiasts would stand a chance in a battle of blows with these three.
Many photographers and wildlife enthusiasts get riled up when the NPS goes against natural regulation policy and doesn’t allow a dead ungulate to rest where it took its last breath. And while I (along, I believe, with anyone with an opinion and a heart) often take issue with Park Service policy, I have to say they have this one right. By leaving the carcass where it was—yes, across the river, but only 20 feet from the road—they endanger scavengers and visitors alike. While I’m not particularly fond of the common practice of moving dead animals to one of the carcass dumps, I believe moving the carcass a safe distance from the road, where it still provides fodder for visitors and safe scavenging for the wildlife, is a sound policy. So my anger over the bison hazing had, at least this time, proved unwarranted.
I will never know what happened to the elk who, in death, no doubt attracted more attention than in life. But this is the story of Yellowstone. Unpredictable, strange, exciting. Yellowstone’s splendor and magic rest not only in its abundance and overwhelming beauty, but in its strangeness and sadness as well—including its deaths.
HELLO AGAIN OLD FAITHFUL
This day is long anticipated by those of us who cherish the opportunity to journey into the depths of Yellowstone National Park before the craziness of summer begins. For the first time since the first Sunday in November—always an important date, for it marks both the closure of the park’s interior roads and the end of the park’s fishing season—the road from Mammoth to Old Faithful is again open. Though the park attempts to open the road from Mammoth to Madison Junction and on to Old Faithful by the third Friday in April, the spring snowstorm that descended upon the northern reaches of Yellowstone on the 15th of April threatened this year to delay the much heralded opening of an old, rusted gate.
Though it is subtle, it truly is an event. Hundreds of times each winter the creaky steel pole that spans the width of the road just south of the Upper Terrace Drive is swung wide by park employees as they move personal items to and from their winter living quarters. The Park Service—which in typical bureaucratic fashion has some special terminology for everything, just to make it seem more important than it actually is—calls this mode of vehicle movement “admin travel.” If one were not familiar with the ways of the Park Service, they might assume every employee with admin travel credentials carries some level of importance, but it is simply the title given to employee travel when the park’s roads are closed to the public. Still, I have on many occasions experienced the joy, feeling of importance, and pure exhilaration of “admin travel” through one of these road closures that abound throughout the extensive network of roads coursing through the world’s first national park.
There is something empowering in knowing that you have a magic key that unlocks the opportunity to experience the wonders of America’s sacred wilderness. Anytime you utilize the barricade key you are supposed to have a work-related reason to do so; but since I turned in my badges and keys yesterday—officially parting ways with the Park Service after eight years of service and surrendering my ranger status to put all of my eggs in the basket of a new non-profit, Yellowstone Country Guardians—I feel free to admit my love affair with parking my government car in front of a barricade, slowly swaggering to the gate, gently turning the key, and swinging open a door leading to my own personal wilderness Shangri-La.
Even though there was seldom a reason, when presentations weren’t imminent, and bear jams not beckoning, the opportunity to swing open the barricade gate—field glasses resting on the dash—in pursuit of a bear sighting that only I would observe was a joy I will always treasure. Never before did I realize that something as small and seemingly insignificant as a gold key could be the source of such unfettered happiness.
This afternoon, the sun shines bright on the summit of Electric Peak, while slender cumulus clouds stand still beside both its south and north ridges. The blizzard that raged through the Gardiner Basin just 48 hours ago, leaving in its wake a bulk of snow nearly two-feet deep on the hood of my truck, seems a fleeting memory. And with the ceremonial swinging of a gate, thus opening the road to Old Faithful, there are new journeys to be had. First I will venture back to my old haunts atop the flats of Swan Lake in search of a female grizzly with cubs—a bear I spent many years observing and admiring. Then, when the feeling is right, I will load my little girl—who first strolled through the Upper Geyser Basin (Old Faithful’s home) at six months of age—into the truck and we will make her second pilgrimage to its barren and haunting landscape.
Perhaps this is the greatest pleasure of residing in one place for any length of time. Whether it be the April journey to observe the drama of Old Faithful, the budding cottonwoods while walking along my favorite stretch of the Bitterroot River, or the first sight of yellowing western larch in the mountains outside of my hometown in North Idaho, there is comfort in knowing that seasons will return, and with them, so will the traditions that give each of us our own sense of hope, and ensure that our lives will remain anything but routine.
THE HILLS ARE ALIVE
A day that sees 72 degrees with a hint of breeze and deep blue skies may just as easily be followed by a day with highs topping out at 45, dark ominous clouds, and raging winds battering the side of the house. Welcome to Yellowstone Country. The weather may be hard to predict from one day to the next, but one thing is for certain: it is the middle of May and the hills are alive.
Though it takes somewhat of a discerning eye—as the massive outcrop that is Electric Peak to the west and the gaping mouth of the Black Canyon of the Yellowstone to the east tend to dominate the landscape—the arrival of succulent green grasses covering the hills around Gardiner is always cause for celebration. In the small, rural gateway community of Gardiner, Montana, we jump at any opportunity to celebrate. Take the high school basketball team, which I have had the privilege of coaching for the last four years. Though it has been a while since we’ve accomplished this difficult and daunting task, when a team makes it to state, the townspeople turn out en masse, with fire-trucks roaring and law enforcement sirens blaring, to escort 16 pimple-faced high school athletes through the short stretch of highway 89 that constitutes Gardiner’s main drag.
Unlike more metropolitan towns and cities across the Rockies, we don’t have a big 4th of July parade, and we are without galas for political elections as we are unincorporated and have no mayor or other elected officials. And because many of us find too much to complain about as residents of this region (the dearth of dining options, the lack of early summer tourists to fuel our economy, the abundance of late summer tourists driving us crazy, etc.) to live with continual happiness in our hearts, it is essential to find every possible opportunity to commemorate what makes living on the brink of Yellowstone National Park worth the seven months of winter.
Unnoticed by those foreign to the Gardiner Basin, and simply ignored by folks too crabby to acknowledge the transcendent beauty that the grasses garnishing the glacial hummocks west of town at the foothills of Sepulcher Mountain represent, a festival of enormous proportions is, indeed, brewing. While it may be as short-lived as two weeks during hot and dry periods—with the potential for as much as six weeks of vibrancy during cool and wet times—regardless of duration, the abundance of birds and insects that descend upon the usually barren hills add winged life to the now rich grassland on the edge of town, and in the process, create a carnival for those eager to explore.
Yellowstone’s enigmatic nature is a major part of its charm. While there are numerous well-known treasures throughout the park that bring people from all over the globe to snap a photo, countless unrecognized and seldom-explored gems remain undiscovered. Located in the middle of a banana belt of sorts, the abundance of scrub brush and prickly pear cactus that proliferate in the Gardiner area tell the story of a dry high-desert basin. Because it is devoid of 300 foot waterfalls, massive herds of bison, predictable geysers and enormous mountain lakes, many visitors simply pass hurriedly through the northern boundary of Yellowstone National Park on their way to greener and more spectacular pastures.
Coinciding with the greening of the hills in the Gardiner Basin, the violent and turbulent waters of the Yellowstone, surging with snowmelt, become a playground for those seeking a taste of whitewater rafting adventure.
Like many other locals, I have been guilty of recognizing the return of life to the hills around us, noting it and perhaps even celebrating this symbolic change in my own way, but never fully experiencing it. Acknowledging is one thing. Participating is another entirely. Watching the apple at Times Square drop from the comfort of your living room on television, far removed from the physical event, may give you a glimpse into a crazed and drunken party, but this certainly does not make you a participant in the gathering. You are merely a spectator.
It wasn’t until my neighbor and friend, Doons, invited me for a walk through what he called “The Magical Sepulcher Foothills Loop” that I fully participated in The Hills Are Alive Festival. He had for many springs heard me talk about my affection for the return of life to the hills around us and always told me that I needed to experience what he called “a walk in the hills,” in order to truly understand the “magic” I’d admired from afar.
While I am well known for my love of superlatives, “magic” seemed to me like a pretty bold way to describe the seemingly simple landscape on the edge of town. But then again, these are the rolling hills that I have admired each summer evening, when around 7 p.m., the light hits the folds and crevasses in such a way that the phrase “three-dimension” takes on new meaning and a somewhat drab landscape, without much detail during the day, comes to life.
So after several years of turning Doons down and venturing to other, more exotic locations throughout the ecosystem, I opted to take him up on his offer for a short four-mile, off-trail hike that only he could lead. With 28 years of experience exploring the northern reaches of Yellowstone—and when I say exploring, I don’t mean in the way I venture around the ecosystem, because this man is a modern day wanderer, in search of lost treasure and simple pleasure—Doons understands this land more intimately than any man or woman I know.
Now in his 50s, Doons has an energy and passion for sauntering off-trail in Yellowstone the like of which I have only experienced from inspired fly-fishermen dedicated to exploring new waters. One of the many things I admire about Doons and his love for Yellowstone is how authentic, pure and almost childlike his romance for wandering remains. Therefore I was not surprised to hear the excitement in his voice on a windy—too windy to fish—afternoon in early June, when I gave him a call and, somewhat guiltily, suggested: “Why don’t we go explore those magical foothills you have been dying to share with me?”
Minutes later I scooped him up at his house—the way most our adventures begin—and he climbed into the truck with the same trekking poles, worn out boots and battered hiking pack that have accompanied him on untold outings over the years. Though I will be a bit vague in describing where we ventured to protect the “magical” nature of Doons’ private wonderland, I will say that we drove less than 15 minutes before arriving at an undisclosed pullout. There we shouldered our day packs, looked around to make sure no one was watching and quickly scurried up a dirt slope and out of sight.
Seeing that Doons can find beauty in the most innocuous of settings, I have to admit that I was a bit leery for the first quarter mile of our walk through the green grasses, though they were considerably enhanced by a profusion of wildflowers. I was also surprised by the steepness of the terrain that I had looked out over for several years now, without ever setting foot upon. As with any walk in Yellowstone Country across a bed of moist grass and open terrain, within the first 15 minutes of our sojourn we encountered a diversity of raptors, including two Red tailed hawks and a Northern harrier, so even if Doons’ treasures yielded little in the way of enchantment, the reward of soaring raptors on the wing had already made the outing worthwhile for me.
One of the things that struck me most while walking through this previously uncharted territory was the sparseness of the grass that looks so thick from below. But the busy bodies of grasshoppers, bees, ants, butterflies, and countless other creatures of the insect world more than made up for any disappointment I may have felt from the lack of stems. While I knew it wouldn’t last for long, the cornucopia of bugs made it feel like we had entered a Burning Man Festival for insects.
Entranced by the life literally surrounding me, I hadn’t even noticed that Doons had stopped, a look of mischief on his face. We had entered a small basin hidden and protected by steep, round mounds of dirt on each side. A small spring coursed through its center. The little oasis clearly—I gleaned from his expression—housed something of significance. After leading me a few feet toward the edge of the bottomland, Doons instructed me to look around, then added, “on the ground.” I hadn’t been looking for more than two minutes when my patience began to run thin, but just as I was about to ask him what the hell he had me searching for, my eyes landed upon a skillfully crafted arrowhead.
Doons has always had an affinity for the Native peoples of the West. His desire to learn more about the Indians that traversed his beloved Yellowstone knows no bounds. While I have logged hundreds of miles in the backcountry of Yellowstone, my footsteps have typically been driven by remote trout streams, ridge walks and mountain top vistas. It is not that I don’t have a deep reverence for the people who called this place home for thousands of years and hundreds of generations—I don’t believe we can have any true sense of place without a respect for and understanding of the people who came first to a place—but the discovery of artifacts has never driven my exploration of Yellowstone. I simply don’t have the patience to walk slowly enough, with my head down and eyes scanning the dirt, to discover signs of human civilization—clearly a gift that Doons has aplenty. That said, dropping to my knee and gently picking up this beautiful piece of work, sculpted from a chunk of Obsidian most likely harvested 20 miles south from the point I now stood, stirred both my heart and imagination. Looking at the deeply rich black rock, turned into a treasured tool capable of cutting through the sinew of any number of ungulates browsing the area, I was awed by the craftsmanship and intricacy that made this weapon so proficient in the hands of a skilled and determined hunter. A chip in the upper right section of the arrowhead may have spoken to why this valued possession had been left where it now sat. We were off to a good start as far as I was concerned, and the next stop on the Magic Sepulcher Foothills Loop waited just over the rise. At the headwaters of the spring that gently meandered through the basin where Doons unveiled the arrowhead, we came upon an anomaly befitting of Yellowstone. Though I am by no means an expert in the power of description, I have always taken great pleasure in attempting to transport people—whether through the written or spoken word—to a place they can viscerally relate to. But stop Number Two on the loop seemed almost impossible to capture with words.
In a wash more reminiscent of the desert southwest, the water coursed through a shallow but steep trench made of hard-packed clay before dropping off in a series of miniature plunges. Near the top of the wash was a small pond of sorts, acting as a catch basin for the water that traveled through the ravine and fed life to the small basins below. Off to the side of the pond, approximately 20 feet, was what appeared to be a large mud puddle, 20 feet in diameter. It looked eerily similar to the mudpots found throughout Yellowstone’s interior, on the high plateau. And while this pot of mud did not boil with the release of gases, nor possess the acidic nature of car battery acid, its quicksand-like viscosity made it a lethal trap for any living thing curious enough to test the muddy mess.
I grabbed one of Doons’ trekking poles and attempted to poke and prod my way to the bottom with no resistance met, even after 6 feet of pole had disappeared. With the encouragement of Doons, who has obviously done this too many times to count, we began to round up the largest boulders we could find that we’d still be able to hoist above our heads, as if we were participants in a Strongest Man competition. What it is about a thick tub of mud that makes otherwise responsible grown men transform into pre-pubescent boys? But this was not a time to analyze our action, it was a time to have some dirty fun!
We both began launching granite balls high into the air, watching with wide eyes and smiles stretched ear-to-ear as slate gray mud shot through the air. The result resembled a mud pot on steroids. Again and again, sometimes in unison, we bent at the knees, lowered our arms—straightened by the heft of the rock in hand—to our shins and like an Olympic shot-putter, hurled our stones as high into the heavens as we could. And each time as we ran for cover, we would laugh and giggle with delight, as if it were the first, and not the twelfth, such explosion we had created.
While we could have done this for hours, I knew my little girl would be waking up from her afternoon nap soon and I hoped to spend the evening with her, so it was time to move on to the next stop on this loop, which was growing more magical with each step. Before we left I couldn’t help but indulge my impulse to roll up my sleeve and dip my arm as far as I could into the abyss of our mud-riddled playground. I quickly recognized why people pay $100+ to have someone plaster mud all over their body, because the deeper I reached, the more soothing and intense the cold, thick mud became; but ultimately, the thought of what could be living down there prompted me to pull my arm out of the eerie “black hole.” Within minutes, its dirt began to dry and crack, creating a full arm cast that, to be honest, at first caused me a little anxiety because of the fact that it hindered all mobility. As we ventured through the upper reaches of the foothills and neared the Douglas fir tree-line, I stared frequently at the hardened glob entombing my limb. As if transforming from man to beast, my arm began to appear more and more prehistoric and dinosaur-like in texture and color. I was beginning to shiver. The wind had picked up and the mud sucked moisture from my arm, which had begun feeling as though it were submerged in a bucket of ice water.
The marginal grassland gave way to a plush carpet of succulence, filled with grasses, sedges and wildflowers in the ¼ mile leading to the dark and secret forest now only 100 yards away. Just as we topped out on a rise overlooking the entire Gardiner Basin, movement caught my eye in a stand of Aspen trees to the southwest. Though we had caught the scent of elk ten minutes earlier, we hadn’t seen a single wapiti; but that changed when we stumbled upon a herd of 70+ cow elk zigging and zagging their way through the trees in a semi-frantic effort to escape our approach.
Thrilled by the abundance of wildlife just two miles as the crow flies from my house, and chilled by the now hardened cast, I realized that Doons had stopped again and though I didn’t see anything out of the norm, I surmised that we must be at the third stop on his magic loop. Still focused excitedly on the legion of elk—some of which peered through trees to see what we were up to—I had completely missed the treasure he had led me to.
At the base of a pair of thick-trunked Douglas fir trees lay a tightly woven pile of slender sticks in the triangular shape of a tepee. I wasn’t entirely certain if what I was looking at was the man-made structure invented by the Native people across the region for its ease of set up, so I asked Doons, ”What is it?”
The reverence in his voice audible, he responded. “It’s a wickiup.”
While he could not guarantee that some summer park employee, infatuated by his latest reading of one of Tom Browne’s survival books, wasn’t the creator of this traditional structure, the location—overlooking an elk-grazing paradise and off the beaten path—led Doons to believe that this was, indeed, an original. Regardless of its authenticity, the crude and dilapidated shelter gave us reason to pause, and as we stood there quietly, I could not help but envision a husband, wife and their new born child waiting out a storm on a fierce spring day 200 years ago en route to their traditional bison hunting grounds.
As we proceeded, insect life was on vibrant display in all directions, affording us a multitude of up-close and personal sightings of Mountain bluebirds, chipping sparrows, American robins and countless other songbirds. Just as we were preparing to leave the dark recesses of the Douglas fir canopy, we watched a male Western meadowlark land upon a gnarly piece of sagebrush and, to our delight, let out the harmonious song of the bird that, for me, most beautifully represents the spirit of spring in Yellowstone Country.
Walking along the treeline, heading north, we began our slow descent back to the road below. Before pointing our toes in the direction of town, Doons mentioned one last stop. Skirting a steep and rocky incline, we followed the jutting thumb of a ridge to its precipice. Though not so steep that we couldn’t have continued, it was far from the easiest way down on our now tired and sore ankles, which are always the first to fatigue on any off-trail outing. For the first time, our route didn’t make much sense to me, as we were venturing further north from our destination and into steeper and more rugged terrain.
Instead of dropping down onto the loose scree layering the sharp decline, we continued to follow the contour line, which led us to the precipice, until we reached another terminal ending point. Doons was clearly searching for yet another treasure. After a few short minutes of kicking around with his feet, his shoulders loosened with relief as his eyes fell upon an irregular-shaped rock. He unearthed the object, which had been half swallowed by earth, and held it adoringly in his hands, and with great pride radiating from his entire being, he flipped it over and handed me what appeared to be a massive chunk of petrified wood.
Though I would never have known without the knowledge and paleontologist’s eye of Doons, a portion of a dinosaur fossil now rested in my hands. By its size, Doons theorizes it was a piece of a femur, which reminded me of the perfectly dimensioned boulder we’d used for creating an explosive mess in the mud hole just a few hours earlier. And while I don’t remember as a boy having any kind of infatuation with pre-historic critters—the presence of grizzly bears, bison and wolves has always been enough for me—this, the most ancient of items that I have ever touched, certainly carried more weight in symbolism than in its hefty mass. After a brief examination, with genuine awe in our hearts, we placed the fossil back in the same spot where we had found it, just as we left the arrowhead in the same dirt it had rested upon for hundreds of years. Perhaps 100 years from now, two wide-eyed explorers will discover the same treasures that today allowed our imaginations to run wild.
As mysterious and magical as this four-hour walk in the hills just outside of Gardiner had been, I was yearning to see my 1 ½ year old baby girl, so we decided to take a shorter, more direct line back to the road, where we could walk with relative comfort to the car. As is often the case, the more direct route, with loose footing and steep slope, led to many slips, falls and a few tweaks of the ankle. But neither of us cared about aching joints. We walked in relative silence, both of us still absorbing the wondrous and enigmatic nature of the green hills that sit at our doorstep.
Indeed the return of spring has added life to the hills around Gardiner, but my journey with a friend amongst these rolling hummocks taught me that, while not always green, the enchanted Sepulcher foothills are always alive.
Table of Contents
Medicine WarriorGrizzlies On My Mind
The Journeyman, 253
Winter Adventures
Life Returns to Yellowstone
Mammoth Madness
Ranger Field Journal
Wild Entrapment
Christmas in Yellowstone
Ode to #6
The Story of the Kestrel
Bitterroot Paint
Only In Yellowstone
Hello Again Old Faithful
The Hills Are Alive
American White Pelican
Summer Love Letter
Fall Is In The Air
Yellowstone’s Gym Culture
Winter’s Loosening Grip
The Fading Light Of Summer
Closing Out The Season
Bison and Bigotry
Teasing Seasons
Chaos, Wind and Harlequins
Respect For Señor Blanco
Song of the Yellow Bellied
Bliss Pass
Hoodoo Equinox Storm
What People are Saying About This
Presentation Testimonials:
"Your presentation on the wildness and spirit of Yellowstone and how it inspires local communities was a gift to all who attended. Your unparalleled energy, spirit and love for Yellowstone was inspiring and transformative. It was a great honor and pleasure to have you participate in our conference." —BORN Inc. Northern Rockies Bioneers
"You touched everyone in that group with your Yellowstone presentation that evening. I found you to be one of the most amazing and truly inspiring speakers that I have ever heard, and you certainly made a difference in my life, even in my mid fifties! Mike, thanks so much for what you do. You really do make a difference in so many people's lives, and I thank you for everything you continue to do."
—Dave Hornoff, PhD, Executive Director, National Wolfwatcher Coaltion
"I guarantee he will not disappoint! He is by far the best public speaker I have ever witnessed, and I know your audience will be inspired and will learn a great deal."
—Steve Hoffman, Executive Director, Montana Audubon
"Your presentation last night at the Metcalf Refuge was an unexpected delight...much more than the 'nice Yellowstone slideshow' I was prepared for. You provided an educational experience cocooned in the essence of what life is truly all about... appreciation, love of place and family, commitment to something greater than self and science thrown in for good measure. I am still thinking about it this morning. It's a special gift to be able to pack all of that science and soul into 45 minutes and hold an audience in the palm of your hand the entire time."
—Barbara Ellis, Hamilton, MT
"My fellow Audubon folks and I are so impressed with your message and delivery. You totally have us jazzed up to take action! For now, I just want you to hear that you intensely, positively affected another roomful of people."
—Lisa Carnicom, Billings, Montana
"I wish to enthusiastically recommend Michael Leach as an articulate, knowledgeable, engaging and inspirational public speaker. He can captivate ANY audience, skillfully developing a rapport with people of diverse backgrounds like no one I have ever witnessed. During the past two years I have had the pleasure of personally observing many of Mike's presentations to a wide variety of audiences, from high schoolers to senior citizens, and without question Mike is the most effective public speaker I have experienced in my 35-year career. Mike is truly an engaging storyteller, and he always has his scientific facts right. He shares his extensive knowledge of ecology and natural history of the region's wildlife and the key conservation issues of the day so effortlessly the listener does not realize just how much he/she is learning!"
—Steve Hoffman, Executive Director Montana Audubon
"As an Outdoor Education Professional, I have seen many presentations about all kinds of topics come through our doors. Along with those presentations, I've see many diverse audiences come through our facilities and take away some very rewarding experiences and there were some luke warm receptions as well.
After having been contacted on the phone by Michael Leach, Director and Founder of Yellowstone Country Guardians, I knew that I was talking to a very knowledgeable and motivated gentleman who had an important message to deliver about one of my favorite National Parks. He would be traveling to the Pacific Northwest from Livingston, Montana soon and I was excited to meet him. At that time, I had no idea how much of an impact this exceptionally gifted, passionate man and the sheer power of his mission would impact my life.
The magnitude of enthusiasm radiating from Michael as he manifested the grandeur of Yellowstone National Park before us was literally palpable from where I sat in the audience. His knowledge about the Park, the wilderness of Yellowstone and the wildlife in that region crackled with energy. The power of his adoration and respect for the wild had every one of us riveted to his words."
—Billy Rosewarne, Outdoor Events and Education Seattle, Washington
"Michael conducted multiple slideshow presentations for various groups of all ages that highlighted the beauty and importance of Yellowstone National Park and the greater Yellowstone area. Even with his focus on the Yellowstone ecosystem his presentations and passion extend far beyond that area and touch the core of what it means to be an inspired, connected, steward of the Earth. His moving and personal presentations only helped further inspire me to get out in nature and work to protect this amazing planet for the future of all life."
—Scott Black, Manager of Specialty Tours and Sleepovers, California Academy Of Sciences
"I've been hosting the RM Land Series for the past 13 years. It's hard to think of a more inspiring presentation then what Michael shared. With the challenges facing wilderness today, we all need the passionate energy of people like Michael Leach. His exuberant love of nature inspires people to discover what it is that they can do to save our threatened wild places."
—Jeff Lee, Rocky Mountain Land Series, Tattered Cover, Denver, Colorado