It's popcicle carcass season in Yellowstone, with frozen bones and chunks of flesh littering the wilds of the park, usually accompanied by blurred patches of scarlet snow and matted and muddled prints from any number of predators and scavengers. On our way into the park yesterday we stopped by an elk carcass that was playing home to a restless grizzly who was not in on the rumor that it was cold outside and time to hibernate. We saw the body in the distance, saw the silhouette of the dozens of bear watchers with their expensive spotting scopes and puffy vests; we saw Bob Landis, the National Geographic filmmaker who spends about everyday scouring the park for something exciting to film, in his ruddy outdoor get-up, carrying a lens probably bigger than I am over a sloped shoulder. No bear. We must have just missed him, catching instead the hoards of onlookers and revelers excited to watch a griz roll in dead animal.
Because we missed that guy, and heard a rumor about a cougar kill around Junction Butte, and headed out that way to celebrate Christmas in style. Nothing says The Holidays like bones and bare sinew. We hit up the kill and see evidence of an early-bird coyote who managed to be creative with his dietary needs, but no lions since the snowfall last night. The smell of decay was subdued by the frost and snow and cold, and so we take our time with the bones, poking and prodding and taking pictures and satisfying our morbid curiosities, perhaps hoping that we might catch a glimpse of an envious mountain lion hiding in a tree.
The creepy thing about mountain lions is... if you see one, she's probably been watching you for an hour, and for some reason, some secret desire, she chose not to run away. Food for thought.
We finished off the romp by following the Bannock Trail/Old Road around the back of the butte, following ruts that were, surprisingly to me, visible even under a foot of snow. The trail was used by the Bannock as a seasonal migration route through the park, though they never lived permanently in the area, and you can tell it apart from the old road (or the road that the military took while pursuing the Nez Perce in 1877) by the number of ruts: two parallel ruts indicate the use of wagons, while three parallel ruts indicate the use of travois, pulled by either dogs or, sometimes, horses. There is no evidence to suggest that the Bannock or the Nez Perce used wagons, though much of both trails have been obliterated by the human practice of building roads in the easiest place possible: where there already are roads.
Back at the campus, we settle in for a night of holiday bustle, a comfortable warmth and banter while those of us staying at the Buffalo Ranch, many of us strangers until yesterday, prepare all the trimmings needed for Christmas Dinner. It's warm in the cramped space, and smells like campfire from the manager's cabin across the way, a smell that seeps in through the cracks under the doors and through the window panes and spices the stuffing and potatoes and wine. There's sparkling cider and choirs singing Christmas music from an iBook in the corner and the clanking of pots and pans and people knocking into one another and laughing joyously, leaving annoyance for another day, and a motherly figure, one of the YA volunteers, who busies herself with the stuffing and turkey and by making sure we all have enough to eat. It's a squished hodge-podge of vistors from all over the country who don't know each other very well and who generally don't have permanent homes, and stories of all of our adventures and the curiosities only brought on by that spark of not knowing who you are sharing a meal with are shared around the table.
As the sun goes down over Junction Butte
Where the buffalo roam, though it was pretty cloudy all day
The mountain lion kill, a woeful elk cow
Close-up! And a chance to play with the depth of field...
Road junk left along the Bannock Trail/Old Road
Jonmikel and his new hat, putting on his showshoes
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